MapleRead - eBook Reader and Server for iOS

[wilhelmmedetz]

I am using Calibre 3.22.1 and MapleRead SE 2.0.

When I download books from Calibre via OPDS the Calibre tags and series information gets synced (I can see it under 'Get Info').

But when I open Tags in MapleRead all books are untagged.
The same when I want to sort the books by series, all books show up under [No Series].

Also the series information under 'Get Info' contains the Calibre series index - e.g. SeriesName[1].

As I am quite new to Calbre & MapleRead - what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any hints

Wilhelm

------------------------------------------

Edit: Meanwhile solved the problem. After switching the UI language of Calibre from German to English everything synced fine.

[Clark G. Flipper]

Hi everyone,
I have been using Marvin all the time and am now trying MapleRead. I can confirm that its rendering is superior to Marvin in quite a few cases.
However, I find the black side bars in modern scroll mode quite ugly; can I get rid of them somehow?
Greetings,
CGF.

[ilovejedd]

I updated MapleRead to version 2.0, am using Modern Book layout but it still uses slide animation. I don't see where the option is for instant. This is on iPad. Haven't tested on iPhone.

[slantybard]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I updated MapleRead to version 2.0, am using Modern Book layout but it still uses slide animation. I don't see where the option is for instant. This is on iPad. Haven't tested on iPhone.

The preference for slide/curl/instant is found in the dialog window with the "Sun" symbol.

[slantybard]

@sbaylor - I have some feature requests:

1. Sort by word length. This would be useful for listing files by word length since file size listing doesn't always reflect the length of the story as images and other data can distort the size and misrepresent sorting by size as a way to read the shortest stories first.

2. Searching includes results from hits found within the comments section of the files's metadata.

Thanks!

[brad382]

Mr. Baylor,

Great to hear that the 2-page viewing option for PDFs is on its way!

As I mentioned, my company has 30+ analysts in the central region ready to purchase MapleRead SE licenses as soon as the 2-page PDF option drops.

We all have the larger 12.9” iPads and do a ton of fast reading for work, so the ability to view two adjacent pages of a PDF while in Landscape mode is essential for us.

Thanks again for adding the “instant” page turns to MapleRead SE.

We look forward to implementing MapleRead SE companywide.

I think you have the potential to become the definitive epub/PDF reader for iOS.

[ShellShock]

The book I am currently reading has paragraphs defined like this:

<p class="firstpara">blah blah blah</p>
<p >blah blah blah</p>
<p >blah blah blah</p>

And the css:

.firstpara {
  text-indent: 0;
}
p {
  text-indent: 0;
  padding-bottom: 0;
}
p+p {
  text-indent: 1.3em;
}

The intention is for all but the first paragraph to be indented, but this does not happen in MapleRead. Other readers work OK. Is this a bug? I tried putting spaces around the + in the style e.g., "p + p" but this did not work either.

According to https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_selectors.asp, "p+p" should select all <p> elements that are placed immediately after <p> elements.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

The book I am currently reading has paragraphs defined like this:

<p class="firstpara">blah blah blah</p>
<p >blah blah blah</p>
<p >blah blah blah</p>

And the css:

.firstpara {
  text-indent: 0;
}
p {
  text-indent: 0;
  padding-bottom: 0;
}
p+p {
  text-indent: 1.3em;
}

The intention is for all but the first paragraph to be indented, but this does not happen in MapleRead. Other readers work OK. Is this a bug? I tried putting spaces around the + in the style e.g., "p + p" but this did not work either.

According to https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_selectors.asp, "p+p" should select all <p> elements that are placed immediately after <p> elements.

Couldn't you just do this:

.firstpara {
  text-indent: 0;
}
p {
  text-indent: 1.3em;
  padding-bottom: 0;
}

[robinson]

Confused by this comment...

“One of the most frustrating facets of iBooks for us is its insistence on segregating epubs and PDFs when organizing one’s library.”

I have a bunch of PDFs and ebooks—and can group them into whatever categories I choose. The ebooks and PDFs are displayed together!

Now, the frustrating thing to me is that iBooks leaves all the PDFs in the PDF list even AFTER you have put them in a category. That’s the issue. You have no way of telling which ones have been categorized. In contrast, under Books, after you put an ebook in a category, it no longer appears under Books. PDFs should work the same way!

But they definitely can be moved into a category with epubs and other ebooks! I do it all the time. You are not forced to keep them separate!!

[chicleeblair]

I just downloaded MapleReads on my iPad primarily for the server feature so that I can more easily transfer the newest version of a fanfic to whatever device I’m reading it on. I love that MapleRead will allow me to do this, but is there anyway that it could give you an option to overwrite the original ePub whenever you download a newer version? It will overwrite the metadata, but to get the actual update I have to download a duplicate file and then delete the original—which isn’t always as easy to track down in all my files.

[cedhax]

Originally Posted by chicleeblair

I just downloaded MapleReads on my iPad primarily for the server feature so that I can more easily transfer the newest version of a fanfic to whatever device I’m reading it on. I love that MapleRead will allow me to do this, but is there anyway that it could give you an option to overwrite the original ePub whenever you download a newer version? It will overwrite the metadata, but to get the actual update I have to download a duplicate file and then delete the original—which isn’t always as easy to track down in all my files.

Strictly speaking, you're not really downloading a duplicate; you're downloading a supposedly newer version of the book.

In the "Prefer" menu, under "If Library has the same title and author(s)", choose "Download Book" instead of "Skip Book", and then proceed with the actual download.

After the presumably newer version of the book is downloaded, go back to Library, and sort by "Date Added". The newer version should be on the top. Thus, it should be easy to tell apart the old from the new version.

[chicleeblair]

Originally Posted by cedhax

Strictly speaking, you're not really downloading a duplicate; you're downloading a supposedly newer version of the book.

In the "Prefer" menu, under "If Library has the same title and author(s)", choose "Download Book" instead of "Skip Book", and then proceed with the actual download.

After the presumably newer version of the book is downloaded, go back to Library, and sort by "Date Added". The newer version should be on the top. Thus, it should be easy to tell apart the old from the new version.

Yeah, it’s not that I can’t tell them apart or couldn’t quickly check the number of chapters to verify, it’s simply that I don’t want two versions of the same book saved, and the old one is the one I have to pull up and delete. Having the option to replace the original file with an updated ePub—like fanficfare does—would streamline things, that’s all.

[cedhax]

Originally Posted by chicleeblair

Yeah, it’s not that I can’t tell them apart or couldn’t quickly check the number of chapters to verify, it’s simply that I don’t want two versions of the same book saved, and the old one is the one I have to pull up and delete. Having the option to replace the original file with an updated ePub—like fanficfare does—would streamline things, that’s all.

I see. I agree it'll be convenient if there is one more option next to "Overwrite Metadata" to overwrite the EPUB such that the app downloads the book and then deletes the book it's supposed to replace automatically. But will there be a catch?

I haven't played with fanficfare. Does it only deal with that one particular website? If yes, then it can make much stronger assumptions about what's supposed to be newer or older versions of the "same" book, where MapleRead or any other similar more general-purpose reader apps can't.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by cedhax

I see. I agree it'll be convenient if there is one more option next to "Overwrite Metadata" to overwrite the EPUB such that the app downloads the book and then deletes the book it's supposed to replace automatically. But will there be a catch?

I haven't played with fanficfare. Does it only deal with that one particular website? If yes, then it can make much stronger assumptions about what's supposed to be newer or older versions of the "same" book, where MapleRead or any other similar more general-purpose reader apps can't.

FanFicFare supports multiple websites but since it's purpose-built to download fanfiction, it has the programming logic to check for updated stories.

Mind, with Marvin, if you sync the calibre library to Dropbox and use Marvin's built-in Dropbox integration, you can actually overwrite existing fics as long as the title and author pseudonym doesn't change (ergo, same filename in Calibre). Alas, you lose all bookmarks and annotations as those are tied to the md5 hash of the epub file. Well, not quite lose since those are still stored in the database. They just won't be linked with the updated version. Alas, Marvin doesn't support book/annotation syncing and any other source aside from Dropbox (e.g. Calibre OPDS), it wouldn't allow you to delete/overwrite existing files.

How does MapleRead handle collisions? Tried downloading files with the same filename from HTML webpage and the succeeding copies seem to be just stuck in processing.

One problem I have with MapleRead is the alert GUI doesn't work properly on my iPads (iOS 10.3.3) so I'm just randomly pressing buttons.

[cedhax]

MapleRead uses the md5 hash of a book as its signature, and that's what it uses to tell if two book files are duplicates. This is clearly explained in their online FAQ.

If you repeatedly download the same file again and again, then the app should detect them as duplicates. I have repeatedly tried to experiment with this.

As for the GUI issue, it looks like it is an accessibility issue, i.e., system font size is not the default setting. Their What's New claims that v2.1.1 has fixed it.