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Comment by jdprgm | Hacker News Reader

I really wish there was a plex for ebooks where I could just throw epubs on my server and read on kobo ereader, iphone, web, mac/windows native, etc and just not think about it. Would also be nice to have actually decent stats tracking and an anki like spaced repetition for any words i looked up in the app while reading. There are some sort of attempts it this but it all falls down with anything resembling saemless ereader support. For some odd reason there seems to be no overlap into good UI design with most devs working on anything reader related. Been waiting a decade for something like this but seems there is just no such demand.

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One important consideration is that unlike plex servers, it’s totally feasible to throw your entire library on a single device. Another important difference is that these devices are not pervasively connected to the Internet.

Koreader comes close, with comprehensive stats tracking and progress sync, but I absolutely would love to see SRS or stronger note taking or easier content management

if you are more the collector (hoarder) and get books by the bundle, the entire library may not fit, since pdfs often include pictures

Calibre can do this: https://calibre-ebook.com

Here's the help page on setting up your own content server: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/#the-calibre-content-server

Can confirm (for sharing; not so much for the reading stats, sorry). I run Calibre on my desktop; on desktops and laptops I use the content server for built-in online reading. For the Kobos in the house, they plug in and I click "Send to Device" for any new books. Kindles I hit "Send to Kindle" and it uses the email delivery system for it to magically appear on my Kindle. Androids and iPhones have myriad apps that will happily consumer Calibre's content server.

I keep the metadata up to date, strip Kindle DRM from the books I buy from Amazon, and maintain a giant personal DRM-free collection of books and comics (which Calibre also handles!). It's one of my favorite pieces of software.

You could also install Koreader on your Kobos and connect to your Calibre server via ODPS

You can also connect to Calibre over Wifi which is more like plugging in via USB: https://dmpop.github.io/koreader-compendium/13-calibre-conne...

+1 for Calibre and KOreader combo for remotely browsing ebooks. It works surprisingly seamlessly!

Calibre is an insane piece of software on its own. Pretty much the only Swiss Army knife you need for anything “epub”.

One fun thing about Calibre is that the library is stored in a SQLite database. So, if you write a wrapper to parse that data, you don’t even need Calibre’s content server running!

I have the library stored on my NAS and am running a fairly simple Node.JS + Express + React web app on my Raspberry Pi that reads the database and provides web access this content.

Sadly, I don’t have the code in a publisher format as of yet.

One thing I’ve been meaning to do is add an upload feature so that I can have the web app add ebooks to the library. For now, I still have to fire up Calibre for that.

Edit: Wow, I just saw a post below for Calibre-Web. It’s the same thing I had been working on but it’s much much nicer than what I had hacked together!

Calibre and Kavita are two open source and self-hostable projects that accomplish what you're describing.

Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/

Kavita: https://www.kavitareader.com/

I don't think I would want this over the git repo I currently use.

- I just sync the repo to get everything for offline use. Excellent offline access is x100 more valuable to me than anything a web interface could offer. Stats and Anki just feels like frippery.

- You get a web-interface to your repo if you do actually need to grab something online

- I store markdown notes and even diagrams alongside my books

- I edit the css in epub books if I don't like the fixed formatting they include so probably best to store a history of changes. It's quite fun becoming an editor to change an author's idiosyncratic spelling or chop out that "free chapter of another book" they added as an advert.

- I prefer a directory organisation of books - a media website things only impairs my access e.g. grepping all your books and notes together is just a minimum expectation for me.

I personally use Ubooquity for this. I can use the OPDS functionality to read it on Koreader on my Kobo, and can use the web interface to read it everywhere else.

I remember checking that out a long time ago but will have to give it another look, thanks.

From the screenshots on their site it seems to be a web app, both the reader and the admin. So you must be able to reach the server every time you are reading an ebook. Did you install Ubooquity on a server on the internet (a VPS?), do you have a public IP address at home, do you use a tunnel from home to a server on the internet? And what if you don't have internet connectivity?

I host a local server for a bunch of services, including Ubooquity. I do most of my reading on my Kobo, through Koreader, and as I use OPDS to fetch the books for it, I also have them locally and do not require internet access.

Not having internet connectivity is never a problem for me, the entire region where I live is completely covered by 4G.

Does OPDS support sending to the server the current position in a book? That's basically the only feature I would need a server for. Books are synced with Syncthing, no need for anything fancier than that. Of course the ebook reader must be able to send the position to the server when in the same network.

I'm also almost always in 4G coverage but there are planes, trains, mountains, tents in the middle of nowhere, etc. Apps that work offline are a safer choice.

Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) doesn't seem to include any tracking if how much you've read of a publication. So there doesn't seem like there would be any way to read across devices, which is something I too long for. https://drafts.opds.io/opds-2.0

Calibre has a server mode that comes with a HTTP UI allowing downloads but also has a built-in reader.

Not quite what you're asking for, but I do have SyncThing sync all my ebooks to all my devices (phone, laptop, desktop) except my eink reader, and it's very nice! I've thought about trying to get SyncThing set up on a modded Remarkable or something to complete things. As a sibling pointed out, the files are small enough it's pretty easy to have the entire library on every device, and the peace of mind & convenience for planes, etc is wonderful.

I have a Boox and it's a surprising pain in the ass to just have it sync a folder. Not really an Android thing. You can use Syncthing or various third-party apps that sync a folder off Google Drive, but I'd like to just use Google Drive like on a desktop.

The closest thing I've seen to 'Plex for ebooks' is limited to manga/comics in .cbz/.cbr format: https://github.com/faldez/tanoshi . It's works reasonably well. Probably could be forked to add support for more general purpose reading use cases.

I've wanted SRS features as well but no ebook reader seems to do annotation exports well. I get by with Moon+ Reader and wrote a few Obsidian plugins to help me with parsing exports and generating flashcards. Would love to hear of better approaches.

Jellyfin has book support and a dedicated Android app for reading them.

Calibre Web: https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web

KOReader with Calibre Content Server does handling the actual content. KOReader also has its own seperate sync feature. Don't think it'll do stats though.

Yeah I have messed with that in the past but KOReader doesn't have an iOS client so then forced to use the calibre server reader and it's all just not a fluid process. While I am thankful to have calibre as a tool it has always been a bit annoying to deal with for a few reasons: Feels completed bloated in terms of features and GUI, every time I open the app there is a update to be downloaded and no in app updates, the reader itself on desktops isn't that great, etc.

I get that I can sort of hack together some parts of what I want but really I want the Plex experience of once I have thrown an mp4 onto my server it is just a first class experience viewing and resuming on any device I own equivalent or better than media viewers from the likes of netflix, hbo, etc. I just want that same sort of experience with regards to eBooks, not a hacked together hodgepodge of homelab sync tools and configuration.

Koreader does awesome stats tracking into a SQLite database of every page you’ve read. You even get a calendar view for months showing what you’ve been reading.

I have a code snippet that can generate a Bookantt chart[1] from the koreader history DB. (On mobile, ping me if you’d be interested in me cleaning this up and releasing)

1: https://malcolmocean.com/bookreading/

If metadata like read progress is stored along the ebook files, you could try an Android based ebook + simple file syncing utility, like syncthing.

I was banned from r/plex for even suggesting that it should do ebooks as well.

Don't think you'll see it from there.

There was a very good one, well-designed too, and Dropbox bought it. Then it just disappeared :(

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