BookFusion eBook Reader & Management Sync Across All Devices Android, iOS & Web

[tulanespartan]

I totally understand your business decision regarding the pricing structure for your BookFusion. I'd actually seen your explanation in multiple places, and as the app developer you have every right to choose how much you charge for your app/services.

In regards to Apple adding margin control to its Books app, people have been waiting for that option since 2010. Apple seems to have no interest in adding an option to control margins no matter how much feedback they receive requesting that feature. Apple could have easily introduced margin controls last year when they updated the Books app, but it was the one feature still missing (every. article written about the update to Apple's Books app commented on the continued lack of margin controls). The Apple Books margins are so wide, that I can literally get only an average of only 5-6 words per line on my iPhone 13 Pro Max. So, thank you for allowing me to expand my margins to the edge of the screen if I so choose with BookFusion. But no, Apple may never allow me to control margins.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by sgspecker

While I really like Calibre, I see value with the greater integration that BookFusion brings to the party.

I haven't tried the Calibre plug-in yet but I have a few questions/comments based on playing with your web app.

Formats
Are there any plans to support audiobooks? I would really like to have a common place to put all of my books!

Most definitely, we hope to start supporting audiobooks sometime in 2024 hopefully but audiobook support is planned

Does BookFusion support multiple formats for a given book... similar to Calibre?

We upload only a single format currently where we prioritize EPUB, MOBI then PDFs and all other formats. We plan to support having at least two different formats for a single title but this is not possible currently

Metadata
Is there a way to update the metadata (similar to Calibre)?

Any metadata changes you make in Calibre you can then sync to BookFusion. You can update the metadata on BookFusion by clicking on the book cover and then editing.

I saw a discussion earlier in the thread about two-way sync back to a Calibre library. At that time, it didn't sound like that was supported. But the BookFusion website made it sound like it might be supported today. Is that the case?

We only support syncing one-way right now. But would like to sync both ways for books and metadata and if possible highlights. Can you indicate which copy gave the impression that sync happens two-way on the website? Would like to update this to give that impression.

Who can see our reviews of books? Only those who can see our books or everyone?

Your reading, reviews and books are private and can only be seen by you. However, if you opt to use the social features you can then share them with particular individuals or public.

NOTE: Not everyone has access to the social beta currently but I can have you added if interested. https://www.bookfusion.com/privacy_settings/edit becomes accessible to allow you to tweak these defaults.

Who can see this book...
Can we "bulk" edit this book property? I could not find a way to do this.

You are correct that this is not currently possible. But will be in the next few weeks. We are still developing the social features and will be integrating them into the iOS and Android app later this year

Similarly, can we change the default setting for this property?

Yes, you can if you can by going to https://www.bookfusion.com/privacy_settings/edit This is under settings from your profile page

Like others earlier in this thread, I found the "T&C" language around "public" declarations of books to be confusing and scary. What happens if I accidentally make one of my purchased books public?

https://www.bookfusion.com/reading/branch

The above clause applies only to Publicy shared content done, meaning you choose to distribute your eBooks to the entire world without limits. Users can choose to make content Private, Friends, Selected Individuals , Custom Groups or Public. When a user makes content Public then they are assumed to own the rights to that content and therefore give us rights to distribute the content and also the ability to make changes to the content to facilitate the seamless distribution across the platform and globally to others.

Similar to other services like Dropbox, Google Drive and others if a user shares a link to the entire Web allowing every and anyone to download that link and therefore discover it. We can then be contacted about that publicly shared file. This applies only to those that plan to share eBooks with the general public at large.

We do not scan or inspect readers libraries as we are a paid service and have no need to sell ads or users data. This clause just says if you decide to share an ebook publicly then we assume you already own the rights and now give BookFusion the right to do so. Is it a bit clearer?

Duplicates - this becomes a concern with big libraries
Is there a duplicate checker feature?

We have a automatic duplicate detector that checks if the same file is being uploaded. However, we could improve this since it requires the file to be exactly identical. If you have issues with duplicates let us know and we will look at improving this

Can duplicates be flagged when importing books?

Yes they are automatically flagged on import

Other
Can you export from BookFusion iOS app to other iOS reader apps (e.g., Marvin3)? I may end up liking your reader better but I haven't tried it, yet.
API

Fully agree and yes you can! We do not want to lock readers into our platform, they must truly enjoy our app to use it. When you click on the book cover, you can then click the arrow which is send to/open with , you will then be provided with the options to use it in another app on your device.

Funny we did this but a MobileRead user complained that because we supported that functionality we were not serious about the reading experience.

I see that API mentioned on your site. Do you publish an API that we can use to write our own scripts/programs?

It is not currently public but we plan to publish a set of APIs, the first APIs we will expose will be around highlights and notes. If you are on discord we could potentially give you early access to some APIs


Thanks for your detailed post with questions. Hope I was able to provide suitable answers.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by tulanespartan

First, I'd like to say that I really like BookFusion's ereader. I am new to your iOS app, having used Marvin3 for years. I read exclusively on two devices, a Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition and my iPhone 13 Pro Max. On my iPhone, I use the Kindle app for books purchased from Amazon, and now BookFusion for ebooks purchased elsewhere. I've tried almost every eReader app on iOS over the years, and I always came back to Marvin due to it's clean library layout, and the way I could customize my reading experience as desired. My only complaint about Marvin over the last few years is the way I had to make heading adjustments to deal with the notch at the top of the iPhone. With Marvin now gone for good, I decided to make the jump to BookFusion.

Personally, I like the clean appearance of your library and the ability to adjust margins up, down, and sideways to take advantage of my iPhone's large screen. As you can see, I really have no need for syncing between devices, and the main thing that prevents me from using Apples built-in Books ereader is the lack of margin control. The free version of BookFusion is adequate as I have no need to sync, and I don't need to store my entire ebook library in an ereader. That being said, I would be willing to pay a one time app fee for the ability to store a larger number of eBooks in BookFusion on my iPhone.

All that being said, I would like to make a few of suggestions. First, I would love to see an option for choosing page turn animation, including Slide, Curl, or None. In lieu of that option, I'd suggest increasing the speed of your current slide animation. Also, I've noticed that BookFusion is not as reliable as other ereaders when it comes to tapping on the sides of my screen to change pages, and I often end up having to slide the page over manually since tapping didn't work at firs. This is not to say that tapping doesn't work at all, just that I seem to really have to tap harder in just the right spot.

Next, it would be nice to be able to change from a light screen to a dark screen easier within the ereader. I like the ability to save different presets, in my case "Daytime" and "Nighttime," but an option to automatically change between the two using iOS's Automatic light to dark change would be nice. Marvin had an option to tap the screen with two fingers to switch between different presets, which I used all the time. Either solution would be great.

Anyway, thank you for all the work you continue to put into BookFusion.

Not ignoring but responded on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...eb2x&context=3 We are a lot more active on Reddit, Discord and our Support system as the readers are more engaged there.

Originally Posted by tulanespartan

I totally understand your business decision regarding the pricing structure for your BookFusion. I'd actually seen your explanation in multiple places, and as the app developer you have every right to choose how much you charge for your app/services.

In regards to Apple adding margin control to its Books app, people have been waiting for that option since 2010. Apple seems to have no interest in adding an option to control margins no matter how much feedback they receive requesting that feature. Apple could have easily introduced margin controls last year when they updated the Books app, but it was the one feature still missing (every. article written about the update to Apple's Books app commented on the continued lack of margin controls). The Apple Books margins are so wide, that I can literally get only an average of only 5-6 words per line on my iPhone 13 Pro Max. So, thank you for allowing me to expand my margins to the edge of the screen if I so choose with BookFusion. But no, Apple may never allow me to control margins.

Wow that is a long time that folks have requested margins. Heard they also recently removed the ability to bulk export highlights by some users. Thanks for the feedback and also for understanding my response

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Awesome! Now I can give Bookfusion a real go and see if it will do to replace Marvin.

Yes this was added about a month or more. Will post an update of the changes done now. Please do let us know if you have any feedback.

[skillachie]

PDF Image/Area Based Highlights & Annotations

You can now easily make image or area based highlights when reading PDFs on your iOS device. Easily annotate/highlight images, tables, graphs or even text. Any element at all in your PDF can now be highlighted and annotated.

• Sync your image/area highlights & annotations between Web & iOS
• Easily make image/area based highlights by long pressing on images then pinch or drag each corner to change the sizeof the area you want to highlight
• For PDFs with text layer select the text then click the the area/image highlight icon, then select your desired location to make the highlight
• Easily copy your image/area based highlights to your favorite note taking app or export them to PDF, Markdown, CSV & HTML

Other

• Hyphenation support
• Now supports selecting multiple files to upload

More at https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...ios_areaimage/

[skillachie]

New

• Support text alignment (Left Justify, Center, Right)
• Display pages remaining in chapter (bottom left)
• Allow returning to previous reading position after navigating via footnotes, chapters etc. (Click Back at the bottom left below the progress bar)

• Added switch to offline mode option
• Add/Fix RTL Support for EPUBs

Fixes

• Fixes for refreshing and updating reading position
• Image/Area highlight shows up incorrectly in PDFs
• Fix for offline mode bug on some devices
• Text selection crashes the app on Android OS lower than Android 8

Other fixes & improvements

You can grab the latest update at https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...android.reader

Stay tuned for more updates. Don’t see the feature or improvement you are looking for? Reply and let us know! Please do reach out to us if you encounter a bug or simply have feedback.

[ilovejedd]

I just signed up for the basic plan in order to test BookFusion more.

Apart from my previous recommendations:

• Option to disable animations
• Option to use both sides for tap to next page
• Vertical slide for brightness control

Here's another:

• Larger side tap zones for page turns

In general, switching pages is the most used function while reading. With BookFusion on my iPad mini 6, the side tap zones are way too small so I often end up opening the menu when I want to go to the next page.

On my Kobo e-ink, I think the screen is divided into thirds which I think is a reasonable default.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I just signed up for the basic plan in order to test BookFusion more.

Apart from my previous recommendations:

• Option to disable animations
• Option to use both sides for tap to next page
• Vertical slide for brightness control

Here's another:

• Larger side tap zones for page turns

In general, switching pages is the most used function while reading. With BookFusion on my iPad mini 6, the side tap zones are way too small so I often end up opening the menu when I want to go to the next page.

On my Kobo e-ink, I think the screen is divided into thirds which I think is a reasonable default.

Thank you for trying the platform.

• Option to disable animations. - Added to be investigated, we did not previously have this planned (just being transparent)
• Option to use both sides for tap to next page - Plan to have custom tap areas so this should be addressed then.
• Vertical slide for brightness control. - Plan to have this added when we do custom tap areas as well

---
Larger side tap zones for page turns - Will have this feedback addressed in the next release.

[ilovejedd]

Thank you very much!

[JSWolf]

All the upcoming features sound good to me.

[culytera]

Is there an option to override CSS or at least font size?

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by culytera

Is there an option to override CSS or at least font size?

Font size gets or ridden automatically when you try to increase or decrease the font size by clicking the Big A or Small a buttons. Do you have an issue changing the font size with an EPUB?

[skillachie]

New CBR/CBZ Reader

You can now open CBZ & CBR natively from your iOS device with our new comic reader

• Easily import comics from your device
• Seamlessly go from page to page
• Double tap to quickly zoom in and out to each location
• Portrait & Landscape support
• Support for scroll mode with comics
• Support for more image formats including WEBP & TIFF

Other improvements

• Increase margin options (horizontally)
• CBZ/CBR image calculation fixes
• Contact support fixes
• Improved pdf highlighting, the bar no longer covers the text
• Fixed bug to attach images when you try to contact support

Stay tuned for more updates. Don’t see the feature or improvement you are looking for? Reply and let us know! Please do reach out to us if you encounter a bug or simply have feedback.

More at https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...pgrades_other/

[skillachie]

We don't usually post Web Updates here but for those interested you can check out this post at https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...se_file_sizes/

[skillachie]

New Fixed Layout EPUB Reader

We have now released a new and fully EPUB 3 compliant reader for fixed layout based EPUBs.

• EPUB 2 & EPUB 3 Support
• Zoom
• Bookmarks
• Highlights
• Search
• Settings (brightness, lock rotation, rtl)
• Support for spreads in fixed layout book

Improvement & Fixes

1. Progress % calculation bug
2. Fix sign in on tablets in landscape
3. Improve the offline mode detection and switch
4. Media overlays audio covers next audio with autoplay mode
5. Fix for pages that are scrolled incorrectly for RTL mode
6. Text alignment icons should be in different colors

NOTE: We just got a report that the switch to offline mode needs some more refinement and this will come in the next release. If you still have issues please reach out to us. This was resolved for most users in this release.

The latest update can be found in the Play Store. Thanks again for all the support and please do continue to reach out to us with feedback and suggestions to help us build your ideal reading platform.

More details can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...ion_paragraph/