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Quin @TheQuinbox@dragonscave.space
6d
I recorded a quick audio demo comparing Dolphin Easy Reader and Paperback head-to-head on screen reader accessibility and general app performance. In the attached recording, I walk through Easy Reader’s clunky UI, duplicate speech readouts, tabindex quirks, and much more, followed by showing how Paperback blows it completely out of the water by opening massive EPUB's instantly and just being generally much easier to navigate.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@TheQuinbox If paperback could do audio (especially daisy/zip) my life would be perfect, honestly. There's no good, cross-platform audiobook reader. There are a couple that are okay on IOS. But even on IOS, since the enshitification of VoiceDream Reader, we have no good, single "read everything" app; it's one for ebooks, and one for audiobooks.
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Quin @TheQuinbox@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge Well, this is in the pipeline. Not sure when it'll be done, but a contributor and someone I'm becoming friends with has began adding this, and I am here for it.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@TheQuinbox As someone who subscribed to VoiceDream until it just got too buggy to even use at all, if paperback does audio and text I'll happily toss over a few bucks or buy it from the app store or something. I don't even need or want cross-platform syncing of my place or anything. Just one app to do all my reading in all my places. It sounds silly, but now that I'm split between two apps, I find myself forgetting about either audiobooks or ebooks. Like I read both normally, but now I just start the next book in whatever app I happen to be in when the last one finished, rather than thinking about what's on my to be read pile in both formats.
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Quin @TheQuinbox@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge The plan is that we'll initially have a free test period for Paperback on mobile. This will also be when 0.9.0 of the desktop software will get released, both for Windows and macOS. Then, once we get feedback from lots of users, 1.0 will go into the app store/play store officially, with a price tag around $20.00, the same price Voice Dream was before it went subscription. I am also considering having a macOS app store version that's an optional paid upgrade, make it very clear it's a supporter's edition because you'll always be able to download Paperback for free, even if the auto updater doesn't yet work on Mac, but you'll pay to support me and get automagic updates. And eventually, no idea when, I do want to add syncing. It'll be complicated and require me to think about a lot, and to be completely honest if you want to use my servers for it it'll likely be something like a one dollar a month subscription fee, but I see no reason I couldn't just...let people host their own servers if they're not happy with that, it is open source.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@TheQuinbox Honestly you probably want people to use there own servers. I know some people who have 87 gig libraries, even though they delete books as soon as they've finished them, just because the TBR pile is endless. Just, you know, saying for a friend. If I were you, I would consider supporting audiobookshelf. In spite of the name, it also supports epub. And then you can let it also handle syncing reading progress for people who want that, without any extra work. And it's already documented, offers docker and other setup instructions, etc. I guess you could then sell audiobookshelf hosting for peple who want that and as a way to make money. audiobookshelf.org/docs/documentation/libraries/book-library/ebooks/
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Alex Hall @alexhall@mastodon.social
5d
@fastfinge @TheQuinbox Seconded! Audio Bookshelf support in a fully accessible app like this would be an instant buy for me. I mean, Paperback will already be an instant buy, but you know what I mean.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@alexhall @TheQuinbox Agreed. I'd even support doing what some other open source apps do, and selling a closed-source version with audiobookshelf support, and continuing to make everything else open source and free. That'd put you in line with easy reader honestly, where it's free on IOS as long as you don't want cross-platform sync. Support both for audio and for syncing everything via ABS would easily be worth $35 or $40 to me.
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Alex Chapman @alexchapman@vee.seedy.cc
5d
@fastfinge I wouldn't close source the version with audiobookshelf support, I'd just do what's suggested earlier and sell hosting for audiobookshelf servers. @TheQuinbox @alexhall
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@alexchapman @TheQuinbox @alexhall Sure, but that assumes they want to run servers and deal with the infrastructure and support and so-on. If they don't, closed-sourcing ABS support is another option. ABS is an advanced feature, can probably be kept pretty modular, and in no way stops someone who can't afford it or doesn't want it from using paperback to read whatever they want. Whereas guys like us who spend 10 hours a day in our reading app all probably run audiobookshelf, and should pay Quin something anyway.
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x0 @x0@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman While I am capable of selfhosting I don't have the slightest knowledge of docker and would really prefer something more along the lines of keypass via dropbox.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@x0 @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman The issue is that won't easily allow syncing your place cross-platform, whereas audiobookshelf will. You can do audiobookshelf without docker if you want: audiobookshelf.org/docs/documentation/install/linux/linux-install-deb
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x0 @x0@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman Huh? Why would keypass-style not allow syncing cross-platform? It just means you need a backend that's cross-platform. If you have a home audiobook server or whatever, especially if it has a network share, use that. Say via tailscale. If you don't, dropbox.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@x0 @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman First because dropbox isn't free. I don't have or want it. Second because dropbox just allows uploading and downloading files. Adding a bookmark to a file would mean downloading the entire file to your device, adding the bookmark, then re-uploading the entire file. For something like keepass that's fine, because password databases are small. But for books, it's worse. For audiobooks, it's a complete non-starter.
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x0 @x0@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman You wouldn't modify the actual book file! You'd store a cross-platform database, just like keypass does, which has books by hash and positions. The standalone versions already do this, you just have to make it path/platform agnostic.
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x0 @x0@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman And if you want it to be free, depending on how the file sharing APIs work, you could just have it read from and write to some file on a backend of your choice. SMB. Dropbox. FTP. Whatever. So if you've got your phone connected to a media server which actually has your audiobooks? Just let it write to a file on there.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@x0 @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman Right, so now you need to design an entire database, worry about file locking, etc. You can't use sqlite because sqlite has to download your database of file positions, update it, then re-upload it. And if another device is also updating the device, now you have conflicts and other nasty problems. Keepass just ignores the problem. That's why I don't use it, actually, because that exact problem bit me multiple times. So you've got to design your own schema that allows updates based on parcial uploads, allows shared edits and/or locks, and decide how to resolve when two different devices have two different versions of the truth. What happens if one was offline for a few hours/days? Whereas you could just use audiobookshelf, make a single API call when the user pauses reading, and be done. Audiobookshelf has taken care of all the hard stuff, so you don't have to just re-invent a cross-platform version of all of iCloud yourself.
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x0 @x0@dragonscave.space
5d
@fastfinge @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman Yeah conflict detection is the more annoying part. I thought keypass actually did have a solution for that. But yeah offline for a few days is the kicker.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5d
@x0 @TheQuinbox @alexhall @alexchapman audiobookshelf has a concept of sessions. So if your Android is offline for three days, when it comes online, your Android makes an API call telling audiobookshelf "Android's position on this book is this location". If you open the book on your Windows computer, it can check with audiobookshelf, then ask you if you want to resume where you left off last on Android, iPhone, or Windows. Or just resume at the farthest place reached. So you never have to worry about signing your Android online and it suddenly setting all your reading progress back to whatever it knew about two weeks ago or something.
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