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

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by skillachie

Is this in the iOS, Android or Web app? Would you mind sharing this EPUB via DM or support@bookfusion.com . Would help us to replicate and resolve this issue.

This is in the latest iOS using an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

I'll send you this eBook tomorrow. Thanks.

[Wiggo]

Hi skillachie

If you can remember, you may also remember that I used to be a big critic of BookFusion. But then things changed for the better and almost a year ago I thought that something like this should be supported and I became a casual subscriber.

Now I haven't read much this year, but I like BookFusion more and more. Of course, there is still room for improvement on iOS, including an old acquaintance.

Lookup:
Here you can see the difference between BF and Marvin . BF is dictionary only, Marvin is dictionary + 'Siri'.



To understand this, we take the BookFusion website and change the setting in iOS.

'Siri on'


'Siri off'


I would be more than happy if 'Siri on' would also work in BookFusion

Back and forth
Unfortunately, you can only go back at the moment. Back and forward would be great to switch between two pages.

Image tab
And now something to inspire you from Marvin.
Marvin has a tab in the overview where all the images in the book are listed. Super handy to quickly call up a map or something like that.


Annots colour
Is ist possible to delete the additional colours I made?


My preferred priority would be in the same order as above.

Many thanks for listening
Wiggo


Edit: I forgot to mention that a displayed clock would also be great

[graatch]

Pace of development is a little underwhelming given the premium subscription expense of this service. I'm not sure I'll be reupping if I don't see some development in the coming half-year. Inline footnote display is really important

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by graatch

Pace of development is a little underwhelming given the premium subscription expense of this service. I'm not sure I'll be reupping if I don't see some development in the coming half-year. Inline footnote display is really important

There is a release practically every month:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...nnouncement%22
  
• https://blog.bookfusion.com

We don't copy release notes to MobileRead any longer .

We understand that inline footnotes are really important to you, while another set of features are really important to another user and so on. However, we look at all the requests in aggregate from ALL readers and incorporate that in our roadmap. Inline footnotes are on the roadmap but it is not planned for this year. It is a 2025 item.

We really do appreciate the support but If it is a significant deal breaker for you then we agree and suggest to not resubscribe until that feature is available for you to get enough value from the platform.


Many users might be used to a lot faster development cycle that is done by other apps that use react-native, electron or other web based wrapper platforms that use a single code base with minor modifications across all platforms. However, at BookFusion we take the fully native approach where each platform or feature is implemented natively in their respective language and framework which takes significantly longer. In a gist we have found that it is best to not take the fast food approach when developing software for reading that needs to be performant.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Hi skillachie

If you can remember, you may also remember that I used to be a big critic of BookFusion. But then things changed for the better and almost a year ago I thought that something like this should be supported and I became a casual subscriber.

Now I haven't read much this year, but I like BookFusion more and more. Of course, there is still room for improvement on iOS, including an old acquaintance.

Hi Wiggo,

Yes, I remember indeed, you are a tough one so this means a lot coming from you. Thank you for the feedback and also the support! We aim to continuously improve.


Lookup:

Here you can see the difference between BF and Marvin . BF is dictionary only, Marvin is dictionary + 'Siri'.

Attachment 211004 Attachment 211005

To understand this, we take the BookFusion website and change the setting in iOS.

'Siri on'
Attachment 211006 Attachment 211007

'Siri off'
Attachment 211009 Attachment 211008

I would be more than happy if 'Siri on' would also work in BookFusion

We will look into this further and see if we can include it in the next release . Had assumed it was done based on system settings as we integrated into the lookup function provided by iOS


Back and forth

Unfortunately, you can only go back at the moment. Back and forward would be great to switch between two pages.

This is feedback related to when you jump to different places in the book using hyperlinks, toc and other links correct?


Image tab

And now something to inspire you from Marvin.
Marvin has a tab in the overview where all the images in the book are listed. Super handy to quickly call up a map or something like that.
Attachment 211014

Thanks for providing the use case of the overview of the extracted images view. Added it as an item on the backlog

Annots colour

Is ist possible to delete the additional colours I made?
Attachment 211013

The platform automatically keeps the last used 5 colors and will automatically remove the rest. As a result a delete option is not provided here to provide a good balance of power reader features but with a simpler UI/UX complexity

Custom bottom and top toolbars

Edit: I forgot to mention that a displayed clock would also be great

Yes, we have this item on our backlog to look at.


Thanks again for the feedback

[skillachie]

Introducing the BookFusion Notion Integration: Seamlessly Sync Your eBook Highlights & Annotations to Notion

More details at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...n_integration/

or

https://blog.bookfusion.com/introduc...ons-to-notion/

[skillachie]

BookFusion iOS 1.36.0 – Quality of Life Improvements, Fixes & Start of Branch Integration


https://blog.bookfusion.com/bookfusi...h-integration/

or

https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/..._improvements/

[Wiggo]

Originally Posted by skillachie

Hi Wiggo,

Yes, I remember indeed, you are a tough one so this means a lot coming from you. Thank you for the feedback and also the support! We aim to continuously improve.

You're very welcome!

Back and forth

This is feedback related to when you jump to different places in the book using hyperlinks, toc and other links correct?

Correct, and using bookmarks or search. Speaking of search - highlighting the current result in the search window would also be nice (e.g. bold font)

Annots colour

The platform automatically keeps the last used 5 colors and will automatically remove the rest. As a result a delete option is not provided here to provide a good balance of power reader features but with a simpler UI/UX complexity

Got it.

A few more things that came to my mind:

• In-app font installer, or adding Arvo font

• Choosing which sync from which device, or a small sync history.
  For example, I'm reading a book on my iPad at home - so far, so good. Then I'm travelling with my iPhone and quickly look something up in the glossary, but forget to return to the synced page. Back at home, I can't continue reading seamlessly because the glossary from the iPhone is synced

• Customizing paragraph indentation

• Finer graduated paragraph spacing

And I found a bug - the chapter heading
Left Marvin (and also Calibre), right BF



I have attached the scrambled book

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

You're very welcome!


Correct, and using bookmarks or search. Speaking of search - highlighting the current result in the search window would also be nice (e.g. bold font)


Got it.

A few more things that came to my mind:

• In-app font installer, or adding Arvo font

• Choosing which sync from which device, or a small sync history.
  For example, I'm reading a book on my iPad at home - so far, so good. Then I'm travelling with my iPhone and quickly look something up in the glossary, but forget to return to the synced page. Back at home, I can't continue reading seamlessly because the glossary from the iPhone is synced

• Customizing paragraph indentation

• Finer graduated paragraph spacing

And I found a bug - the chapter heading
Left Marvin (and also Calibre), right BF

Attachment 211136 Attachment 211137

I have attached the scrambled book

1.In-app font installer, or adding Arvo font


You can already install custom fonts system wide using iFonts or any other font installer based application. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ifont-...t/id1173222289 .

We decided to support custom fonts using Apples update guidelines when integrating user based fonts inside apps.

https://support.apple.com/guide/ipho...hb2517689c/ios

Since we already support fonts installed via system and this can already be done by Apple and several other apps we found it best to focus development on other aspects of the platform.

In a gist, you can already install your Arvo or any other font today already. Unfortunately, we won't be building a local font installer inside BookFusion


2. Choosing which sync from which device, or a small sync history.

Thank you for explaining the scenario when the automatic sync might not be ideal. We added an item on the backlog to provide a sync history. This will allow you to quickly select where you want to start from if the automatic sync was not ideal. This will be better than keeping track of different devices which we would prefer not to do.

3.Customizing paragraph indentation


To be honest, we have not received this one before. Were you able to do this in Marvin or another reading app?


4. Finer graduated paragraph spacing


Got it. We will improve this further in the next release.



We will also have a TestFlight build that we will reach out to you with that will have some of your previous feedback addressed.

[skillachie]

Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...start_of_eink/

or

Blog: https://blog.bookfusion.com/bookfusi...vements-fixes/

[readabit]

Originally Posted by skillachie

2. Choosing which sync from which device, or a small sync history.

Thank you for explaining the scenario when the automatic sync might not be ideal. We added an item on the backlog to provide a sync history. This will allow you to quickly select where you want to start from if the automatic sync was not ideal. This will be better than keeping track of different devices which we would prefer not to do.

I'm also a fan of this idea for a Sync History, for the same reasons as already mentioned.

And I just had a thought: What if you provided a Navigation History and you synced that? You undoubtedly already have something like this internally for when the user is traversing a book within the app (eg, in order to enable the user to Go Back in some fashion when they've jumped to a different part of the book). What if you stored and synced the last X (perhaps 40?) Navigation entries for each book, and provided an intuitive UI exposing this the user? This would be useful both for the original-mentioned Sync History problem, but also useful for day-to-day use when sometimes a user might have jumped around a book a bit and be having trouble finding their way back to where they were. Heck, you could even build in an option to create Bookmarks for any Navigation entry (in addition to the current UI for creating Bookmarks).

Just some ideas!

[Wiggo]

Originally Posted by skillachie

1.In-app font installer, or adding Arvo font


You can already install custom fonts system wide using iFonts or any other font installer based application. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ifont-...t/id1173222289 .

We decided to support custom fonts using Apples update guidelines when integrating user based fonts inside apps.

https://support.apple.com/guide/ipho...hb2517689c/ios

Since we already support fonts installed via system and this can already be done by Apple and several other apps we found it best to focus development on other aspects of the platform.

In a gist, you can already install your Arvo or any other font today already. Unfortunately, we won't be building a local font installer inside BookFusion

But to be honest, since I've only been reading with BookFusion, I've got used to Bookerly.

2. Choosing which sync from which device, or a small sync history.

Thank you for explaining the scenario when the automatic sync might not be ideal. We added an item on the backlog to provide a sync history. This will allow you to quickly select where you want to start from if the automatic sync was not ideal. This will be better than keeping track of different devices which we would prefer not to do.

Sync history would be fantastic

3.Customizing paragraph indentation


To be honest, we have not received this one before. Were you able to do this in Marvin or another reading app?

Yes, Marvin and MapleRead. Standard indentation in BF is bit too small for me

4. Finer graduated paragraph spacing


Got it. We will improve this further in the next release.

Thx

We will also have a TestFlight build that we will reach out to you with that will have some of your previous feedback addressed.

Thank you very much, appreciate it.

P.S.: Was the scrambled book helpful?

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

P.S.: Was the scrambled book helpful?

Yes it was great. The only bad news here is that we noticed this particular issue seems to be due to how the EPUB was created and it would be more of an edge case.

Even in Marvin for custom background it does not work. Only with textures if I remember correctly. Also has issues in a number of other readers. This looks like an edge case and unfortunately we won't try to fix this one. If lots of books have this issue we can investigate further but it is not currently the case.

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Lookup:
Here you can see the difference between BF and Marvin . BF is dictionary only, Marvin is dictionary + 'Siri'.

Attachment 211004 Attachment 211005

To understand this, we take the BookFusion website and change the setting in iOS.

'Siri on'
Attachment 211006 Attachment 211007

'Siri off'
Attachment 211009 Attachment 211008

I would be more than happy if 'Siri on' would also work in BookFusion

The reason why this worked in Marvin was because they just used the system toolbar, meaning it had no form of customizations or development was done by Marvin to enable this . Based on the features such as the top 5 colors and others we have to use a custom toolbar .

In using the custom toolbar we use https://developer.apple.com/document...viewcontroller provided by Apple to show the definitions. Unfortunately Siri is not exposed in this way for dictionary lookups

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Back and forth
Unfortunately, you can only go back at the moment. Back and forward would be great to switch between two pages.

Image tab
And now something to inspire you from Marvin.
Marvin has a tab in the overview where all the images in the book are listed. Super handy to quickly call up a map or something like that.

Finer graduated paragraph spacing

All of these were addressed in the latest release.

Image tab is much more improved and better than Marvin since you can not only browse and swipe in a gallery view but you can immediately navigate to the page of that image.

[skillachie]

BookFusion iOS 1.36.2 - Image Gallery & Navigation, Quality of Life Improvements and


More details at https://www.reddit.com/r/BookFusion/...ry_navigation/