KOreader on Android

[ext23]

I just installed LinageOS on my Hisense A9!

You guys graciously helped me get the play/pause button functionality working on the A9 here:

https://github.com/koreader/koreader-base/pull/1650

Originally Posted by pazos

On github

The patch: https://github.com/koreader/koreader-base/pull/1650

Goes live when it reaches https://github.com/koreader/koreader. If you're running nightlies you can get it the night/day after it goes live

...but with Lineage, the functionality of the e-ink button on the device has changed again (single press to refresh screen, double press to bring up the screen refresh settings overlay).

I'd still like the button to function as single press for play/pause, and double press to skip track. Is this possible!?!

EDIT: I was able to do it with this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...er&hl=en&gl=US

But that's a paid app, so I'm wondering if it could be hard-wired into Koreader somehow?

[abraum]

I tried KOReader on my Tablet and Phone both with LineageOS. I've never used something else than scrolling mode on other ebook readers. But that doesn't work very well with KOReader. When i start scrolling nothing happens first the scrolling is starting. Is this a problem with KOReader or my devices?

[pazos]

Originally Posted by ext23

...but with Lineage, the functionality of the e-ink button on the device has changed again (single press to refresh screen, double press to bring up the screen refresh settings overlay).

I'd still like the button to function as single press for play/pause, and double press to skip track. Is this possible!?!

AFAIK nope, sorry.

The code that forwards media events to the system lies in https://github.com/koreader/koreader....lua#L173-L208, so it is never received on the frontend.

We can only remap key events that we receive. That could be the case with your buttons on LineageOS, but you'll need to write your custom stuff somewhere to fake a media key event on response to those codes (if that's even possible, I guess so). So, yep, better handled elsewhere

[Rémi Ozene]

I am waiting to receive a "Pocketbook Eo" e-reader, purchased on Amazon, which runs on Android with access to the Playstore. The purpose of my purchase is to be able to read, on a big screen, even in direct sunlight, language learning manuals in searchable PDF format, without redistribution, using Stardict dictionaries. For this it seems I have two solutions, either combine GoldenDict and Moon+Reader or use the Android version of Koreader. I see on Koreader's Github release site that there are 2 files to download: koreader-android-arm-v2024.04.apk 31.1 MB and koreader-android-arm64-v2024.04.apk 32.5 MB Which of these two packages should I use for installation directly from and to the “Pocketbook Eo” reader? Does the Android version of Koreader, on this “Pocketbook Eo” present more interest or less risk of bugs, compared to the GoldenDict / Moon+Reader association, for this use?

[pazos]

Originally Posted by Rémi Ozene

I am waiting to receive a "Pocketbook Eo" e-reader, purchased on Amazon, which runs on Android with access to the Playstore. The purpose of my purchase is to be able to read, on a big screen, even in direct sunlight, language learning manuals in searchable PDF format, without redistribution, using Stardict dictionaries. For this it seems I have two solutions, either combine GoldenDict and Moon+Reader or use the Android version of Koreader. I see on Koreader's Github release site that there are 2 files to download: koreader-android-arm-v2024.04.apk 31.1 MB and koreader-android-arm64-v2024.04.apk 32.5 MB Which of these two packages should I use for installation directly from and to the “Pocketbook Eo” reader? Does the Android version of Koreader, on this “Pocketbook Eo” present more interest or less risk of bugs, compared to the GoldenDict / Moon+Reader association, for this use?

If you find Moon+ useable then it is easier to stick with it. You can dig in alternative software later, if/when you realize the limitations of Moon+.

Also consider Librera: it was purposelly built for android, it is well mantained, it is free and it doesn't suck, which is a lot for an ereader application.

[Rémi Ozene]

Originally Posted by pazos

If you find Moon+ useable then it is easier to stick with it. You can dig in alternative software later, if/when you realize the limitations of Moon+.

Also consider Librera: it was purposelly built for android, it is well mantained, it is free and it doesn't suck, which is a lot for an ereader application.

Thank you for your advice, I installed the Librera Android application without difficulty from the Playstore, on my new Android Pocketbook Inkpad Eo ereader, which works perfectly and quickly with large PDF searchable, files without any redistribution, from Archive .org while retaining the formatting of the publisher's book, with the possibility of zooming and where reading becomes a pleasure by its speed. However, I bought Moon+Reader, directly on the Playstore whose interface I prefer. On the other hand, I was unable to purchase the latest paid Android apk version 1.7.2 of GoldenDict, no email being sent to me to validate, while the free version 1.6.8 nevertheless worked. By searching on the internet, I discovered an improved independent version of GoldenDict, which works wonderfully, Free Mdict, whose references can be found on Github, and which does the same power-shell work in order to manage dictionaries: https ://github.com/goldendict/goldendict/issues/1604, the file name is GoldenDict.v.1.7.2.lic_sig.kill.apk

The only fault of the PocketBook Inkpad Eo is that its interface does not currently support the French language. So I had to choose a language other than French, in this case, Italian for convenience. For the Librera interface, I was able to use the French language, but not for Moon+Reader which required the system language. I installed almost 60 dictionaries in mainly Stardict format, all of which GoldenDict supported.

So I said goodbye to my previous Inkpad Lite reader with 500 Megabytes of RAM (for 4 Gigabytes for the EO), for which I was previously obliged to tinker the searchable PDF book files, with K2pdfopt or Abbyy FineReader, with often failures or slowness and also many bugs, even with Koreader. Being a computer ignoramus, I don't think I'm going to venture into installing Koreader on this new Android Pocketbook Eo reader, the couple Free Mdict (improved version of GoldenDict) and Moon+Reader meeting my needs: to read large books in searchable PDF format, including language manuals, with finger search of dictionaries.
Note that the default reading application of the Pocketbook Inkpad Eo reads large PDF files from Archive.org extremely slowly, which makes the dictionaries offered, such as Google Translate, Abbyy Lingvo, Fora Dictionary or Reverso context unusable in practice .

[pazos]

It looks like you're fine without KOReader. Congrats, that's nice to have.

Anyhow, if sometime on the future you want to test it on your device, the easiest way to install it on android is using https://f-droid.org/

[Rémi Ozene]

Originally Posted by pazos

It looks like you're fine without KOReader. Congrats, that's nice to have.

Anyhow, if sometime on the future you want to test it on your device, the easiest way to install it on android is using https://f-droid.org/

I've just discovered that the default PDF reader application, called "Reader", on the Pocketbook Inkpad Eo reader, is in fact the E-Ink screen adaptation of the free "Pocket Book Reader" application, also available on the Playstore, for smartphones. Now, the Pocket Book Reader application, on the E-Ink screen as on the smartphone, can be paired with dictionaries, via the Fora Dictionary application, also free, which accepts Stardict, DSL XDXF Dictd, and .dict files, and a connection with Wiktionary; or with Google translate, Reverso Context, and Abbyy Lingvo, doing a job quite similar to the combination of Librera or Moon+Reader and GoldenDict or Free Mdict. In the end, it's this last combination, Pocketbook Reader and Fora Dictionary, that I'm going to use, for simplicity's sake, on both my e-reader and my smartphone, especially as it's very easy to establish a connection with the Calibre library. What's more, the Pocketbook Reader and Fora Dictionary combination seems to consume less battery power on the Pocketbook Inkpad Eo.

[karthikrr]

Hi,

I am trying to build KOReader for Android from sources and find myself repeatedly failing. I am relatively new to this whole world, so its probably something stupid I am doing, but after many many hours trying to figure this out I finally gave up and decided to ask for help.

I need an arm64 version with NDKABI 21. I edited the Makefile.defs file in /base - changed arm to arm64 and that was enough to get the build process going with the aarch64 clang. But the apk that is generated, after signing, always failed to install on my Pixel 7a running Lineage 21.

The error reported was that no compatible ABI is found. For some reason, though compiled with aarch64 clang it was reverting to armeabi-v7a in the apk. It took me a good long time to discover that after koreader and crengine were built, luajit-launcher was being built for the wrong architecture.

Eventually I "fixed" this by editing /platform/android/luajit-launcher/Makefile and changing the default to arm64 -

# Default is build for arm
ANDROID_FULL_ARCH?=arm64-v8a
ARCH?=Arm64

This allowed the build to complete successfully and produced an apk that actually installed on my phone. But when I run the application, it asks for storage permission and after granting it, crashes.

adb logcat analysis shows the following:

19303 19532 E NativeThread: Failed to run script: /data/user/0/org.koreader.launcher/files/llapp_main.lua:4: module 'libs/libkoreader-lfs' not found:
19303 19532 E NativeThread:  no field package.preload['libs/libkoreader-lfs']
19303 19532 E NativeThread:  no file 'libs/libkoreader-lfs.lua' (checked with asset loader)
19303 19532 E NativeThread:  no file 'libs/libkoreader-lfs.lua'
19303 19532 E NativeThread:  no file '/data/user/0/org.koreader.launcher/files/libs/libkoreader-lfs.lua'
19303 19532 E NativeThread:  no file 'libs/libkoreader-lfs.so'
19303 19532 E NativeThread:  no file '/data/user/0/org.koreader.launcher/files/libs/libkoreader-lfs.so'

Im not sure where to go next! Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Karthik

[pazos]

Originally Posted by karthikrr

Hi,

I am trying to build KOReader for Android from sources and find myself repeatedly failing.

Im not sure where to go next! Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Karthik

Have a look at https://github.com/koreader/koreader...oc/Building.md and https://github.com/koreader/koreader...ing_targets.md

You don't need to tweak Makefiles or anything like that. Once you follow those steps you can get and armv8 APK with

ANDROID_ARCH=arm64 ./kodev release android

Release APK are unsigned, so they will fail to install. You need to sign them with your own keys. There're plenty of tuturials online.

[mergen3107]

—debug releases apks are signed fwiw

[karthikrr]

Originally Posted by pazos

Have a look at https://github.com/koreader/koreader...oc/Building.md and https://github.com/koreader/koreader...ing_targets.md

You don't need to tweak Makefiles or anything like that. Once you follow those steps you can get and armv8 APK with

ANDROID_ARCH=arm64 ./kodev release android

Release APK are unsigned, so they will fail to install. You need to sign them with your own keys. There're plenty of tuturials online.

Thats where I started. Doesn't work, at least not on my system anyway. Following those instructions without any changes always only produced armeabi-v7, never armv8. Happy to be told I am doing something wrong, but I cannot imagine what it might be.

If useful, I can start the whole process again and write down every step with relevant output logs. But, it would essentially be the instructions in the two links followed by "oops, thats not armv8"

The makefile changes I made finally did produce armv8, and yes I signed the apk to get it to install. But once installed, the application constantly crashes. Some adb logcat output is included in my original message.

@mergen3107 --- good to know that debug releases are signed. Will make it easier with repeated builds as I try to get this sorted out! Thanks!

[karthikrr]

Originally Posted by pazos

ANDROID_ARCH=arm64 ./kodev release android

Release APK are unsigned, so they will fail to install. You need to sign them with your own keys. There're plenty of tuturials online.

OH WAIT, duh, missed this part! I didn't see this in the two pages you linked to, but yes, this makes sense to me. Let me try this and report back.

Why does every post go for moderator approval? Is this standard behaviour, or am I on some watchlist?! Anyway, I don't know how to edit a post that is in some waiting room somewhere, so a follow-up post as soon as I realised there was more info in the reply that I missed.

[karthikrr]

Good news, @pazos' advice is perfect - now builds arm64 without having to mess around with makefiles.

Bad news, still crashes on startup.

Dev device is a Pixel 7a running LineageOS 21, also built from sources. To be sure that the OS is not the problem, I just tried installing on a stock Samsung S24 Ultra. Also crashes on startup here.

[Frenzie]

Just to be sure, our build does work?