Selector in Preferences for Default epub Viewer?

[bobtodd]

Howdy y'all,

I get the reasons here for not going through the hassle of incorporating a full-on ePub viewer within Bookends. But, much to my consternation, the format seems to be persisting and even getting more entrenched (e.g. even Springer publishes papers and books for download as PDF or ePub).

In my own haphazard workflow with ePubs, Calibre ends up being huge and slow, Apple's Books is mostly useful for light reading, Kindle can be necessary because it syncs ePubs and audiobooks well, and Clearview X at least makes a valid attempt at letting the user organize files. This means I have a bunch of ePub apps lying around.

Which brings me to my question:

would it be possible to have in the Bookends Preferences a selector for the "default ePub viewer" to open files with?

That's not always the same as the viewer I want as the system default. I've found the similar setting for the PDF viewer incredibly helpful, so having one for ePub viewers would be great.

Peace out,
Todd

[Jon]

I don't know how much demand there is for something like this. I doubt there are many attaching ebooks, and among those even fewer who want to use different readers for different ebooks (that are attached in Bookends). The threshold is high for added yet another preference setting, there are already more than I like. I'd consider a less intrusive option, though. For example, drag and drop of the "can't display" image onto an application in the Dock or the Finder to open it in that app. Would that be worth adding or not?

Jon
Sonny Software

[bobtodd]

Howdy,

That makes sense. I'd be curious whether it's really the case that few users add ebooks, since a lot of university library subscriptions to publishers allow for download of complete ebooks now. But I can understand that ePub itself would still only have small demand.

I'd definitely be up for allowing the user to drag the "can't display" information into an app of one's choice. That would be incredibly helpful.

Peace out,
t

[bobtodd]

Also, in the split-pane attachment view, the 1st element in the gear-icon menu says "Open PDF with >..." and populates a menu with the user's apps for handling PDFs. Having that same kind of menu for ePubs would be incredibly helpful.

Peace out,
t

[Jon]

We already let users use a right-click to open any type of unrecognized file type in its default app, which is universally useful. What you're asking for is (1) only useful if you want to use more than one app to open the same file type (2) only useful for epubs. As I've mentioned, making a change in the UI that affects 100% of users requires a substantial need. PDFs meet that threshold, epubs do not. On the other hand, the solution I suggested using drag and drop is not only transparent to users but actually is universally useful in that it applies to any kind of file, not just epubs. So I'd consider adding that.

Jon
Sonny Software

[vinschger]

I thought drag and drop of a pdfs thumbnail in bookends to the finder or any other app is already possible, isn't it?

[Jon]

It is. But these aren't PDFs. They are epubs and the display for file types that Bookends can't render is quite different.

Jon
Sonny Software

[vinschger]

I understand, me (and as you say probably most bookends users) are mainly using it with pdfs...
I like your suggested solution with drag and drop of the icon to other apps.
other possibility: maybe a hidden or advanced setting section (either in the app or in a setting text file) might also be an option for very advanced and user specific settings if there should be a lot of such individual requests for specific settings that you reasonably do not want to include in the standard settings.

[bobtodd]

Howdy,

I understand. I just thought the "Open PDF in..." might actually be abstracted to "Open [attached file type] in...", and then it could pipe in the options from the system's "Open with...", which also populates the menu with any applications able to open the associated file type. But if that requires major rejiggering of the UI, I totally understand that's perhaps more trouble than it's worth. So I'll happily take anything that shortcuts the "Show Attachment in Finder"-route to opening ePubs...

Peace out,
t

[Jon]

Each of the "open PDF" options has been hardcoded with the bundle ids of the associated app. But actually, your idea about offering a right-click option that had an Open with a hierarchical menu generated on-the-fly isn't a bad idea. I'll have to look into what APIs might be used to get that information and see how hard that would be to implement.

Jon
Sonny Software

[bobtodd]

Howdy,

Wow, that'd be awesome. There's no love lost between me and ePubs, but several presses leave me with that as the only non-pirated option. And converters don't always leave a good machine-readable file. So any supports for working with the original ePubs would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for considering different options.

Peace out,
t

[macgarvin]

And converters don't always leave a good machine-readable file.

I've found that various converters to pdf, including Calibre's epub > pdf format tool have a dangerous habit of suddenly self-destructing, when all highlighted text in Bookends suddenly turn into garbage characters, which cannot then be reversed. My workflow, providing the epub is DRM-free, is to use the Calibre converter epub > Word .docx. The .docx file will then be in the same folder as the original epub file. Then do Adobe Acrobat (paid version. Others?) > Open, then select view 'any file' and open the .doc file, upon which it will convert it to a pdf. I then put the pdf into Bookends in the normal way. I've not encountered 'self-destruct' problems with this.

As an aside, the formatting options when doing the Calibre conversion to docx - page size, font etc - that work for me are: In the Output 'Look & Feel' page I enter 11 pt into Base Font and Font size Key, and Minion Pro as the font, and in the Output 'Docx Output' options I put A5, Top margin 36pt, Left and right margins 48 pt, bottom margin 72 point and 'do not insert table of contents' (as there will usually be one anyway) for acceptable output.

[bobtodd]

And converters don't always leave a good machine-readable file.

My workflow, providing the epub is DRM-free, is to use the Calibre converter epub > Word .docx. The .docx file will then be in the same folder as the original epub file. Then do Adobe Acrobat (paid version. Others?) > Open, ...

Thanks so much! I had come across that character-mangling you're talking about. But I wouldn't have thought to go to MS Word. In part that's because I've found Word's own PDF converter to be problematic. But you avoid that by using Adobe's converter... nice move! And thanks for giving your settings.

Peace out,
t

[DrJJWMac]

FWIW, PDFExpert (macOS) offers to convert an ePub directly to PDF at the point where you try to open the ePub with it. I imagine its iPadOS version might do the same (not tested).

[bobtodd]

Oh, I've used PDFExpert in the past. I'll have to give it a try. Thanks!