Foliate – An E-Reader for Linux

Moonbase59 · 01-01-2022, 12:20 PM

For Linux users that wish for an alternative to the (great) Calibre E-Reader: Foliate seems to me an interesting app, and it’s actively developed.

What I liked:

Simple UI (GTK), not feature-overloaded
Error-free display of my EPUBs
Hyphenation using the standard Linux hyphen-xx libraries
Annotations and bookmarks (syncable, exportable in many formats, even BibTex and Markdown)
Wikipedia and (English) Wiktionary support (online)
Support for StarDict- and DICT-type offline dictionaries
Great Metadata support (including Calibre and series metadata)
Flexible TTS (eSpeak, Festival, gTTS (Google Translate, online), PicoTTS (offline)

What I didn’t like:

Currently only support for the English Wiktionary.
StarDict content shown as text, not HTML (see my issue)
No PDF support (then again, any document viewer does that…)

Links:

Homepage
GitHub
Issue regarding StarDict display
My PicoTTS script to be used with Foliate

Screenshots and TTS samples (Google TTS, PicoTTS) in German & English:

rcentros · 01-06-2022, 01:54 AM

Very nice application. Thank you for the heads up. Will definitely use this.

Quoth · 01-12-2022, 07:13 AM

Thanks, I'll check it out. Adds Foliate Menu item under Office on Linux Mint 20.1 with Mate Desktop.

I do think the mobile style "hamburger" menu is obnoxious for ANY desktop program on Windows, Mac or Linux. There is a setting to turn on a traditional desktop menu bar/title bar.

It seems to ignore embedded fonts and the ebook CSS for some aspects. So looks rubbish compared to Calibre and no use to preview for eink ereaders.

Edit: Easy to find Publisher Font under View when the standard GUI is enabled.

The standard desktop GUI (title/menu) and Publisher fonts etc should be defaults.

Moonbase59 · 01-12-2022, 09:38 AM

Yeah, I also hate these shifted-to-the-right hamburger menu stuff more and more distros and Gtk apps start to use. Where did you find the traditional menu setting?

Edit: Got it. I hate apps that force me to use the current environment language and don’t allow me to switch to English (for developing, support, screenshots).

In German, it’s under hamburger menu → Einstellungen → Benutzeroberfläche → Traditionelle Titelleiste verwenden (experimentell). (Requires restart.)

---

As mentioned in the German thread, Foliate is an alternative for people who just want to read an e-book once in a while, without wanting to install a fully-fledged solution like Calibre. Personally, I also tend to prefer the Calibre viewer, even if it takes ages to open and writes into the EPUBs.

---

While doing some other tests (German), I also found that Foliate sometimes has problems displaying SVG files. (Usually either left out completely, or at least not respecting width & height from SVG or CSS min-width, max-width. I use MathPix to convert hand-written or scanned formulae to SVG, and that sets an SVG size in ex units.)

Moonbase59 · 01-15-2022, 09:26 AM

Note to Linux users that use Debian-derivatives (like Ubuntu, Linux Mint) and the Foliate PPA: The label has changed from "Foliate ebook reader" to "Foliate" in between versions 2.6.3 and 2.6.4.

This means that—for safety reasons—GUI-based updaters (like in Linux Mint) will show a message, but stop updating until you have manually accepted that change (and thus "allowed" it).

The easiest way to do that on Debian-like systems is performing a sudo apt update in the terminal, confirm the change, and then do a sudo apt upgrade afterwards to actually get the newer version.

jospalau · 02-05-2022, 09:04 AM

I have been reading lately in Foliate in Gentoo and in Windows WSL2. It is nice

Sent from my CPH2021 using Tapatalk

Quoth · 02-06-2022, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonbase59

This means that—for safety reasons—GUI-based updaters (like in Linux Mint) will show a message, but stop updating until you have manually accepted that change (and thus "allowed" it).

The easiest way to do that on Debian-like systems is performing a sudo apt update in the terminal, confirm the change, and then do a sudo apt upgrade afterwards to actually get the newer version.

The sudo apt upgrade isn't needed as the regular GUI will recognise the change and offer the update.

01-12-2022, 07:13 AM	#3
Quoth the rook, bossing Never. Posts: 11,166 Karma: 85874891 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper11	Thanks, I'll check it out. Adds Foliate Menu item under Office on Linux Mint 20.1 with Mate Desktop. I do think the mobile style "hamburger" menu is obnoxious for ANY desktop program on Windows, Mac or Linux. There is a setting to turn on a traditional desktop menu bar/title bar. It seems to ignore embedded fonts and the ebook CSS for some aspects. So looks rubbish compared to Calibre and no use to preview for eink ereaders. Edit: Easy to find Publisher Font under View when the standard GUI is enabled. The standard desktop GUI (title/menu) and Publisher fonts etc should be defaults. Last edited by Quoth; 01-12-2022 at 07:22 AM.

01-12-2022, 09:38 AM	#4
Moonbase59 Zealot Posts: 111 Karma: 196896 Join Date: Oct 2021 Location: Germany Device: Tolino Vision 5, Tolino Tab 8"	Yeah, I also hate these shifted-to-the-right hamburger menu stuff more and more distros and Gtk apps start to use. Where did you find the traditional menu setting? Edit: Got it. I hate apps that force me to use the current environment language and don’t allow me to switch to English (for developing, support, screenshots). In German, it’s under hamburger menu → Einstellungen → Benutzeroberfläche → Traditionelle Titelleiste verwenden (experimentell). (Requires restart.) --- As mentioned in the German thread, Foliate is an alternative for people who just want to read an e-book once in a while, without wanting to install a fully-fledged solution like Calibre. Personally, I also tend to prefer the Calibre viewer, even if it takes ages to open and writes into the EPUBs. --- While doing some other tests (German), I also found that Foliate sometimes has problems displaying SVG files. (Usually either left out completely, or at least not respecting width & height from SVG or CSS min-width, max-width. I use MathPix to convert hand-written or scanned formulae to SVG, and that sets an SVG size in ex units.) Last edited by Moonbase59; 01-12-2022 at 10:06 AM. Reason: Found setting, note about SVG issues.

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01-06-2022, 01:54 AM	#2
rcentros eReader Wrangler Posts: 7,443 Karma: 48453105 Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: Boise, ID Device: PB HD3, GL3, Tolino Vision 4, Voyage, Clara HD	Very nice application. Thank you for the heads up. Will definitely use this.

01-15-2022, 09:26 AM	#5
Moonbase59 Zealot Posts: 111 Karma: 196896 Join Date: Oct 2021 Location: Germany Device: Tolino Vision 5, Tolino Tab 8"	Note to Linux users that use Debian-derivatives (like Ubuntu, Linux Mint) and the Foliate PPA: The label has changed from "Foliate ebook reader" to "Foliate" in between versions 2.6.3 and 2.6.4. This means that—for safety reasons—GUI-based updaters (like in Linux Mint) will show a message, but stop updating until you have manually accepted that change (and thus "allowed" it). The easiest way to do that on Debian-like systems is performing a sudo apt update in the terminal, confirm the change, and then do a sudo apt upgrade afterwards to actually get the newer version.

02-05-2022, 09:04 AM	#6
jospalau Groupie Posts: 171 Karma: 1074916 Join Date: Jan 2021 Device: Likebook Ares	I have been reading lately in Foliate in Gentoo and in Windows WSL2. It is nice Sent from my CPH2021 using Tapatalk

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