[EInk Browser v8.0] A new browser app for E-Ink devices

[Quoth]

The battery on DX is easily swapped. Nice static photos and text on the Web and I bought replacement from Asia about $12 and postage included. I did my similar DXG recently.

[WaltonTFrost]

Hi Daniel - I just received my new Boox Nova3 this weekend. My initial experience led me to believe that web browsing would be unsatisfactory on the device. Some digging around led me to this thread.

I wanted to thank you for your work on this app. It has made a HUGE difference in how much I enjoy using my new device. (So much so that I signed up for an account here just so I could thank you.) Your app solves all of the issues I was encountering - in particular the need to scroll on long pages.

If you have a Ko-Fi account or if there is some other means to provide monetary support for the project, please post the information.

Thanks again for your great work.

[Daniel Kao]

Originally Posted by WaltonTFrost

I wanted to thank you for your work on this app. It has made a HUGE difference in how much I enjoy using my new device. (So much so that I signed up for an account here just so I could thank you.) Your app solves all of the issues I was encountering - in particular the need to scroll on long pages.

If you have a Ko-Fi account or if there is some other means to provide monetary support for the project, please post the information.

Thanks again for your great work.

Hi, WaltonTFrost

I am glad that this app is of help to you too.
I was not satisfied with existing browsers on Eink devices for a long time, and that finally pushed me to implement EinkBro. I don't have Ko-Fi account (don't know what that is) nor build this app for money purpose; so no need for monetary support.

If you find any issues, feel free to leave a comment here, so that I can try to make this app better.

[Daniel Kao]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The battery on DX is easily swapped. Nice static photos and text on the Web and I bought replacement from Asia about $12 and postage included. I did my similar DXG recently.

wow, only $12. I should try to find a battery replacement too.

[Daniel Kao]

EinkBro is available on F-Droid now:
https://f-droid.org/packages/info.plateaukao.einkbro/

[Kuan]

Hello Daniel,

Hope you're well man!

Like WaltonTFrost, I've just created an account here to thank you, A LOT, for your impressive job with this eink browser.
It's sleek, it's light, it works very well on my eink devices. Love the fact that we can handle and change anything we want on the toolbar settings, love the icons. I'm so glad I saw the message on reddit talking about EinkBro and your job!

Good job!!!

I hate to be picky but you seem to be open to any suggestions (thanks as well for that) ... so... I was wondering if you could think about these options:
- Having the possibility to adjust the font on reader mode. At this moment, on my devices, on any article, when I switch to the reader mode, the font is way bigger than the actual article and everything is on bold. So, maybe you could think of an option to change the display on reader mode. If we could have more options on reader mode. It'd be awesome!
- Having the possibility to increase and decrease the font without the popin. At this moment, we have a button for "page up" and another for "page down". Maybe we could have a button for "font size +" and "font size -". I think it's easier if you want to switch.

Anyway, thank you Daniel! Your browser is now my default browser on all my devices

K.

[Daniel Kao]

Originally Posted by Kuan

Hello Daniel,

I hate to be picky but you seem to be open to any suggestions (thanks as well for that) ... so... I was wondering if you could think about these options:
- Having the possibility to adjust the font on reader mode. At this moment, on my devices, on any article, when I switch to the reader mode, the font is way bigger than the actual article and everything is on bold. So, maybe you could think of an option to change the display on reader mode. If we could have more options on reader mode. It'd be awesome!
- Having the possibility to increase and decrease the font without the popin. At this moment, we have a button for "page up" and another for "page down". Maybe we could have a button for "font size +" and "font size -". I think it's easier if you want to switch.


K.

Hello, K.

Thank you for creating an account here to thank me and give me feedback. (You can do that on Reddit too. ).

About Reader Mode, the font size is modified to be a bit smaller now; please try again. If it's not the case for your web contents, please use the font size dialog. I know it's not very convenient now. I will create font-size increase/decrease action as buttons soon, so that it's easier to quickly change font size.

As for font boldness. Did you turn on Bold Font option for normal web articles? For Reader Mode, I did not make font Bold on purpose; it should have the same font weight as the original article. If you still encounter this issue, please give me some sample websites that have this issue. I will check what went wrong.

Thank you again for writing comments here. Hope you can keep enjoying the Eink device with EinkBro App.

[Kuan]

Originally Posted by Daniel Kao

Hello, K.

Thank you for creating an account here to thank me and give me feedback. (You can do that on Reddit too. ).

About Reader Mode, the font size is modified to be a bit smaller now; please try again. If it's not the case for your web contents, please use the font size dialog. I know it's not very convenient now. I will create font-size increase/decrease action as buttons soon, so that it's easier to quickly change font size.

As for font boldness. Did you turn on Bold Font option for normal web articles? For Reader Mode, I did not make font Bold on purpose; it should have the same font weight as the original article. If you still encounter this issue, please give me some sample websites that have this issue. I will check what went wrong.

Thank you again for writing comments here. Hope you can keep enjoying the Eink device with EinkBro App.

Hello Daniel,

hope you had a lovely weekend.

Thanks for your quick reply and for taking your time to help the eink community with your work. I really appreciate! (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). I was wondering how did you manage to build a browser (but based on Chrome right?) like that. It's a mystery for me

Please find attached 3 screenshots of the Guardian today (Homepage, First article and Reader mode with the first article). I use your browser on my Note Air. I took my screenshots and sent them to my desktop (don't pay attention to the colors and the boldness) to explain my point of view, the font-size is really big, for me, on a reader mode. Just to give you an idea.

I was thinking... I don't know if you use Stylish on Firefox or on Chrome... But if we could have that option on EInk Browser, it would be perfect. I would be able to hack any website and change (almost) anything I want

Thanks again Daniel and I'm so glad we can freely talk about your work/browser!

Have a good day

[Daniel Kao]

Originally Posted by Kuan

Hello Daniel,

I was wondering how did you manage to build a browser (but based on Chrome right?) like that. It's a mystery for me

Please find attached 3 screenshots of the Guardian today (Homepage, First article and Reader mode with the first article). I use your browser on my Note Air. I took my screenshots and sent them to my desktop (don't pay attention to the colors and the boldness) to explain my point of view, the font-size is really big, for me, on a reader mode. Just to give you an idea.

I was thinking... I don't know if you use Stylish on Firefox or on Chrome... But if we could have that option on EInk Browser, it would be perfect. I would be able to hack any website and change (almost) anything I want

Thanks again Daniel and I'm so glad we can freely talk about your work/browser!

Have a good day

I build the browser based on WebView, (not Chrome).

As for the Guardian screenshots, it seems the font size the same large for me. Maybe you can change the font size to smaller if you think it's still too big. Or, you can try to use Onyx Boox App optimization to have different dpi for EinkBro, so that in general all font sizes can be smaller.

And for using Stylish on Firefox or Chrome, no, I haven't tried that before. It's kind of an advanced feature for a browser. When I really need pure text and image content, I will export the web page to a epub file, so that more layout options are available in Onyx's default Neo reader. You can try exporting to epub too.

[Kuan]

Originally Posted by Daniel Kao

I build the browser based on WebView, (not Chrome).

As for the Guardian screenshots, it seems the font size the same large for me. Maybe you can change the font size to smaller if you think it's still too big. Or, you can try to use Onyx Boox App optimization to have different dpi for EinkBro, so that in general all font sizes can be smaller.

And for using Stylish on Firefox or Chrome, no, I haven't tried that before. It's kind of an advanced feature for a browser. When I really need pure text and image content, I will export the web page to a epub file, so that more layout options are available in Onyx's default Neo reader. You can try exporting to epub too.

Thanks for your feedback Daniel.

Yep, I've already started to change Boox App optimization and tried to find a good balance.

I use Stylish on my desktop browser. It's really great because you can add and use your own CSS code and you have got the full control over the websites you visit

Thanks again Daniel!

[M_Faust]

Originally Posted by Kuan

I was thinking... I don't know if you use Stylish on Firefox or on Chrome... But if we could have that option on EInk Browser, it would be perfect. I would be able to hack any website and change (almost) anything I want

I use Firefox with DarkReader on Max 3. Works perfectly for me.

[Kuan]

Originally Posted by M_Faust

I use Firefox with DarkReader on Max 3. Works perfectly for me.

I use DarkReader on my desktop browsers... even with Flux, it works great! But Stylish is totally different, it's a wonderful and useful add-on which allows you to overwrite CSS code for every website! For me, it's unvaluable

[Kuan]

Originally Posted by Daniel Kao

As an E-Ink device lover, I bought many E-Ink devices, and use them mainly for reading ebooks, chatting, note taking, and internet surfing. Most E-Ink devices work great for book reading and note taking; however, for using them as a tablet or phone, there's still a long way to go. One of the insufficient part for me is the experience of browsing the web. I haven't found a suitable browser yet for E-Ink devices. So, I decided to customize one from an Open Source project I found on Github (it's called FOSS Browser).

Hey Daniel,

hope you're well! I've just updated my Eink Bro to the latest version (8.7.2) on all my devices.
Thanks a lot for adding the two font size options (increase and decrease). It works perfectly!
I look forward to the continuation of your browser

[kandwo]

Is there a way to save the tabs, so that they open up next time you start the browser again? My Hisense A5 Pro aggressively kills all background apps, which leads to losing open tabs when switching t to another app for a while.

[Daniel Kao]

Originally Posted by kandwo

Is there a way to save the tabs, so that they open up next time you start the browser again? My Hisense A5 Pro aggressively kills all background apps, which leads to losing open tabs when switching t to another app for a while.

Yes, this is added in version 8.7.4. You can download it from https://github.com/plateaukao/browse...ses/tag/v8.7.4.

However, for Hisense A5, if you prefer keeping EinkBro alive longer, I suggest you that you can add EinkBro to whitelist.

It's under Setting -> Battery -> Power saving management -> Memory intelligent cleaning.

If Background apps cleaning is turned on, make sure the checkbox of EinkBro is toggled too.