Best cross-platform e-reader: BookFusion?

[Quoth]

Loads of Android ereaders are better than Moonreader. If the epub is badly formatted it needs fixed. KOReader is also better than Moonreader.

If you want TTS, then Pocketbook for Android greater than 4.x, otherwise Lithium, which will install on 4.x and higher if enough memory. Aldiko Basic used to work well on rubbish Android 4.x with not enough memory for Lithium.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Faterson

iPad was just the first truly usable tablet.

Originally Posted by Quoth

No. Nothing like.

Yeah, right. In my region of the world, there's this saying (used to describe persons making manifestly false statements with huge confidence):

"Everyone around me is crazy – it's just me who's an airplane."

Originally Posted by BookCat

Proof reading and editing are normally done on Word.

Yup, and human transportation was normally done by buggies drawn by horses.

But, you know, it's 2022 today. There are more efficient ways to proofread than to plague yourself and/or your client with Word documents.

Word is office software, but books, by definition, are no office documents. At most, they can be MS Office documents (which is a different thing), but they definitely don't have to be that (during the writing or proofreading process).

I write creatively myself, and I wouldn't dream of using such a heavy-handed, unwieldy behemoth of software as MS Word to do that. It's like shooting sparrows with cannons.

(For creative writing, I use Standard Notes; and for drafts of my creative writing, I use Dynalist.)

Originally Posted by DNSB

Unless you dig into it's menus, Moon+ Reader does not respect the CSS.

You know, as I mentioned previously, I don't really care if Moon (or any other e-reader) "respects the CSS".

To me, that's a technocratic way of looking at things. Egotistic, if you will: publisher-oriented, rather than reader-oriented.

As I mentioned, the first thing I do after opening any EPUB book, is to override the publisher's settings and preferences.

So, why exactly should it be important for e-reader software to "respect the publisher's CSS" if I don't wish to see it anyway?

Nope: what I care about is a nice, elegant display of the e-books I read.

Because I spend dozens of hours reading a particular book by intently looking at it, a nice display of the text is my no. 1 priority when choosing e-reader software.

I know of no e-reader, on any platform, in which books currently look more beautiful than in Moon+ Reader Pro. If you know of such software, please be specific and I'll be happy to test it.

Originally Posted by DNSB

I read several books where Moon+'s display of the page was pathetic.

I believe you. If I encounter books like that in Moon as well, of course I'll be re-evaluating my assessment of Moon. Because I have not had such experience as you do, in my 10+ years of using Moon as my main Android e-reader, I'm sticking with it for now (and consider it 4-star software), despite all its flaws, just as I'm sticking with Marvin on iOS for now, despite all its even greater flaws.

But I'm ready to move on from both, if a better option presents itself – ideally a cross-platform e-reader. That's why I launched this thread.

Can BookFusion be that new option that exceeds both Moon and Marvin in quality? Maybe. The future will show. Right now, BookFusion is below both Moon and Marvin, in my experience. (And I'll post a brief list of reasons as to why, later on in this thread.)

Originally Posted by DNSB

Then we have issues with fixed layout ePubs.

To each his or her own but, you know, to me a "fixed-layout e-book" is an aberration.

I define an e-book as: here is a freely reflowable text whose looks I can customize to my own (not the publishers') liking.

Yeah, there can be some components within e-books that require a fixed layout, such as tables, for example, but those tend to be rare exceptions, in my experience.

If a publisher carefully specifies, within CSS, the looks of a table and its fixed layout, yet Moon+ Reader throws all of it out the window and displays the table in a totally different way, I don't really care: as long as the table still remains readable on a comparable level with the original, with all meaning-carrying components intact, and is nice to look at. That's really all that counts for me.

If you're a publisher who spent hours carefully adjusting that CSS, and then you see Moon+ Reader disregard it, I understand this can be terribly frustrating for you as a publisher. But as a reader, I don't really care.

In contrast, I'll give you an example of what I find totally unacceptable in Moon+ Reader – one of the reasons why it's 4-star software to me, not 5 stars. It's a major flaw that it shares with Marvin, BookFusion and others.

Upon highlights/annotations export, Moon+ Reader (and Marvin, and BookFusion...) converts all highlights to plain-text. (Moon and Marvin don't even respect paragraph breaks upon highlights export; BookFusion at least does that, but that's not enough.)

See, that is something that is truly unacceptable. No e-reader software can aspire to be called "professional" if it mangles highlights (converts them to plain-text) upon their export.

That's because features like italic or bold are ways of communicating the writer's meaning. If you remove the author's emphasis from his or her text, the exported text is no longer authentic. It can no longer be used in any scholarly or professional setting.

So, yeah, that's what I deeply do care about and what I find unacceptable: corrupting the original writer's meaning. But ignoring the publisher's CSS? Go ahead for all I care, as long as it doesn't affect the writer's meaning and as long as the resulting e-book is a joy to look at.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Loads of Android ereaders are better than Moonreader.

Such as?

Originally Posted by Quoth

KOReader is also better than Moonreader.

What "KOReader", please? I can find no such app in the App Store. Please post a specific link if you can.

Originally Posted by Quoth

If you want TTS

Nope, zero interest. (I don't consider audio-"books" real books, just as I don't consider listening to books "reading" them. Books – unless they're lullaby fairytales for infants – are typically meant to be read, not to be listened to.)

Originally Posted by Quoth

Pocketbook for Android

It's OK, but decidedly inferior compared to Moon+ Reader, in terms of elegance of display of e-books. And that's my no. 1 priority, along with preserving the writer's original meaning, as explained above.

The display customization options available in PocketBook are downright pitiful compared to Moon+ Reader, so it's no contest to me.

Originally Posted by Quoth

otherwise Lithium

Never tested so far, will give it a shot. Thanks for the recommendation.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Aldiko Basic used to work well

I did test Aldiko repeatedly and, again, it was decidedly inferior compared to Moon+ Reader, so I uninstalled it.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Android 4.x

Erm... any reason for you to be repeatedly mentioning Android 4.x as any sort of criterion? It's 2022 today, we're dealing with Android 12 this year, I believe, so why even mention ancient ruins like Android 4?

Anyway... to haul this thread back on track: its aim isn't to find the best Android e-reader, but the best cross-platform e-reader.

I'm grateful to my friend who emailed me the other day, because thanks to him I discovered PocketBook Cloud – a new feature, apparently, that did not exist yet when I purchased my hardware (and outstanding) e-ink PocketBook (740 InkPad 3) back in September 2018.

BookFusion developer, if you're perhaps lurking around here and reading this, I think PocketBook can really be a serious competitor for you.

Because whereas BookFusion limits you to 10 books for free usage (used to be 25, now only 10), PocketBook Cloud pretty much gives away 2 GB of free storage to every user, with no usage limitation at all.

Plus, of course, you can also purchase an e-ink PocketBook to give your eyes some rest, whereas there is no e-ink BookFusion e-reader.

So, I think BookFusion really needs to be a lot better than PocketBook, to counter all those advantages PocketBook is offering over BookFusion.

Right now, in terms of quality, BookFusion and PocketBook strike me as pretty similar. Meaning: perhaps tolerable, but not outstanding. They also share some of the same flaws: the main flaw being the impossibility to annotate image-based PDF files in any way. But whereas such a flaw can be tolerated in completely free software such as PocketBook, it's hard to justify paying a three-digit annual subscription price and still encounter such functionality gaps.

By the way, that PocketBook Cloud functionality isn't (for now) available on that e-ink PocketBook I purchased back in September 2018. But inside comments below a YouTube video, I managed to unearth a statement by PocketBook techsupport, saying that if anyone wishes to enable PocketBook Cloud on an older e-ink device, they should simply e-mail PocketBook's techsupport, along with the serial number of their device, and they will do their best to enable PocketBook Cloud remotely even on such an older e-ink device. So, I'm looking forward to that.

SUMMARY. From what I can see, there are basically these 4 candidates for cross-platform ereader use:

• Kindle
• Google Play Books
• PocketBook
• BookFusion

(Perhaps Kobo might be added to the list, if it also offers a desktop app?)

Right now, I find none of the 4 (or 5) options listed above really usable. Kindle and Play Books are too elementary, offering next to no display customization. PocketBook seems only slightly better in this regard. BookFusion says it wants to outdo both Moon+ Reader and Marvin in terms of customization options one day, but for now, these are just intentions, not reality. And all the options listed above currently share certain huge flaws, such as the inability to annotate image-based PDF files.

What it comes down to for me is this: out of the 4-5 options listed above, where is it most realistic for us to expect improvement?

And I say, it appears that BookFusion is the most realistic candidate.

There's practically zero chance to expect Kindle or Play Books to improve substantially. As corporate software, they despise power users. They couldn't care less about our demands for advanced customization, etc.

Kobo and PocketBook are fairly large brands, too (PocketBook, I think, was originally launched by a Russian in Switzerland), so is it likely they would wish to cater to the demands of the tiny minority of power users? I don't think so, I'm afraid.

It's really ironic, isn't it? Logically, one might expect that the larger the software corporation, the higher the quality of the software it puts out!

In reality, it's frequently pretty much the reverse. The larger a software corporation is, the higher the probability it will ignore your specific demands, and laugh you off as a hopeless and annoying geek.

For every dissatisfied geek user of corporate software, there are hundreds of happy users of that same software, with modest demands. So, corporations don't give a damn about geeks of the variety frequenting these MobileRead boards.

That's the sad state of affairs among e-reader apps, and that is, I believe, the reason why, in my estimation, no professional-grade e-reader app currently exists on this planet.

Nope, not a single 5-star app. Moon+ Reader Pro with its 4 stars might currently be the best of them all (as I perceive it).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Faterson

So, why exactly should it be important for e-reader software to "respect the publisher's CSS" if I don't wish to see it anyway?

As for me, because I edit the css until it looks exactly the way I want. And after I've done editing I want the app to respect that.

As to why I edit instead of using app/device overrides: because I read on different devices and have read on many different devices/in different apps over the years. I have no wish whatsoever to fiddle with the settings every time I open a new book or switch devices. I want all my books to look more or less the same on any device I use.

[Faterson]

That's where we differ, Sirtel.

I, in fact, enjoy that the same book looks different depending on the device I happen to be reading it on, although the text is the same. I can enjoy the same book in Moon on Tuesday, and in Marvin on Friday, and it's a slightly different experience every time.

It's comparable, in the world of printed books, to various editions of the same book. Would we really wish for (as an example) every single printed edition of the Bible to look exactly the same – in every edition ever printed? Not me!

I enjoy the variety, under the 2 crucial conditions mentioned above: as long as the original writer's meaning is preserved; and the resulting book is a joy to look at. There can be many varieties of joy!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Faterson

That's where we differ, Sirtel.

I, in fact, enjoy that the same book looks different depending on the device I happen to be reading it on, although the text is the same. I can enjoy the same book in Moon on Tuesday, and in Marvin on Friday, and it's a slightly different experience every time.

It's comparable, in the world of printed books, to various editions of the same book. Would we really wish for (as an example) every single printed edition of the Bible to look exactly the same – in every edition ever printed? Not me!

I enjoy the variety, under the 2 crucial conditions mentioned above: as long as the original writer's meaning is preserved; and the resulting book is a joy to look at. There can be many varieties of joy!

My preferences as to how I want the text to look (font size, font type, margins, line-spacing, text-indent) are pretty narrow. I want the text to look just right for me and as it usually takes time to get it look that way via overrides (plus I hate fiddling with them all the time), I edit the css.

And yeah, I didn't like the way many, many paper books looked. Font was too small/too big/too pale or just ugly, line-height was too small/too large and so on. With ebooks I can have them all look exactly as I want. That is far more important to me than variety. I'm pretty anal that way.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I want the text to look just right for me and as it usually takes time to get it look that way via overrides (plus I hate fiddling with them all the time), I edit the css.

That's surprising to hear for me, because I'd expect "fiddling with CSS" to take more time than "fiddling with overrides" in this or that e-reader...

Which is exactly why I insist on maximum possible customizability to be made available for us in the e-reader app itself. Precisely so that we don't need to fiddle with CSS manually. That's the last thing I have time for in my busy life.

Adjusting CSS manually, or checking whether CSS is precisely reflected by an e-reader app – that's something straight for techies, for geeks, or for e-book creators/publishers.

I suspect there must be an outsized proportion of geeks and/or e-book creators/publishers contributing on these MobileRead boards, given the forceful and (to me) overblown criticism of Moon+ Reader we get to hear sometimes in these threads.

This is why I praise Moon+ Reader (and Marvin) so much: their customization options are so rich and advanced that it usually takes just a few taps for me to get any book to look just the way I wish to see it for the many hours of reading that are to follow. Even without "fiddling with CSS" manually.

Yep, if I was forced to use e-reader software with very limited customization options (such as Kindle, Play Books, or basically any e-ink reader, I'm afraid...), then I guess I would feel the necessity to "fiddle with CSS" as well. But I'm very happy that Moon+ Reader and Marvin make this a non-issue for me. If BookFusion can one day match the customization options offered by Moon & Marvin, that will be just great.

Yeah, the resulting look of the e-book tends to be sometimes pretty different between Moon and Marvin, and I admit I'm sometimes surprised by Moon's renderings, but so what, as long as the writer's meaning is still fully preserved and the book looks great? Let's get to the really important stuff: reading the book.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Faterson

That's surprising to hear for me, because I'd expect "fiddling with CSS" to take more time than "fiddling with overrides" in this or that e-reader...

Not really, or only a tiny bit.

More importantly, when I start reading, I want to relax and just read, not dive into the settings trying to get the text look right. When I edit the css, I do it at the same time I edit the book metadata in Calibre and usually I'm in the mood for tinkering then. I do a bunch of books all at once, then I transfer some to my ereaders and that's it. Later on I can just open a book on the reader and read, without touching the settings.

Of course editing the css is not everyone's cup of tea and there aren't even that many people here who do it regularly. I've found it suits me more than other methods, though.

Yep, if I was forced to use e-reader software with very limited customization options (such as Kindle, Play Books, or basically any e-ink reader, I'm afraid...)

Many Kobo users install KOReader on their Kobo. KOReader has as many customization options as Moon Reader, if not more. I don't use KOReader myself. I've tried it, but prefer the native reading application.

[skillachie]

Hi Faterson,

Thank you for taking the platform for a spin and providing significant details about how you typically read.

We had to spend sometime writing from scratch core EPUB libraries across iOS, Android and Web to allow us to provide the experience power readers expect. Took us longer than anticipated but we are dedicated to our mission.

Well, perhaps there's some hope on the horizon. I've recently become aware of the cross-platform e-reader BookFusion, and I've been giving it a test drive on all 3 platforms (iPads, Android, web/Windows).

It's not "there" yet by any means (Moon+ Reader Pro is currently still clearly better on Android, and Marvin or MapleRead are currently still clearly better on iOS), but it certainly appears to be moving in the right direction! For one thing, it has those lofty cross-platform ambitions that Moon Reader or Marvin never even aspired to

Our Android app currently lags the features on iOS but we are actively releasing updates every 1-2 months. You can expect to see the same highlights and annotations functionality you see in iOS on Android in 4-8 weeks.

Curious though, for the iOS app what do you find lacking when compared to Marvin 3? We would like to ensure we have these critical items on our backlog.

The free plan in BookFusion is fairly limiting, and anyway, I can't possibly use BookFusion as my only e-reader at this point. There are several showstoppers for me – the main being, just like in Kindle and Google Play Books, the inability to annotate image-based PDF files via freehand drawing. But whereas I have zero hope that Kindle or Play Books will ever implement this feature (they are corporate software, after all, and so they despise users who ask for advanced features and customizability; they couldn't care less about them, because power users always only constitute a tiny proportion of their gigantic user base!), I do trust that it's possible for BookFusion to implement this crucial missing feature (and others) at a future point that is not all too distant.

You can start annotating OCR and Image based PDFs today using area/image based highlights. You can do this today by by right clicking on the PDF in the Web app. This feature is currently on the Web only but will be rolled out to iOS and Android soon.

See Area/Image based highlights mentioned at https://blog.bookfusion.com/web-app-...tions-updates/ . We will also support free hand form highlights at a later date but wanted to point out it is possible to annotate OCR based PDFs today.

I was surprised and delighted, however, that there is one feature where BookFusion, even at this rather early point in its development, excels over all the other e-reader apps. So, in fact, I do use BookFusion as my main e-reader (on both Android and iPads) for one of the books I'm currently reading. (I used to say, "I always read 7 books simultaneously", but nowadays, it's truer to say "I always read at least 12 books simultaneously".)

This is great to hear.

Before I found BookFusion, I was forced to resort to pretty desparate measures: using two various apps side-by-side (Moon & BookEra on Android; Marvin and its clone Marvin SxS on iPads), just to somehow manipulate the text so that I can see French on the left, English on the right.

See my tweet from back in July on this. Among other things, the screenshots there prove that e-books do look a lot better in Moon+ Reader and in Marvin than they currently do in BookFusion... But in this instance, functionality trumps looks for me (because as soon as you flip a page in Moon or Marvin, all the French & English gets mixed up – unlike in BookFusion), and so I switched to BookFusion for good, for reading this particular bilingual book.

Hehe did you use the same font style , margin, line space & background colors? See now reason why it should look significantly different

As a token of my gratitude, I subscribed to BookFusion's lowest paid annual plan (around €19), even though I'll probably only be using BookFusion to read this particular bilingual book and nothing else, which would be perfectly possible in the free version as well. In a year from now, I'll reconsider my subscription – if BookFusion makes substantial progress within the next 12 months, I'll be happy to prolong. I do believe developers should be rewarded for their efforts, and if the day comes when BookFusion satisfies all my reading

Thank you for the support. Let us know your top 3 -5 asks that you would like to see done in the next 6 - 12 months . We can start with the gaps from Marvin 3 once you get back.

I think the BookFusion developer is lurking somewhere around these MobileRead forums, and I hope my feedback from this post will be useful for him. To make it even more useful, in a later post in this thread, I'll be specifically listing all the showstoppers but also lesser deficiencies that currently make it impossible for me to consider BookFusion my main (let alone my only) e-reader.

Indeed, we try to keep our ear to the ground and try to engage with passionate readers when we can. Looking forward to the later post, we take everything as constructive feedback so please be candid with your responses . You won't hurt our feelings.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

More importantly, when I start reading, I want to relax and just read, not dive into the settings trying to get the text look right.

Same for me. All I'm saying is that this goal is usually accomplished for me with a few taps in Moon and Marvin customization settings after I initially load the book for the first time... Then I'm "off and running/reading", even though the book may not look identical in Moon and Marvin, but I don't mind that.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Many Kobo users install KOReader on their Kobo.

Ah, so it's not an Android app, and only available on Kobo readers, right? I simply can't see any KOReader in Google Play Store for Android.

(The last e-ink Kobo device I owned was about 7 years ago, but I'd never heard of any KOReader until @Quoth mentioned it earlier in this thread. Since it seems unavailable for Android, I'm unable to test it. And, anyway, I'm more motivated to test new cross-platform e-readers, such as BookFusion, rather than new Android-only or Kobo-only e-readers...)

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Ah, so it's not an Android app, and only available on Kobo readers, right? I simply can't see any KOReader in Google Play Store for Android.

(The last e-ink Kobo device I owned was about 7 years ago, but I'd never heard of any KOReader until @Quoth mentioned it earlier in this thread. Since it seems unavailable for Android, I'm unable to test it. And, anyway, I'm more motivated to test new cross-platform e-readers, such as BookFusion, rather than new Android-only or Kobo-only e-readers...)

There is an Android version of KOReader too, AFAIK. I don't know if it's available in the Playstore, though.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

There is an Android version of KOReader too, AFAIK. I don't know if it's available in the Playstore, though.

It turns out it's not. I've now managed to locate KOReader's homepage, under the witty address koreader.rocks, and it explicitly says KOReader isn't available in the Play Store.

Installation instructions for Android are posted on GitHub:

https://github.com/koreader/koreader...ndroid-devices

I don't really mind such workarounds, so perhaps I'll be giving it a try, but I'm not as motivated to test KOReader as I am to test BookFusion, because there is no KOReader for iOS or Windows.

Originally Posted by skillachie

We had to spend sometime writing from scratch core EPUB libraries across iOS, Android and Web to allow us to provide the experience power readers expect. Took us longer than anticipated but we are dedicated to our mission.

That's great to hear!

Originally Posted by skillachie

Curious though, for the iOS app what do you find lacking when compared to Marvin 3?

I'm preparing a list of issues for you (currently only available as a draft in Dynalist, the outlining software I use), and will post it later in this thread as soon as I find a minute to make the list more organized.

Originally Posted by skillachie

You can start annotating OCR and Image based PDFs today using area/image based highlights. You can do this today by by right clicking on the PDF in the Web app. This feature is currently on the Web only but will be rolled out to iOS and Android soon.

Ah, thanks! I read about that new feature in your changelog, and so I was mystified to find that it doesn't work on iOS or Android.

So it's there on the web for now. Curiously, that's where it's probably least needed (I don't really use the web/desktop for reading books; only for processing annotations made earlier on handheld devices), but I get that you need to start implementing new features somewhere, so it's perfectly OK and understandable if a new feature is first only available on the web, and only later on iOS and Android. I'll be patient!

By the way, it goes (yet again) to the credit of Moon+ Reader that it at least attempts to make the annotation of image-based PDF files possible, but this functionality in Moon is rather unpolished. For example, the thickest drawing line supported by Moon is still too thin for highlighting in certain books. So, there can be pitfalls when implementing this feature.

Originally Posted by Faterson

See my tweet from back in July on this. Among other things, the screenshots there prove that e-books do look a lot better in Moon+ Reader and in Marvin than they currently do in BookFusion...

Originally Posted by skillachie

Hehe did you use the same font style , margin, line space & background colors? See no reason why it should look significantly different

Nope, I didn't use the same ones, and that's one of the features sorely missing in BookFusion currently, when compared to Marvin and especially Moon: background textures.

Please take a look at Moon+ Reader: it's absolutely terrific and exemplary, in the way it makes it possible to set up background textures (custom-uploaded user pictures, too!) for reading your books.

BookFusion (as far as I can see) currently only supports solid background colors, and that's no match for Moon's and Marvin's background textures.

Marvin lags behind Moon in that it doesn't make custom background textures possible, only those provided by the app, but at least there's something other than solid-color backgrounds... I kept requesting custom background textures from Kris, but this feature simply never got implemented in Marvin while it was still in development.

BookFusion must match Moon's functionality in this respect if it hopes to compete with Moon.

It seems impossible for me to overstate the importance of custom background textures – as mentioned earlier, you spend dozens of hours intently looking at the book while reading it, so it makes a huge difference whether what you're looking at is pleasant to look at or not. And sorry, but I just find all solid-background colors too dull and unattractive; it's "custom background textures or bust" for me.

Also, I don't think BookFusion currently makes it possible to use custom fonts. Yeah, there's a pretty nice selection of fonts in BookFusion, but custom fonts are custom fonts. Once again, Moon+ Reader absolutely shines in this department, and you can load as many custom fonts in Moon as you wish. I expect nothing less from BookFusion.

Those are a couple of missing features to start with (oh: and let's mention Marvin's fabulous feature of full customization of data in headers and footers!), and I'll get back to you with the list ASAP.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Faterson

It turns out it's not. I've now managed to locate KOReader's homepage, under the witty address koreader.rocks, and it explicitly says KOReader isn't available in the Play Store.

Installation instructions for Android are posted on GitHub:

https://github.com/koreader/koreader...ndroid-devices

You contradict yourself.

It's actually easy to install the APK from Git, so KOReader is supported on Android. The Playstore needs a Google Account and active internet connection at install time on the device.

I installed KOReader on the Android Mars by using its native browser to download and then installed it. Very simple.

There are Android things that need Playstore and shouldn't:
1) Accessibility: Google Speech Engine & Android Accessibility Suite. Downloading the Speech packs doesn't use the store.
2) Security / Feature upgrades to built in OS (and Google apps you can't uninstall).

Unlike Apple, most Android phones and tablets can install without the Playstore. I've not found one yet that can't.

[Quoth]

Background textures must be about the most pointless ereader app feature ever.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You contradict yourself.

Please read more carefully. I said KOReader isn't available in the Play Store, and it isn't; and I said it can be installed via GitHub/side-loading, and it can. No contradiction.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Background textures must be about the most pointless ereader app feature ever.

... for you. Please don't present your personal opinions as if they were natural law. To me, it's a crucial feature, and I explained a couple of times, above, why it is crucial.

Quoth, you appear to be specializing in publishing outrageous opinions in this thread, held probably by only yourself and no one else on this planet, such as that the first iPad of 2010 was not a breakthrough in tablet usability.

I don't claim that custom background textures is a must-have feature for everyone. But it is for me, and for me to switch from Moon or Marvin (that do support background textures) to an e-reader that does not support them, is out of the question. I'd rather stick with Moon & Marvin till the day I die.

I'd point out that it's important for an e-reader app not only to support custom background textures, but also to make it very easy to save all those customized themes, and to switch among them on demand and on-the-fly very quickly.

Marvin is not very good in this (it only allows you to save no more than five customized themes), but once again, Moon+ Reader's treatment of custom themes is superb, pretty much flawless, so I would recommend for @skillachie to take a good look at Moon's treatment of custom themes and, if possible, replicate that functionality in BookFusion.

So, for me to become an annual BookFusion subscriber on a higher tier, introducing custom background textures, and custom fonts, and customized headers and footers (long-established Moon and/or Marvin features), plus fixing current bugs (such as the forceful conversion of highlights to plain-text upon export), plus adding currently missing functionality (such as annotating image-based PDF files: already available on the web in BookFusion) – all of those (and more, to be specified later in a list) are a must for me, if I am to switch to BookFusion "full-time".

[Quoth]

I've read your posts carefully.
I think people can see which are the outrageous opinions.

I said KOReader isn't available in the Play Store,

I never disagreed with that. You strongly implied it wasn't available for Android. Android isn't iOS. It's totally trivial to install KOReader on Android.

The epubs are cross-platform unless there is DRM. There are many different Apps and physical ereaders and programs for Mac, Windows and iOS that work perfectly well and are similar to use. There is no value in renting an app to read ebooks. Some of your requirements are unusual or niche.
Almost everyone wants as plain a background as possible on paper, and evenly lit or contrast on eink, LCD, OLED. Coloured and/or textured backgrounds are either tiring novelty for most people, or hide how poor a screen is. Some people want white text on black which certainly saves a lot of power on OLED.

How much research and GUI programming have you done?

Don't expect people to spend a lot of time researching niche requirements specific to what you want.