Novel Reader v1.5.0
Novel Reader v1.5.0 - Release Notes
Release Date: March 2026
New Features
Neural Voice Download on Novel Detail Screen
You can now download Piper, Kokoro, and KittenTTS voices directly from the novel detail screen's voice picker — no need to navigate to the reader screen first. A "Get Neural Voices" button appears at the bottom of the voice selection dialog, opening the same model download manager used in the reader.
Multi-Voice Audio Export
Previously, once a chapter was exported as audio with one voice, the music note icon appeared and blocked re-export with a different voice. Now export tracking is voice-specific - each chapter can be exported with multiple voices, and the UI correctly reflects which chapters have been exported for the currently selected voice. Switching voices automatically refreshes the export status icons.
Performance
Adaptive CPU Thread Tuning
The ONNX inference thread count is now set dynamically based on available CPU cores instead of being hardcoded.
| Model Type | Old | New |
|---|---|---|
| Piper (VITS) | 2 threads | 2 threads (unchanged) |
| Kokoro | 2 threads | Up to 4 threads (half of cores) |
| KittenTTS | 2 threads | Up to 4 threads (half of cores) |
| Matcha | 2 threads | Up to 4 threads (half of cores) |
Cumulative Feature List (v1.0–v1.5)
- Multi-source novel browsing (RoyalRoad, ReadNovelFull)
- On-device neural TTS via Sherpa-ONNX (Piper, Kokoro, KittenTTS)
- Google TTS integration with 67+ voices across 24 languages
- Per-chapter audio export to WAV with voice-specific tracking
- Built-in audio player with speed control (0.5x–2x), seek, chapter navigation
- Bookmarks with notes, text snippets, and tap-to-navigate
- Chapter search and jump navigation
- Library filters (All / Downloaded / Reading)
- Per-chapter and bulk chapter downloads
- EPUB import for local novels
- Look-ahead audio pre-generation for gap-free TTS playback
- Adaptive CPU thread tuning for neural TTS models
- Backup and restore (library, progress, settings, bookmarks)