ebook manager

[smoker]

Dear all,

I am trying to set up a TF101 tablet (with android ICS) to use as ebook reader for my mother and since she is computer illiterate I am trying to make it as simple as possible. Since we do not live in the same country I am trying to make it as simple as possible for her so I am trying to find a way to sync books from afar. So far so good, since there are many apps to do that but here starts my problem. Eventually I realized that I have a lot of books and eventually I will send her more so I need somehow to categorize them so she will access them easier than scrolling to a huge list of books. I found out that Mantano reader supports categories but as far as I can tell only manually. the same goes with most ebook readers that I know. I suppose a work around would be tagging but due to the different formats and many files I would prefer to avoid that (not to mention that tags usually do not show up nicely (like in shelves) on the ebook reader)

Is there a way, an app or something that will allow me to sync books directly to categories on the tablet? or create multiple shelves? For example to have a folder "cooking" and a folder "literature" on the tablet and on dropbox (for example) and sync to the tablet and show up immediately on their respective categories on the ebook reader? or any other application?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[exscentric]

Sounds nice if you can do it but from a hack that has all books in one directory .... :-) Thinking - maybe using an ereader program that has the open from file feature and just categorize them in directories then to open a book -- open from file go to the directory, then to the genre.

Cool reader maybe.

[Adoby]

Mantano has a nice view of books ordered by tags. You list all the tags and when you click on one of them see the books that have that tag. Very much like collections, but based on the tags.

Usually books have too many different tags for this to work. But by editing the tags to reduce the number, it should work fine.

Mantano also has a folder view. You list the subfolders and when you click on one of them see the books in that subfolder. Should be possible to automatically sync remotely.

An import has to be done, but after that the books are available in Mantano.

[smoker]

Thank you all for the replies. I am trying to avoid the file manager option since the books should also be imported. Yes the tag option is good but I will have to spend too much time to re-tag all the books and I would prefer to avoid that...

I found out that by using Titanium backup you can create different data profiles for certain apps, so you can use the same app with different content depending on the data profile you use. There is also a widget that brings up a menu to select the profile you want. This sounds as an interesting idea especially if I can find a way to make a shortcut that will change to the data profile and start the app on the same time...

if any of you has any good ideas, it would be welcome!

[rkw]

I think Mantano is a good option but as I remember it wasn't totally to my taste when I tried it last year sometime. I didn't think it was bad just not for me at the time. After this thread, I think I might want to take another look.

You might also look at an old standard ebook app called FBReader. It has been around for a LONG time and is free. It supports tags, titles, author and other sorting. Another nice feature is it supports online catalogs like Feedbooks, Smashwords and Manybooks. Plus you can add other custom OPDS catalogs. I haven't tried much organization customization of catalogs but it is worth a look.

Also I like the way FBReader UI can be configured to suit the user.

It supports pretty much all non-DRM book formats ever put out. PDF support has never been great though.

Oh, there is a solid TTS plug-in as well. There is more but I can't bring it all to mind right now as I've been doing most of my reading on my Kindle.

[smoker]

FBreader was actually my first thought as you can define a folder and then it automatically scans the folder and imports the books (in contrast to most reader that you have to press the button first). But I find the lack of modern shelve-like UI annoying... Mantano looks good to me, but I find the lack of preassigned categories annoying and also whats the purpose of the mantano cloud??? you can't even upload books from your computer!!!

Edit:

I found a solution, still not exactly what I had in mind but it will do. I had decided that the only way was to use tags in order to short the books the way I wanted but while I was playing with Mantano reader I found out that besides tags they also can show up the folders the books are in! So I can sync with dropbox and then set only these two folders in Mantano reader to import books from. and I say it is not exactly what I had in mind because it shows the full path and I cannot set it as the direct view when the reader starts... Still, it is good enough!