Reader: an EPUB reader for the LP3 (0.3.2) Released!)

[yarosz]

Hey there! I'm building an eReader for the Light Phone III: https://github.com/yarosz/light-reader

I looked for other readers but only found audiobook players, which seem pretty solid already (an audiobook player was my first idea).

Plan: it downloads DRM-free books from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, or any OPDS catalogue you add. No accounts or telemetry.

Current state: very early. It only opens Alice in Wonderland. No signed build yet, but I'll submit for one when the developer portal opens. If you really want to, instructions to build from source are in the README.

Page layout and typography work on the emulator and on an LP3, and changing the font size keeps your page (that was tricky!). The Shelf, catalogues, and saved places are next.

Transparency: the code is 100% AI-generated and AI verified over emulator or adb to my LP3. This discussion post written by hand. The design decisions were anchored in Matt Pocock's domain-modeling skill (run through his grill-me flow), which is where the glossary (CONTEXT.md) and ADRs in the repo came from.

Feedback welcome!

Thanks,
Nicolas

[yarosz]

Update: Reader is now a real reader!

• The Shelf holds your books, sorted by what you read last, with how far through each one you are.
• Catalogues are built in: Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks (new releases), and you can add any OPDS
  catalogue by address. Search and download straight to the Shelf.
• Every book keeps its place, including when you change the font size.
• Tap the top of the page for Contents: every chapter, with the one you're in marked, and a tap jumps
  there.
• The bottom of the page shows the minutes left in the chapter, learned from how fast you read.
• It all works offline once a book is downloaded. Still no accounts and no tracking.

Screenshots:

I've been reading different kinds of books on my LP3 to figure out what's next. Likely will add hideable
reading controls (tap the middle of the page) and a sixth additional, smaller font size for people who
like pocket-sized text.

Building from source is in the README if you're keen.

The code is AI-generated and AI-verified on the emulator and my LP3.

Feedback welcome!

Nicolas

[yarosz]

Update: Reader 0.2.0 is out. This one is mostly about the reading view.

• The page fills the whole screen now. Tap the right side to go forward, the left to go back, and the middle to bring up the controls.
• The controls show the chapter at the top (plus the Part, for books like War and Peace that have them), and a list icon opens Contents. The bottom row is A−, the minutes left in the chapter, and A+.
• The first time you open a book, a short walkthrough shows you those three taps. GIF below.
• There's a smaller font size, 15 sp, for six sizes in total.
• The screen stays on while you read. After 10 minutes without a tap it goes back to your phone's normal timeout.
• Tap "Reader" on the Shelf for an About page: where to find books without copy protection, plus the licences.
• The app dropped from 27 MB to 5 MB. Light's SDK bundles Google's ML Kit barcode scanner into every Tool, and Reader never scans anything, so I cut that out. That also got rid of a Google metrics channel I didn't want in there.

Thanks,
Nicolas

[yarosz]

Reader 0.3.1 is here with performance improvements on opening big books!

War and Peace 692 → ~126 ms

[yarosz]

Closing this out now that the official tool submission portal has opened and I've submitted this tool to the official library 🤞

You can still download the latest release (from yesterday) at https://github.com/yarosz/light-reader