This looked intriguing, so I gave it an install. Upon first run, it prompted me with a login prompt for some kind of online service, and could find no way to just run this software installed on my local computer without logging into someone else's cloud service.
I see some discussions here proposing this as a Calibre replacement, but how can a frontend to a cloud service replace genuine desktop software?
You both should do the bare minimum amount of research before asking these questions or insulting the project. It would take you one whole click to find the server code.
I guess I just don't understand why a desktop application intended to read e-books would need a remote server in the first place.
I've already got my e-book library on my local drive, and synced to my own storage server with NextCloud -- why do I need my desktop e-reader application to force me to use a separate, parallel server solution?
And even if I were to self-host, the UI does not seem to expose any way to point the frontend client at my own server instance.
Support for mobile devices is currently in development. The application is currently only available on Desktop, but the aim is to be available on all devices.
It seems to replace what the kindle platform would do
Multiple users might allow that for friends and family
It’s easier to ask “ what else could this mean” in a positive way and assume that it doesn’t have to make sense to one perspective to make sense for everyone.
Calibre for example doesn’t seem to do the multi device access/sync well
Calibre library syncs perfectly across devices via dropbox / any other cloud storage. Can't see why this wouldn't just work with a shared cloud folder as well. This also has an added benefit that the books are available for download on mobile.
- Calibre doesn't have a reader app as far as I can tell on android or iphone.
- KOReader I hear is excellent and could point to Calibre, but again, I don't think it handles per user highlights and annotations as easily.
Mostly I'm looking for a reasonably straight forward workflow to import highlights into logseq/obsidian that doesn't need a user to install or run a script manually, or connect a usb cable. That kind of self-hosting is useful.
Since I’ve started playing around with logseq/obsidian for one point of note taking the value of having your notes and annotations from books and YouTube videos in one place is too close to making all that reading more useful and introduce it into practice :)
It took one clarifying comment from the founder of Dropbox for BrandonM to understand and agree with the value proposition.
The story of that comment is not “clueless power user doesn’t understand regular user needs”, it’s “user makes respectful criticism and changes their mind when confronted with compelling arguments”. That exchange is a prime example of what we should all strive to do, not a target of ridicule.
Haven't tried to install it myself but was looking through the git repo for this exact info. Just do it like every other project, either let the user configure it in the frontend through config or make it an environment variable.
I looked for any mention of hosting your own server on the repo's readme and could not find it. This is not readily available information so stop shaming people for not finding it.
But thank you for sharing the link that was helpful
“ With Librum, you can manage your own online library and access it from any device anytime, anywhere. It has features like note-taking, bookmarking, and highlighting, while offering customization to make it as personal as you want!”
Many selfhostable solutions use similar wording as their main focus is the platform. While not excluding selfhosting options they don't promote it either.
To be fair, Amazon could write the exact same things (minus customization) about their platform, saying that you have an online library is different from saying that you can self-hosted it. But it being (F?)OSS can give an hint that there could be the possibility of doing it.
> "Open source is only free if your time is worthless"
The main reason to use FOSS software shouldn't be the price: indeed with commercial competitors at a few $/€ per month that require less work on your part one can rightfully wonder if he's saving money with FOSS software. But also control over your tools and not giving away personal data has a value.
> The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes: For the performance of a contract: the development, compliance and undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or services You have purchased or of any other contract with Us through the Service.
Sounds problematic, could go as far as trading user data to other companies.
> For business transfers: We may use Your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all Our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Us about our Service users is among the assets transferred
I was just about to make a submission for the excellent Flow E-reader ( https://www.flowoss.com ) , which I discovered today. Browser based, books stored in localstorage, ridiculously fast UI, cloud via your dropbox. So, basically what Librum promises, but already completely functional.
Let's make E-books a fully integrated part of the web experience! There's just a few gaps to bridge. It could be done with PDF, so it can be done with ePUB.
A number of e-book platforms are discussed on my blog, which dives deeply into the technical nuances of a few[1]. Ultimately, I typeset a classic from Standard EBooks[2]: Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde[3].
I suppose I'm not the only one wondering whether this could replace Calibre for me. Most features seem to be there, but will it allow me to sync ebooks to my Kobo device?
I was intrigued by the clean interface enough to download it. Then I was asked to create an online account...
Anyway, I think it replacing calibre depends on how much advanced features one uses. Calibre in more than 15 years old and has a lot of "speciality" plugins.
Unless you have a seriously good reason for not supporting one of the other alternatives to Calibre (such as this project), please just support that project with your efforts?
If you do have a good reason, then please prioritize unit testing, proper release engineering, requiring documentation be included with patches, and proper UX (including, but not limited to, respecting the conventions of the host OS) that is usable by real-world users who don't obsess over managing their library.
Not having to spend an hour configuring stuff so I can sync my reading position and shelves from my e-reader...and then another hour configuring sync to a service like goodreads - would be just swell.
Not the person you're replying to but I am a user of Calibre --
1. Automatic ingesting and conversion of book files (download a pdf, epub, mobi, even something with DRM to a specific folder and it's available for reading/transfer automatically)
2. One (or more if being selective) click loading onto an e-reader (with auto format conversion)
3. Plugins or native feature DRM removal for purchased ebooks. Also plugin support for reading different file types, tying it all in to the main app seems clunky, better to have auto-installed file-type plugins and the abstraction/freedom plugins bring
4. Automatic/semi-manual/full-manual metadata control. Being able to scan the internet for new covers, isbns, category tags, blurbs, etc and selectively choose what to add is perfect while still retaining the options for grab everything or enter everything by hand too
5. Full text search of all file formats, as well as field-specific metadata search
6. Semi-manual curation with tag filtering and virtual libraries (saved searches basically, very powerful in combination with tags and ratings)
7. Highlight/quote saving. This is something which I do a lot on the e-reader and have been meaning to find a plugin to load them back into Calibre. Native support (in your app) would be fantastic
8. Keyboard shortcuts, theming, all those other nice little features that are less calibre-specific
edit - adding more as I thought on this longer:
* Cover and table views - it's nice to see the book covers yet also the compact editing and selection of a text-only table is essential. Sorting by title, author, publish, upload/ingest date, rating, etc is also quite important
* Folder/file based data storage. Having database files for extra metadata or internally needed stuff is a-ok yet it's so nice to be able to go into a folder named after the author and copy out a file in any of the converted formats. Automatically updating the metadata in the file itself (title, author, publish date, etc) and standardizing the file names is also key
* Book editing. This is less important early on since it's a big feature yet it's nice to be able to go in and fix typos from OCR or take out extra whitespace (or copyright warnings). A global reformatter or format aware find/replace is also quite handy for standardizing across multiple download sources (h2 vs h1 for chapter titles, weird indenting at the start of sections, dividers done with ---, <hr>, or custom images, etc). Style editors are nice yet less important since reader apps/devices generally handle most of this
* Image background removal. If you have a dark mode or sepia or even better custom theming in the book reader view, there will be images and custom dividers with white backgrounds that would look better inverted or with transparent backgrounds. This is a tricky one, since some images don't make sense to invert or tweak to the theme, yet done well it's a really nice feature
I'd love to make Calibre better! Unfortunately, I don't think it's under great stewardship, and the existing codebase makes it hard to make significant progress with a fork.
Above all, really, I think it's a fun project to work on!
Where do y'all get ebooks from? I've been getting ebooks from Amazon and using Calibre to convert them to epubs, but I'd love it if I could just buy DRM-free epubs. Lots of authors seem reticent to do that. (Brandon Sanderson being an exception; none of his works are DRM'd, at least they shouldn't be.)
I prefer to buy eBooks directly from the author, with a fallback to sites like leanpub.
The process sucks though: you typically get a zip, which contains .epub, .mobi, and .pdf. And the naming is bogus, with spaces sometimes replaced by underscores or hyphens, and sometimes with the author's name and sometimes not. So you have to unzip the file, get the contents, decide whether to keep them all or not, move them somewhere else, and then have your reader(s) realize that they're there, and try not to get dupes in the "shelf" view, and deal with the crappy metadata, and, and, and ...
It'd be super nice if we got some standards here! It's not like Amazon has to adopt them -- they're a separate ecosystem. But if all the "indie" eBook publishers did the same thing, the reader apps could make this so much less painful.
Yet again a plug for Epubor Ultimate, which claims to, and in my experience, does remove DRM from pretty much any EPUB or PDF, and works on Kindle books as well. The workflow is much simpler than with the DeDRM plugin for Calibre, and so far it has survived at least one change in Kindle encryption. I have used it on books from Kobo, ebooks.com, and Amazon.It is pretty much the only non-free software I own, and it lets me have a completely free library.
epubor just uses the calibre derdrm plugin internally, without even acknowledging that, thereby stealing the word of the maintainers of the dedrm plugin.
Depending on where you're from, checking out books from your local library via overdrive/libby might work for you. I don't know if it's standard for all models, but Kobo e-readers have builtin overdrive support.
I suspect a lot of authors don’t have much choice. Big authors and people who self-publish sure, but a lot of people struggle to get published and I imagine a sizable fraction of publishers who don’t specifically cater to geek audiences would just drop a book and move on to one of the other hundreds of submissions if someone insisted on a drm free release.
I have allowed amazon e-books into my firewall after I vet they are from a publisher I can trust... I do not have interest in allowing books from strangers into my firewall. Some authors on amazon have posted their books DRM-free (Brandon Sanderson is an example).
I usually check to see if the publisher sells the e-book directly. If so, I will consider buying there. Usually amazon has a cheaper price, and I buy from them and strip the DRM.
That's bizarre. If anything, Amazon ebooks are worse than anything you can download, as Amazon retains some ability to remotely erase or alter them if your device remains connected to the internet, which pirated books never will.
That is not a problem with the ebooks it is a problem with using a Kindle.
If you download your book from Amazon to your disk e.g. in Calibre Amazon can't touch it.
I have many amazon books and I read then in pub based readers on my iPhone.
Even on the Kindle I think I am safe as I tend not to use the Amazon link but upload via Calibre so what is on the Kindle does not match what Amazon thinks I have on the Kindle.
Correct. I do not open amazon e-books in the Kindle app. I jailbroke my kindle to allow for OPDS connection to my calibre server, and put it in airplane mode when not copying books from the server.
I've been rather happy with Librera, although when reading foreign languages, I prefer KOReader for its locally installed dictionary lookups (you have to add them). Note that these are both reader software, first, and not advanced library management packages (as far as I know).
The last I checked, Librera also had two versions on the Play store, with the paid pro (or whatever) version sending a few dollars towards the Ukrainian developer. Who's been donating to the defense efforts since the war started. Or was; that language now appears to be gone from the web site.
Anyway, for those not familiar with FDroid and/or who want to contribute to development other that via PayPal -- or, looks like now that would be Patreon.
I'd like projects like this to include some kind of rationale for their existence. This reader sounds fine, but what's wrong with Calibre and LibreraFD?
Also, the attitude in the Calibre community to even minor UI suggestions, at least in my experience, amounts to "if you think there's any room for improvement, you're wrong and should leave forever".
Not the original commenter, but I totally agree with you -- no one needs to justify free software at all; the more the merrier. I do think that there's something to be said for clarifying why one might use one over the other in a space with multiple options or one clear winner (which I think Calibre is right now). Offering some improvements, problems that are fixed, etc. explicitly could help users make a jump or understand their options better.
That's absolutely a nice to have, though -- free software for the sake of free software is excellent, and always justification enough.
Because if you want to "sell" your software so that people download the application and even contribute to the project, you should give them a reason. Otherwise, why would someone use this (or even bother to take a look at it) instead of an alternative that is decade-old and trusted?
Not all must be bad though. New communities and new things often allow more room for changes. Old communities often don't want to change, because "it's always been this way" or something similar. Not everything needs change, but if new ideas and new requirements have no space at all, you can't "blame" others for building new communities to accommodate those ideas and requirements.
Well that's fine, that's a perfectly good rationale, but it would be helpful to actually state it. Once it's out there with some effort to get other people's attention, why not say what is supposed to make it interesting? I like Calibre even if its UI is a bit quirky. It's not perfect and I'd look into something new if there is a concrete reason to do so, but I have better things to do than investigate every possibility without such reasons.
>Why should they have to justify providing free software?
They don't, but they have to be honest about what they're presenting. There's this shitty motte-and-bailey situation in open source where their website ( https://librumreader.com/ ) looks like marketing for a serious application - but the moment you treat it like a serious application, people are like "it's free, why are you treating it like a serious application?".
Look:
>Simplicity
>Focus on what actually matters, using a simple and straight forward interface.
>Your time is too valuable to be wasted on complex applications.
What does the tone here convey? Is it "this is just a cool project I wrote"?
That does seem to at least communicate the selling point: it's simpler and more convenient to use than Calibre, which has a notoriously clunky and unintuitive interface.
This sounds great. I personally like to use SyncThing/MobiusSync to sync my devices, then I use Okulus or KyBook to read. It’s a bit clunky but only because Apple is a closed system.
A side question. I recently rediscovered my very old collection of pdf books (also in form of images, txt and some other formats). Are there tools to manage these collections? Ideally those tools should maintain the folder names and hierarchy as well so that I don't solely depend on the tool.
Calibre [0] for sure uses its own structure. Perhaps Readarr [1] lets you keep your own structure? I am not sure because I haven't started using it yet (waiting for something more stable/out of beta).
Oh this looks like it could be what I was looking for a couple months ago. I wanted something like Calibre that could store the database on a server while properly handling multiple clients. Definitely going to try Librum out.
A lot of my ebooks are sitting in Apple Books for the convenience of syncing, this looks like it has the ability to do better library management and metadata editing. Fingers crossed it continues to thrive.
I see some discussions here proposing this as a Calibre replacement, but how can a frontend to a cloud service replace genuine desktop software?