Likebook Mars SD card locations?

[Quoth]

There is a terrible flaw due to the stupidity of Android:
So far most other Apps from my Google Account Android Playstore Library installed and work:
Kobo ereader, Kindle ereader, BorrowBox Library/ereader/audioplayer. Jota text editor works with the BT or soft keyboard. No Playstore apps can see the SD card, nor can KOReader. The presupplied Boyue ereader/PDF reader and Music do work.

Access to the SD card used as portable storage varies with version of Android and how an app is written. Later Android versions allow treating the SD card as internal storage* but this encrypts it and the Boyue may not have exFat Formatting. I don't recommend it on ANY Android device above 32 G SD Card and where you want direct use of the SD card outside of Android.
[* It seems like a DRM or security issue because in reality the SD card is mounted in a subdirectory of Internal Storage, but this is hidden from the user]

So, so far only the pre-installed apps work with the SD Card. KOReader can't even find the sample books on the internal storage. It could only open text files I'd created on Internal Storage with Jota. Which can't use the SD card, though it can on my phone.

Some Playstore apps are only going to see the SD card if configured via notification on insert as part of internal storage. This reformats it and makes it inaccessible to anything else if physically removed. I'd not trust Android 8.x or Linux Mint 18.x to actually format a 64 G, 128 G or 256 G card, which will all be using exFat. A 32 G card should be OK.

Naturally Google Playbooks option to used SD card is greyed out, because it's portable storage. Also the audiobooks, ebooks and comics of Playbooks are only accessible in Playbooks and Playbooks vanishes while Google Framework is disabled.

I'm slightly regretting buying the Likebook Mars, but the flaws are really all Google's fault of stupid tinkering with Android features on every release instead of actually finishing a complete version that worked sensibly ever.

The Search doesn't find books till the underlying process has finished cataloging them, or whatever.

I don't like the font rendering on the inbuilt ereader. The characters are a little loose at minimum spacing. On every new book opened you have to set Text Contrast to minimum (it artificially bolds the face), set font spacing to minimum, set paragraph spacing to minimum as it's ignoring paragraph top and bottom margins in the CSS.

So I was disappointed that KOReader can't find any ebooks or the SD card at all.

The built in PDF reader works well with autocrop on image PDFs, and that is the main reason to have an SD card.

I might try it with 32 G SD card formatted as so called internal storage and then only use MTP. I won't be adding many books at once. I'll not bother with using much for music or audio books.

[raygj]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There is a terrible flaw due to the stupidity of Android:
So far most other Apps from my Google Account Android Playstore Library installed and work:
Kobo ereader, Kindle ereader, BorrowBox Library/ereader/audioplayer. Jota text editor works with the BT or soft keyboard. No Playstore apps can see the SD card, nor can KOReader. The presupplied Boyue ereader/PDF reader and Music do work.

Access to the SD card used as portable storage varies with version of Android and how an app is written. Later Android versions allow treating the SD card as internal storage* but this encrypts it and the Boyue may not have exFat Formatting. I don't recommend it on ANY Android device above 32 G SD Card and where you want direct use of the SD card outside of Android.
[* It seems like a DRM or security issue because in reality the SD card is mounted in a subdirectory of Internal Storage, but this is hidden from the user]

So, so far only the pre-installed apps work with the SD Card. KOReader can't even find the sample books on the internal storage. It could only open text files I'd created on Internal Storage with Jota. Which can't use the SD card, though it can on my phone.

Some Playstore apps are only going to see the SD card if configured via notification on insert as part of internal storage. This reformats it and makes it inaccessible to anything else if physically removed. I'd not trust Android 8.x or Linux Mint 18.x to actually format a 64 G, 128 G or 256 G card, which will all be using exFat. A 32 G card should be OK.

Naturally Google Playbooks option to used SD card is greyed out, because it's portable storage. Also the audiobooks, ebooks and comics of Playbooks are only accessible in Playbooks and Playbooks vanishes while Google Framework is disabled.

I'm slightly regretting buying the Likebook Mars, but the flaws are really all Google's fault of stupid tinkering with Android features on every release instead of actually finishing a complete version that worked sensibly ever.

The Search doesn't find books till the underlying process has finished cataloging them, or whatever.

I don't like the font rendering on the inbuilt ereader. The characters are a little loose at minimum spacing. On every new book opened you have to set Text Contrast to minimum (it artificially bolds the face), set font spacing to minimum, set paragraph spacing to minimum as it's ignoring paragraph top and bottom margins in the CSS.

So I was disappointed that KOReader can't find any ebooks or the SD card at all.

The built in PDF reader works well with autocrop on image PDFs, and that is the main reason to have an SD card.

I might try it with 32 G SD card formatted as so called internal storage and then only use MTP. I won't be adding many books at once. I'll not bother with using much for music or audio books.

uninstall KOReader .
the version you have installed was for a older/previous version of Android.it will not work properly with Android ver.8.1.
have a look at <http://koreader.rocks/>
for download options and install the latest 2021 version of KOReader for Android.
when you install a Android program on likebook mars it asks you to give it the permission to access SD card.
Give it permission..

when you start KOReader and its file window is open then at just below the top of the screen tap on the "up arrow"
after it shows the previous/higher directory
then ,again, just below the top of the screen tap on the "up arrow" again.
the window will now show the previous/higher directory which contains 3 directories.
the first directory in the list is your external SD card's location(your specific SD cards ID number for your SD cards root directory .the second directory in the list is "emulated/" and the third directory is "self/").
tap on the first item(your specific SD cards ID number) in the list in order to open your SD cards directory.
tap/hold on "/books"(the "/books" directory (that you previously created on your SD Card, in which to store your Ebooks) then in popup window that appears select Default Home Directory to set default home directory.
Now when you start up KOReader it will startup in your SD cards "/books" directory.


I think that I have too too many ebooks(1920's expired copyright) installed on my SD card inside (/books) for KOReader to work.
it appears to be FROZEN when I set KOReader's HOME directory to "/storage/384961C43F99D91E/books(my specific SD cards ID number(/books)directory).

it does not show a window with the book scan progress so I don't know if it is still actually scanning for books or that the KOReader program has in fact actually FROZEN(failed/errored).

instead I used Google playstore to install "ALReader" ereader app..at least when I set ALReader Library location in ALReader settings to
"/storage/384961C43F99D91E/books"(my specific SD cards ID number(/books)directory)

it pops up a window showing number of books found from number of files and current scan time in number of seconds .
E.G( 9427 books from 9734 files
scan time - 2046s)
which is continually updated as it scans my SD library location(/books)
until it has finished scanning.

[raygj]

deleted by raygj

[raygj]

Originally Posted by raygj

I think that I have too too many ebooks(1920's expired copyright) installed on my SD card inside (/books) for KOReader to work.

For example some of my 1920/30's radioage pdf's file sizes range from around 120 MegaBytes to 398 megabytes in file size.

[raygj]

Originally Posted by raygj

For example some of my 1920/30's radioage pdf's file sizes range from around 120 MegaBytes to 398 megabytes in file size.

I was wrong.I just had to wait long enough for the KOReader to finish fully reading the new default home page directory(/books).
It works correctly.

[jnieland]

Can confirm that KOreader can read SD card.
It takes a while if you have a lot of books on that card.

To get latest version of KOreader you can also install Fdroid and install KOreader from there.

[raygj]

Originally Posted by raygj

I was wrong.I just had to wait long enough for the KOReader to finish fully reading the new default home page directory(/books).
It works correctly.

i went to <http://koreader.rocks/> and downloaded the latest KOReader for android(KOReader 2021.01 "Magnetic Flux")(koreader-android-arm-v2021.01.apk)
when i ran it took a very very long time to scan home directory on my SD card(/books)
the books list finally appeared but i could not select a book to read.
it does not work.
i uninstalled "koreader-android-arm-v2021.01.apk"
Then I went back to <http://koreader.rocks/> and on the download page I scrolled down below
"KOReader 2021.01 "Magnetic Flux""
to the previous version and clicked on (blue colour)
"KOReader 2020.12 "Focused Treatment""
and I clicked on the "Assets 16 " button.
then i selected "koreader-android-arm-v2020.12.apk"
then downloaded and installed it.
when I ran it took a long time to scan home directory on my SD card(/books)
the books list finally appeared .
when I tapped on a book item in the list it correctly opened for reading.
The only problem is that every time you cold run/start "FOReader" you have to wait a very long time for it to scan you set home directory.(if you have a large number of books in your home directory)
It fails(too slow) to be useful when using large directories of books because it appears not to have a previous created/scanned "books catalogue file" to Display/look/search on each startup(the complete opposite to programs such as . "ALReader" and "Likebook" default ereader programs which boot/start up fast to display the "books catalogue" file contents).
I think that i will continue to use the "Likebook" ereader and the "ALReader" ebook reader programs in the future.

[raygj]

a possible work-a-round if you have a large number of books could be to set KOReader home directory to an empty directory(containing no ebooks).
But instead this directory contains a number of sub-directories (of which each sub-directory do contain a number of your ebooks).
FOreader should then start up quickly.and display all your book sub-directories.
what do you think?

[raygj]

a possible work-a-round if you have a large number of books could be to set KOReader home directory to an empty directory(containing no ebooks).
But instead this directory contains a number of sub-directories (of which each sub-directory do contain a number of your ebooks).
FOReader should then start up quickly.and display all your book sub-directories.
what do you think?

I went back to <http://koreader.rocks/> and downloaded and installed the latest KOReader for android(KOReader 2021.01 "Magnetic Flux")(koreader-android-arm-v2021.01.apk)

I had trouble getting KOReader to start/function after I changed it to "/storage/384961C43F99D91E/books"(because i had way too many ebooks in this directory)

in the end I was forced to eject external SD card and then start KOReader and reset home directory to internal (/Books).
Inserting SD card into my computer
I created a new directory in the root directory of external SD card named "/Books1".
inside this directory (/Books1) I created 62 new directories named from "converted1" to "converted62".
I copied all my books from external SD card "/books" and divided them equally between the 62 directories.
I re-inserted the external SD card into Likebook.
I started KOReader and ( as in previous post)
I changed its home directory to "/storage/384961C43F99D91E/Books1"(my specific SD cards ID number(ebooks)directory)

Now KOReader fully functional again.
I just have to keep 2 copies(each with a different book storage layout/organization) of my library of books("/books" and "/Books1")
"/books" for use with "ALReader" and the "likebook" default ebook reader.
"/Books1" for use with "KOReader" ..
I also downloaded and installed "Bookerly" font.
I set font to "Bookerly"
It's a lot easier on my old eyes.