Announcing Qurika - a Beautiful 3D eBook Reader for Android and iOS!

[DuckieTigger]

Tapping to change page does not always work. I believe the problem is too sensitive swipe recognition. If you start swiping and move back or not far enough, then you didn't change the page. The device should tell what resolution (density / ppi) it has. Maybe make it less sensitive to activate a swipe on higher resolution? (My phone has 529 ppi, Qurika is really easy to convince to swipe instead of a tap).

[jacob_qurika]

I like the idea for showing the chapter overlay when two-finger swiping. I'll get that into the next release.

Noted the tap vs swipe issue, I'll take a look at it. The max PPI of my test devices is 577, so it can't be that, at least not directly. It could be that the touch resolutions are different from the screen resolutions and it may be related to differences there. My best guess is that it has to do with the way in which different devices calculate the "center" of a touch and how sensitive that is to movement. Regardless, it should not be hard to fix.

I'm going to be away for a couple of days so the next update will be a slightly delayed but I'll still be checking the forum.

As always, thanks for testing and for the feedback. This is really helpful!

[jacob_qurika]

I've gone ahead and released a version for Android only (2.4.1) so that I could get these two changes in before I left. iOS will see these changes in the next release. Specifically:

1. Chapter overlay when doing a two-finger swipe.
2. Prospective fix for issue where taps to turn pages are not reliable on some devices. I think this should fix your issue DuckieTigger, but I'm not 100% sure since I could not reproduce it. Please let me know if you still have the issue.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by jacob_qurika

I've gone ahead and released a version for Android only (2.4.1) so that I could get these two changes in before I left. iOS will see these changes in the next release. Specifically:

1. Chapter overlay when doing a two-finger swipe.

I don't do see it. Even when holding the two finger swipe. Does work as advertised.
Edit: Qurika crashed - wouldn't respond to anything. After force stopping it, the chapter overlay started to work. ???? Only thing I can think of is maybe some cache that did not completely get wiped after the update.

2. Prospective fix for issue where taps to turn pages are not reliable on some devices. I think this should fix your issue DuckieTigger, but I'm not 100% sure since I could not reproduce it. Please let me know if you still have the issue.

Yes, cannot reproduce ghost taps that did not activate a page turn anymore. No matter how hard I try to fatfinger it. Now the app feels as responsive as other apps on my phone.

: on both accounts.

[DuckieTigger]

Small nitpick (since you like productive criticism). The background is dark grey. Please make it pitch black. On LCD it may not make a difference since it never gets truly dark, but on OLED black is off. Maybe give an option for the background later down the road when themes for the book are implemented (eg a white sepia and black option with chooseable background).

For now I think black would look great on OLED.

[jacob_qurika]

I'm back from my trip. Sorry for the delay.

I'm glad both the changes worked. The chapters not showing up until the crash is very strange. I have not seen anything like that before.

I see the appeal of the black background. I'll play around with it and see how others feel about it. I'll get it in there sooner or later, as an option at least.

[jacob_qurika]

I apologize for the slow updates recently. There has been an untimely death in the family and I'm pausing development work for some days. I will post details of the next release when it is ready. It will include a deeper Calibre integration through the Calibre content server.

[DuckieTigger]

There is no need to apologize for that. Take your time. My condolences.

[jacob_qurika]

It has been some time since my last update. I had to step away from Qurika for a few months after the untimely loss we had in the family, but I’m excited to be back on it again. I have some announcements:

First of all: Qurika is now FREE!

All users can now store up to 2000 books in the cloud library for free. This is effective retroactively, so all paid users will receive a full refund for any amount paid towards their subscription. If you want to store even more than 2000 books, contact us and we will increase your limit even further (for free!).

I’ve also just released a new version with many improvements. Please give it a try if you can and let me know what you think. As always, feedback is much appreciated!

(Note, I have changed what the pinch gesture does. It used to shut the book, but now instead sets the base zoom level of the book. Two finger swipe up/down is now the gesture that shuts/opens the book.)

Social Login
You can now log in using your Google or Facebook account, so you won’t have to remember passwords. The social accounts are used for authentication only. Qurika will not post any activity to the accounts.

Better Calibre Support
Add books from Calibre using the Calibre Server, directly from the app!

Better (and Adjustable) Screen Space Usage
The reader sizes and positions books so that screen space is much better utilized. You can now read a book in 3D without sacrificing much in the way of page size. If you would like to see more of the edges of the book, simply pinch to set the zoom at the level you want.

Page Scroll
Swipe up or down with one finger to “scroll” through pages. This gives you another fluid way to move around the book.

Page History
Never lose you place in the book. Feel free to explore. Jump around. Scroll forwards or backwards. When you are done, use the history controls to get back to where you were. The controls will show up automatically, or you can bring them up manually by opening the menu.

Fonts

• Many more fonts to choose from!
• Font sizes are now normalized so a font size of 100% means the same thing for all books, even if the books that have different default font sizes.
• Font settings are now remembered, so the next time a book is rendered, it is done with the last chosen setting.
• Added the ability to force justify a book.

Menu UI
The user interface for the menu has been reworked. It is now displayed as an overlay over the pages and is accessible from anywhere. Tap on the “…” at the bottom of any page to bring up the menu.

Single Handed Usage
Controls and gestures for the reader have been reorganized so that most frequently used ones are accessible while holding the phone in one hand. For example, the menu control is now at the bottom of the screen and can be accessed with the thumb.

Chapters

• Long chapter names are not cutoff.
• Better usage of space so chapters are fit with reduced need for zoom out.
• The chapter tabs have rounded edges.

Other Changes and Subtle UI Touches

• Pages are now rounded for a more modern look.
• The UI will execute a subtle zoom out when you are moving around the book to give you a more global view of where you are.
• The left half of the book now skews to the right, so you can see more of the left edge at the bottom left of the screen to get a sense for how much of the book you have already read.
• Some camera movements have been made more steady.
• Reduced the number of onboarding screens and made them context sensitive.
• The thickness of the book is now fixed to the content of the book and does not change with font size changes.
• Reworked the UI for uploading books.
• Increased the lifetime of the login session to a year, so you won’t have to re-login as often.
• Added the option to clear all downloaded books.

Oh, and DuckieTigger, I’ve made the background of the reader pitch black as you suggested!

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by jacob_qurika

The font changes needs the server because the 3D UI for Qurika requires very fast bitmapping of the pages to send to the GPU and some preprocessing is needed on the server side to make it fast enough.

Given the recent improvements in mobile processors, might it not be possible to do this locally now?

I added an 800K word book (2.5MB) and "preparing" took forever. So did changing the font after book was loaded. Even KOReader on the PW3 is faster at book loading and changing font sizes than Qurika and KOReader's considerably slower than any of my current iPads. I've used Marvin, MapleRead, Hyphen and iBooks on iOS and all of them pretty much load books instantly.

I expect some performance penalty for the pretty graphics but Qurika seems even heavier on resources than games if it has to offload work to a server.

Also, how do you add non-Calibre OPDS feeds? It seems it's hard-coded to Calibre.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by jacob_qurika

Oh, and DuckieTigger, I’ve made the background of the reader pitch black as you suggested!

Thank you. Since the last time you made quite a few improvements. Noticed some new things. Before the back of a page was black mirrored text (I think), now it is greyed out. Looks good. The swipe up and down to thumb through feels backwards. Maybe make that like the tab on the right you can grab and drag down to go forward, drag up to go backwards. Also new (?) is that you don't need to be online to open Qurika and read the already downloaded books.

I also agree with ilovejedd, maybe the precalculation that is server side could be optionally be done on device.

[jacob_qurika]

@ilovejedd. Thanks for the feedback and for trying Qurika! It's very useful to hear what the pain points of the app are.

I recognize that the "preparing" delay is not ideal. What I can say about it is this. In the long term, it will be much less of an issue. Why? Because I can precompute (precompute the precomputation, if you will) on the server side and cache the results. The "preparing" will show up every now and then when the caches get busted due to font changes, but only for as long as it takes to rebuild the caches. Also I can just throw more computing power on the problem to speed it up (expensive though).

Given the recent improvements in mobile processors, might it not be possible to do this locally now?

That is not going to speed it up. The server is always going to be faster than the device. On the device though we don't have to front load the computation, so we could hide that computation cost over the course of reading the book. But all said and done, given that the issue is mitigable, I think this is the right design choice, though a tough one to make. Paying that upfront cost (which will get better as I engineer the solutions) when you download a book, or change a font, this just frees up the device so much more, which in turn makes for a better reading experience, and that is what I have decided to prioritize.

Qurika seems even heavier on resources than games if it has to offload work to a server.

Interpreting the precomputation requirement as Qurika being more resource heavy is not quite accurate. The precomputation is a solution to a specific technical problem. Admittedly one that Qurika faces but not any other reader app (that I know of). It relates to producing textures from html into a custom 3D OpenGL context. But solving that problem actually makes the rest of the app in some ways *less* resource heavy relative to a normal reader app - we don't have to render html anymore.

Also, how do you add non-Calibre OPDS feeds? It seems it's hard-coded to Calibre.

Actually right now Qurika only supports Calibre OPDS feeds. I build a prototype for a more general version but there were issues with the navigation UI, and so turned the feature off. I'll update the post to correct the mistake. I apologize for the slip up.

@DuckieTigger Thanks! I'm glad you liked some of the changes!

The swipe up and down to thumb through feels backwards.

I've had people go both ways on this, which makes it tough to decide what to do. In the end I decided to go with the way it is because it mirrors the way webpages and pretty much all scrolling works these days. You swipe up on the content to move it forward. However you if you are dragging the scroll bar you drag it *down* to move forward. In Qurika the tab corresponds to the scroll bar, so you drag it down to move forward. And, as per standard UI, swiping up on the content should move the book forward, which is what Qurika does.

you don't need to be online to open Qurika and read the already downloaded books.

I'd love to take credit for that, but Qurika still needs you to be signed in to read. It keeps you logged in though for quite a while, so you should not have to log in very frequently, ideally just once per device. Oh, I think I know why you thought you were not logged in. I no longer display the little icon on the top right with the first three characters of the email that brought up the user menu. I merged that menu with the "..." menu.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by jacob_qurika

Oh, I think I know why you thought you were not logged in. I no longer display the little icon on the top right with the first three characters of the email that brought up the user menu. I merged that menu with the "..." menu.

No, not really. I did not find out about it by accident, but by purposefully signing in once, then close the app, and turn airplane mode on. When the library view opens, still signed in, when a login prompt shows, not signed in.

P.s.: Also when offline and signed in, the cloud sync will have red arrows around it and won't work. Easy way to see if you are online or offline.

[jacob_qurika]

Oh, I see. I misread. I thought you meant "signed in", but you clearly said "online". Yes, you do not have to be online to read a book if it is already downloaded. That I will take credit for . It should have been like that from the beginning.