MoonReader replacement

[rollei]

Have used MoonReader Pro for many years but MoonReader does not have these two functions:


1. Ability to go to a certain page within a chapter
2. Ability to pin books


The reason for wanting to go to a certain page is to skip pages when reading a non-fiction book. Some pages are irrelevant and can be skipped. This is reading from a phone and a chapter can be 300 to 500 pages long. It is troublesome/painful to scroll page by page in a 300 page long chapter and thus the need to skip 20 or 30 pages in the chapter.

Some will say use the "favorites" or "collections" function. They appear to be old style of doing things. The modern way of doing this is to pin the book to the top, just like how you would pin a tweet in twitter, pin a message in email, pin a message in text messaging and so forth. The pin become a necessity in a folder that has 50 or 100 books. A book is pinned when it is being read/used, once finished, it will be unpinned.

Is there a epub reader for Android that has a "Goto Page" and "Pin Book" function?

[PeterT]

Try librera. A lot of customizations as to what you see. I just added some books as favourites and then made sure to display the Favourites tab. I also rearranged the tabs to place Favourites next to Library.

[rollei]

I've tried Librera at one point and don't think I want to spend money on a reader that does not fully replace MoonReader (paying for premium features/ad-free) So far I think there is no Android e-reader that is capable of pinning books to the top of the library folder.

I found two e-reader that can "Goto Page". One of which is Classic eReader, I can't remember the other one. It has a rather clumsy implementation of the "Goto Page" function as it needs to scan/read the entire book first before the first page is shown (there was a progress bar in opening the book, it took 5 to 10 seconds to open the book).

I've tried/seen the following e-readers. Not interested in bookstore readers like Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.

- Classic eReader: Has "Goto Page", insufficient bookshelf management (such as cannot add just a single book from a folder of multiple books, can/cannot remove book from bookshelf without physically deleting book, etc)

- Lithium

- ReadEra

- PocketBook

- FBReader

- Cool Reader

- Librera

[rollei]

MoonReader latest update has the "pin" function. This will be very useful and glad they did update the reader to include the popular "pin" function.

[anoukaimee]

Saw this post, maybe someone can give some feedback.

I was a long-time Moon+Reader Pro user (w/ Calibre Companion), pretty happy with most of the features. Sometimes it would create extraneous duplicate files or put things where they weren't supposed to be, but generally good, with good features. I generally have anywhere from 25-60 gb of material from my library on my phone.

I'm on a Pixel 2xl with Android 11, and it has become totally unuseable. It freezes constantly, especially when scanning for new books; the developer said first "try using the file explorer," which was what I was already doing since it was the only way to ever get books recognized and not freeze up my phone--no go. He then advocated not using Calibre Companion, at which point I knew he was out of his depth and it was time to find a new app.

I looked at the free version of ReadEra, and while it has a great, logical UI (way better than Moon+Reader), it is ridiculously simplistic compared to M+R, and just doesn't have some of the features I need (bookmarking, highlighting!). And no trial on the pro; it's $10 to try and I'm not risking a no-refund Google Play situation with that, esp since I'm not able to find what the pro features are.

So read a bit about Librera, and got to say I like it. What's more, what I think is a fully-functional and free Pro version is available on the F-Droid store... I've downloaded it and it might be the answer, still messing around with it.

So wondering: anyone else experiencing massive problems with the latest iterations of Moon+Reader? Or is it just that I have Android 11 and the developer hasn't gotten it up to snuff for what is, at this point, not a full release of the version (I think)?

Also, if anyone has any recs for setups that are more robust/compatible w/ Calibre and/or Calibre Companion and will work on either Android or an iPad, please do clue me in.

Thanks.

[PeterT]

I have to admit I also like Librera. What I really like is how well it links in with the calibre-web python application via opds.

[peaceridge]

I've been looking at Librera - can anyone tell me if it has collections other than Favorites? I need categories like Non Fiction, SciFi, etc. I can't even figure out how to get books into Favorites! I need a dummies guide to Librera.

[PeterT]

I can't find Collections but I think Tags might serve the same purpose.

First you need to create tags. In the "Library" view click on the three dots next to a book and select "Add Tags". Select "New tag" and enter your desired tag and click "Add". Define as many tags as you want (each time selecting "New tag".

When all your tags are added, that same screen should display one checkbox per tag. Check all the tags that apply for the given book, and finally click "Apply".

You should now be back in the Library view. Click the 3 lines icon at the top of the library view and select the "My Tags" option. Now the screen should display a list of all tags that have been assigned to books. Clicking on a tag should display all books with that tag.

To add a book to "Favorites", again in the "Library" view look for the little star next to a book. Click on the star and it should now change to a solid star. TaDa; it's now a favorite!

[PeterT]

Also see http://librera.mobi/wiki/faq/custom-tags/

[peaceridge]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I can't find Collections but I think Tags might serve the same purpose.

First you need to create tags. In the "Library" view click on the three dots next to a book and select "Add Tags". Select "New tag" and enter your desired tag and click "Add". Define as many tags as you want (each time selecting "New tag".

When all your tags are added, that same screen should display one checkbox per tag. Check all the tags that apply for the given book, and finally click "Apply".

You should now be back in the Library view. Click the 3 lines icon at the top of the library view and select the "My Tags" option. Now the screen should display a list of all tags that have been assigned to books. Clicking on a tag should display all books with that tag.

To add a book to "Favorites", again in the "Library" view look for the little star next to a book. Click on the star and it should now change to a solid star. TaDa; it's now a favorite!

Thanks so much! Looks very usable.

[peaceridge]

I asked this in another forum, but I think it was too old to get answers. How do I remove books from the librera library without deleting them from your tablet. When I use the "remove books" item, the "remove books" item goes away, but the book remains. I'm using an old version of Calibre Companion and want to leave the books in that database, but remove them from the librera one. Actually does Librera copy books to its own database when I read them? If so, where is it? Android 10.

Never mind - figured it out. My screen was too dim to see the "x" beside of the books.