Upcoming changes in JustRead

[petrjahoda]

Hello to all, as JustRead grew a lot over those last few months, next releases will be focused on fixing bugs, simplifying UI and UX and code reduction.

If you find something/anything in the app, that is confusing, hidden, clunky or simply strange, please let me know, ideally with a screenshot.

Thank you and have a nice day

PJ

[culytera]

For simplifying UX:

Maybe adding access to App Settings in the Library tab by adding it in the 3-dot options menu as "App Settings"? I didn't really see the point in having to switch to Home tab to change the app's settings and on a spot (bottom right where the plus button was in the Library tab) I personally don't look at first for settings-related stuff.

While viewing a book, how about combining Fonts, Theme (in a nameless window), and Settings into one? Maybe as something the user can swipe or switch at the top of the window like when changing Virtual Libraries in Calibre Sync.

Also, I finally have some examples for the "modified without actual changes" issue I was having with Calibre Sync. I checked its file modified date in justread's library folder and it didn't change there. I checked the modified column in Calibre and it's the same too. I haven't been able to trigger it consistently though.

[petrjahoda]

Thank you very much.
EDIT: Will look into those Calibre related things.
EDIT2: Looked into this Calibre and...
1. you are right, nothing changed in your books, because...
2. ... Calibre stores the time a book was last changed down to fractions of a second. While Calibre is running it reports those fractions, but after a restart it drops them.
3. Because JustRead compared the two times exactly, so every book you synced before your last Calibre restart looked changed, even though both times show the same minute. This ix fixed
4. The size row is similar: the file in your Calibre library differs by a few bytes from when you synced and I found out that Calibre's "Embed metadata" action does this without changing the book's modified date, so maybe you push this button on Calibre on few files?

[petrjahoda]

Originally Posted by culytera

Maybe adding access to App Settings in the Library tab by adding it in the 3-dot options menu as "App Settings"? I didn't really see the point in having to switch to Home tab to change the app's settings and on a spot (bottom right where the plus button was in the Library tab) I personally don't look at first for settings-related stuff.

Done for 5.1 (as 5.0 is in review for at least 3 days now... strangely sometimes Apple review build in few hours, sometimes days)

[culytera]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

4. The size row is similar: the file in your Calibre library differs by a few bytes from when you synced and I found out that Calibre's "Embed metadata" action does this without changing the book's modified date, so maybe you push this button on Calibre on few files?

Not sure what I did in Calibre for there to be small changes in the file. I usually only have it open to use FanFicFare and not much else.

About Reading History, once a book has an existing finished reading date, if I mark the book as unfinished then finish it again, no new date gets added. However if the book has an existing reading history and I change the value in the Finished Date column in Calibre then sync it to justread, the app will add that date in the reading history. So apart from manually adding the new finished date via the Reading History screen, the only other way to add another date to reading history is to sync it from Calibre.

Is it also possible to get a Calibre mapping of the date that's used by the Recently Read sort and In Progress section in Home tab? Like a "date last read".

[petrjahoda]

Thank you, that explains it. FanFicFare rewrites the book file when it updates a story, so JustRead sees a change.

And you are right about Reading History. Finishing a book again in the app doesn't add a new date. It only marks the book as finished. For now, add a re-read from the Reading History screen, or change the date in Calibre as you did. I'll look at changing this, so that marking a book as finished again adds today's date to Reading History.

A "Date Last Read" mapping is a good idea. I'll add it to the list, thank you.
EDIT: I added it for upcoming 5.1

[mikepmiller]

I just received the v5.0 update, and I was playing around with the Hardcover sync. (Thanks so much for adding that! I was really looking forward to it, and I'll get a lot of use out of it.)

From a usability perspective, it might be a little easier if we could "auto-accept" matches in the case that there's only one potential match. My understanding is that matches are currently only automatically accepted if there's an ISBN. Many of my books have no ISBN but still only have one match on Hardcover. It would definitely make sense to me if you wanted to give the user a toggle so that they had to explicitly opt-in. It's certainly fuzzier than an ISBN.

Thanks again!

[petrjahoda]

Originally Posted by mikepmiller

From a usability perspective, it might be a little easier if we could "auto-accept" matches in the case that there's only one potential match.

Oh my, that is a great idea, shame on me, this is so obvious :-)
Going into 5.1.

[mikepmiller]

Awesome, thanks so much! (And no shame at all! ;-))

[HendelTBD]

Just wanted to say thank you for scratching my little capitalization itch with today's update. 😏

[Zebedi]

Thanks for all the great improvements, especially the folder and collection related. With the collections listed on the left side, how do I go back to showing the whole library?

Tapping on the same collection brings up a blank screen, tapping library brings the same collection back.

The only way I have found is to go back to the list on top right drop down and un check from there which seems to defeat the reason for the left list.

Also the tags are only show 20 odd tags out of several hundred. They stay the same and don’t change even with different collections selected. Also could they be listed with numbers at the top and then alphabetically please.

[petrjahoda]

Originally Posted by Zebedi

Tapping on the same collection brings up a blank screen, tapping library brings the same collection back.

The only way I have found is to go back to the list on top right drop down and un check from there which seems to defeat the reason for the left list.

Also the tags are only show 20 odd tags out of several hundred. They stay the same and don’t change even with different collections selected. Also could they be listed with numbers at the top and then alphabetically please.

1. Collections: stupid mistake, because I worked both on this and macos version; sorry for this, it will work like a 'filter': tapping and un-tapping the collection will narrow the library

2. It now show intentionally top 20 tags, I will update it to show tags+number of books this tag is present in selected library/collection , again top 20 with 'more' to show them all, will this be ok?

[petrjahoda]

Collections fixed, tags improved.

[Zebedi]

That’s great and thanks for the fast update

[petrjahoda]

Of course in next update, forgot to add this to message... in 5.1