Typhon, the synchronizing ebook reader for Android

Typhon is a free, open-source ebook reader that allows you to keep your reading progress synchronized across multiple devices. This means you can read a few pages on your phone, than grab your tablet continuing where you left off.

It is a fork of PageTurner ( http://www.pageturner-reader.org/ ) and it adds a feature for Japanese dictionary lookup.

The lookup code takes its root on JadeReader. I recycled the Android specific code and made another project for the dictionary lookup called JRikai.

Note that Typhon does not require Google Play. I tested this to work on Android 9 and 10.

Typhon is licensed under the GPL-V3 license.

• Macoy Madson macoy@macoy.me (this fork's author; contact me first)
• Benjamin Marlé benjamarle@gmail.com (original author; hasn't worked on Typhon in years, unfortunately)

makuto's fork

This is a version of Typhon with good E-Ink support, meaning text should be readable in most cases and there shouldn't be any white-on-black text.

Definition Tips

Typhon should make reading EPUB files with Japanese text for Japanese learners a breeze. Simply click on a word to see its definition.

• You may need to click on adjacent characters to "feel around" for the longest, best-match phrase
• The correct definition may not be the first result; you should context clues to pick the best definition
• If you don't get any useful results, check ENamDict by scrolling the dictionary view over to the final column

...In other words, you need to use your brain, and that's a good thing!

If you want this functionality on your desktop, use Rikaichamp or other Rikai* plugins for your browser of choice. On Android, Firefox has an addon, nazeka, that works with touchscreens.

My modifications

This fork uses the below dajimenezja fork for its modern Android version and inclusion of JRikai.jar by default.

I then made modifications to make Typhon suitable for e-Ink / e-Paper displays. In my case, it's for an Onyx Boox Nova 2.

I made the following modifications:

• Got rid of bookshelf image and replaced with black line on white background. Images don't look good in e-Ink, and this one serves little purpose anyways
• Made definition popup black text on white background (previously, it was hard-coded white/colored text on black)
• Made definition popup not show loading indicator. This causes unnecessary flashing of the e-ink display, and loading is very fast anyways
• Changed controls to be inverted from black-on-white to white-on-black, when appropriate

Typhon改 (dajimenezja fork)

(dajimenezja fork)

dajimenezja's modifications:

• Revise code base to androidx api29, fixing some UI bugs (Notably fixes unused space at the bottom of tall displays)
• Update anki integration so it doesn't crash on android 26+
• Add storage permission requests on android 26+

Building Typhon

The following may be out of date. I personally just opened up the project in Android Studio and let it work its magic.

Install Java

• On Ubuntu

  sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
  

• On Windows install the JDK from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Typhon uses Java 8 lambda's through usage of the RetroLambda library.

Install the Android SDK

Typhon改 was created and tested with Android Studio 4.0

1. Download at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

2. Unzip

3. Update

   sdk/tools/android update sdk --no-ui

4. On Ubuntu install ia32-libs

    apt-get install ia32-libs
   

5. Add sdk/tools/ and sdk/platform-tools to your PATH

Install USB drivers for your device

• Make sure adb devices shows your device, for example

  $ adb devices
  List of devices attached 
  015d18ad5c14000c        device
  

Example PATH setup in .bashrc

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/projects/adt-bundle-linux/sdk/
if [ $(uname -m) == 'x86_64' ]; then
    export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre
else
    export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/jre
fi

PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

Gradle

Typhon is built using Gradle. If you want to use a local Gradle version, make sure it's at least version 2.9. The preferred way is to run the Gradle wrapper. This will automatically download the correct version of gradle to your system.

Run the Gradle wrapper by running

gradlew

Build Typhon

Once everything is in place you can build Typhon and install it on your device with

gradlew build
gradlew installDebug