MapleRead - eBook Reader and Server for iOS

[romad]

Originally Posted by Fluffline

Hello. Today I've installed MapleRead SE into my iPad Mini (5th gen) and even though so far is a great substitute for Marvin, I'm having a specific problem: If I try to jump to a specific chapter using the contents menu, the app fails to redirect me to the chapter that I've choosen.

Thinking it was a specific issue with the epub I was using, I tried the same thing with other books and the issue still persists.

Now I'm wondering if it's a problem with epubs compiled by J-Novel Club, or if it's an issue caused by the latest iPadOS version (my tablet is running ver 17.1.1). Is anyone here having the same problem?

I apologize in advance if the same issue was asked before.

Hmmm, I don't have that problem with my iPad Mini 5 running iOS 14.4.2 or iPad Mini 6 running 16.7.2 on Kindle books converted to DRM-free ePub. Try it with different books from different sources. If it is the same everywhere, it might be another iOS 17 bug. Oh, I have MapleRead SE version 5.0.2

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by romad

Hmmm, I don't have that problem with my iPad Mini 5 running iOS 14.4.2 or iPad Mini 6 running 16.7.2 on Kindle books converted to DRM-free ePub. Try it with different books from different sources. If it is the same everywhere, it might be another iOS 17 bug. Oh, I have MapleRead SE version 5.0.2

I too don't have that problem. I tried several book in my iPad mini 5 and iPad pro. Both running IOS 17.1.1. Mapleread is 5.0.2.

[Fluffline]

Hmmm... It seems it's a problem with J-Novel Club. I tried some epubs from other sources and the content menu works as intended. Which is bizarre, because the epub files came directly from J-Novel Club.

Well, it's not a world-ending problem so it doesn't really affect my experience with MapleRead.

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by culytera

It’s already imported if it’s in the book’s metadata. You can see them through the Sort Order options (middle button at the bottom): Author + Series and Series. It’s also shown when you press the thumbnail in list mode which opens the book’s info page.

This has never worked for me, and is not working in MapleRead 5.1. I have tested it with EPub 2 and EPub 3.

In EPub 2, the series metadata looks like this (in OEBPS/content.opf):

    <meta xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" name="calibre:series" content="Vespasian"/>
    <meta xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" name="calibre:series_index" content="2.0"/>

Which is Calibre's own custom tags. I could understand if MapleRead does not support this.

If EPub 3, the series metadata looks like this (in OEBPS/content.opf):

    <opf:meta property="belongs-to-collection" id="id-2">Vespasian</opf:meta>
    <opf:meta refines="#id-2" property="collection-type">series</opf:meta>
    <opf:meta refines="#id-2" property="group-position">1</opf:meta>

Which is part of the EPub standard.

In MapleRead, sorting by Author+Series, I just get the Author metadata displayed, and no Series information, in both list and details (Get Info) views.

[Wiggo]

FWIW I see series information as intended. All my books are Epub2 and metadata was embedded by Calibre.

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

FWIW I see series information as intended. All my books are Epub2 and metadata was embedded by Calibre.

I narrowed it down to downloading books from Dropbox as opposed to e.g. PC Upload. The MapleRead developer has confirmed this bug and I think they are fixing it. They are also fixing a bug reading the series info when there are multiple series define in the epub.

It already works for both epub 2 and 3, as long as your epub 2 is from Calibre, which inserts it own custom series info into the epub. EPUB 3 has built in series info tags, which Calibre uses.

[culytera]

Would love to see a way to add a custom sort type by retrieving sortable metadata from books. For example, adding a "sort by published date" or any other custom date column option for books that have that metadata. If it's missing it just puts it at the bottom of the list. Not sure if that's possible but that would be convenient.

[cedhax]

According to What's New in MapleRead 5.2 by the developer, it seems that they have actually fixed these bugs last December. It works for me. But I'm not sure if my test cases are limited in scope. @ShellShock, Can you confirm the fix for you too?

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I narrowed it down to downloading books from Dropbox as opposed to e.g. PC Upload. The MapleRead developer has confirmed this bug and I think they are fixing it. They are also fixing a bug reading the series info when there are multiple series define in the epub.

It already works for both epub 2 and 3, as long as your epub 2 is from Calibre, which inserts it own custom series info into the epub. EPUB 3 has built in series info tags, which Calibre uses.

[alper]

I'm using Mapleread now because after Marvin's death I tried out literally all the apps and this is the one that I didn't find any show stopping shortcomings in.

That said, can you please comment on:

- Can we see the number of page turns until the end of the section? This is essential information for me while I'm reading. Not knowing how long I have to go for is pretty painful.
- It would be nice if the top-right of the page was a target to create/remove a bookmark.
- Multipage selections are really necessary. Is there a workaround for this?

Other than that and some UI niggles, I'm pretty happy.

[culytera]

ISP replaced our router so I had to reconfigure the network and the IPv4 address on my laptop. Ever since, MapleRead hasn't been able to detect the OPDS. I've reinstalled Bonjour, but the server's still inaccessible to MapleRead. Calibre was also recently updated but downgrading didn't fix it. I can access the content server from my laptop's browser, but nowhere else. This router has band steering turned on by default, could that be the issue?

[cedhax]

For your first question, turn on Prefer Remaining Page Count and turn off Center Header/Footer.

Originally Posted by alper

I'm using Mapleread now because after Marvin's death I tried out literally all the apps and this is the one that I didn't find any show stopping shortcomings in.

That said, can you please comment on:

- Can we see the number of page turns until the end of the section? This is essential information for me while I'm reading. Not knowing how long I have to go for is pretty painful.
- It would be nice if the top-right of the page was a target to create/remove a bookmark.
- Multipage selections are really necessary. Is there a workaround for this?

Other than that and some UI niggles, I'm pretty happy.

[romad]

I have a weird problem that seems to only affect books by ONE author and ONLY in MapleRead SE.

OK, I buy a book from the author via Amazon in the .AZW format. I import it into Calibre, convert it to ePub, export it out of Calibre, and import it into MapleRead on my iPad Mini. So far so good. I then start to read the book and the problem starts. The first page of each chapter is OK but the on second page the text has shifted approx. 1 character to the left so that the first character column on the second page of the chapter is on the right of the first page. This keeps repeating until the end of the chapter so that the next page in the chapter has 1 character LESS than the page number. For example, page 3 of the chapter will have 2 character columns, page 6, 7 character columns, etc. This goes to the end of the chapter then starts over in the next chapter.

I've asked the author about this but he can't figure it out. However he is always kind enough to send an ePub copy of the book from before the book was sent to Amazon, which works just fine in MapleRead SE. I decided to see what happens if I used a different ePub reader so I imported the ePub exported from Calibre after conversion from AZW into iBooks on my iMac then synced it to the iBooks.ipa app on the iPad Mini and the formatting is spot on.

So I wonder why the problem shows up in MapleRead SE. Meanwhile I'll use iBooks just for this one author. Any ideas?

MapleRead SE 5.3.1.ipa & iBooks 4.13.ipa on the iPad Mini; iBooks 1.15.app on my iMac, synced via iTunes 12.8.3.1 on the iMac.

[DJUNGELSKOG]

Is there a way to use Apple's native "translation" tool instead of Google/Bing translator?

[cedhax]

As for your second comment about bookmarking, it's already implemented.

As for your third comment, use "Modern Scroll".

Originally Posted by alper

I'm using Mapleread now because after Marvin's death I tried out literally all the apps and this is the one that I didn't find any show stopping shortcomings in.

That said, can you please comment on:

- Can we see the number of page turns until the end of the section? This is essential information for me while I'm reading. Not knowing how long I have to go for is pretty painful.
- It would be nice if the top-right of the page was a target to create/remove a bookmark.
- Multipage selections are really necessary. Is there a workaround for this?

Other than that and some UI niggles, I'm pretty happy.

[Cootey]

I tried MapleRead CX years ago, but have redownloaded it to give it a try again. If I like it, I’ll probably pick up the SE version.

However, I have a question. I see that there’s an SE and CE bundle on the App Store. It seems like a bargain except that I don’t understand why you would need CE if you already have SE. According to the descriptions, CE has everything that SE has except PDF support and the library server. What am I missing?