Welcome
Welcome to the documentation of oboku
Useful links
The landing page of oboku
The web app
General contact bret.maxime@gmail.com
If you have any questions, feedbacks or just feel like discuss about oboku please feel free to join us on reddit
What is oboku ?
oboku is a cloud reader which allows you to synchronize your own books from various sources and provide a user friendly experience for both normal and e-reader devices. Although you obviously need to be online to synchronize your content when needed, the app can be used 100% offline
The service is different from kindle, kobo or google play book since it emphasizes and focus on your own content (sometime named side loaded books or user content). By connecting your own datasources to oboku you will be able to synchronize and access your books wherever you are and with any devices. We do not own or store any of your book, we only act as a bridge to let you access and organize them.
Another main focus of oboku is the accessibility no matter the device. With that in mind, e-ink devices always comes as a first priority when developing new features. The experience can also be adapted based on your device size or type. We aim to prive extensive configuration to fully suits anyone's need.
E-ink devices
E Ink ("electronic ink") is a brand of electronic paper (e-paper) display technology. It is currently available commercially in grayscale and color and is commonly used in mobile devices such as e-readers, and, to a lesser extent, digital signage, smartwatches, mobile phones, electronic shelf labels and architecture panels.
Some example of e-ink devices are Kobo tablet, amazon kindle, tolino or Onyx Boox. They offer a conveniant and eye strain free reading experience. Oboku will provide an experience that is suitable and confortable for such devices.
At this point in time oboku is in early stage of development and very limited in term of features. Many more will be added over time but the philosophy behind it will stay the same.
Key features you can expect:
Offline first, the app will work no matter your connectivity. You will still need to pre-download your book if you plan to go offline and synchronize your library if you add book.
Connect various data sources to automatically synchronize your books from (Google Drive, dropbox, ...)
Manage collections and tags
Hide sensitives books behind protected tags
Follow your book progress
Visualize, sort and filter your books
If you are still wondering whether or not you should use it, the following points might help you decide.
You should try oboku if you:
Possess your own book files. For now the synchronization support is limited and paid services such as kobo or kindle are not supported.
Read from different devices (e-ink, tablet, web, ...)
Like to organize your books automatically
Manage your books with calibre
Often goes offline
You should not try it if you:
Wants a complete and bug free service. This is still an early and heavily developed product
Only buy and read books from paid or closed platform (without API we cannot synchronize from them, ever) (ex: kobo, kindle, ...)
How do we compare to similar / alternative services
BookFusion:
BookFusion is yet another cloud based book library which let you organize and read your own books. It does look similar to oboku in some of the aspects and could ultimately gives you the same experience. However there are some missing key features from BookFusion that are the very reason oboku exist:
The service is paid. Oboku is and will stay free and open source.
You have to upload your book to their server (or use calibre plugin). Oboku is meant to be used with any storage of your choice. We do not host any of your book files, we just synchronize them.
The reading app is not e-ink friendly
No offline support (at least on the web)
Unfortunately quite closed since it's provided by a company as a paid product ultimately
Calibre Web:
Calibre Web is another similar project that was created many years ago and provide a also similar experience. It obviously provide a lot more of features at this time and you might want to give it a try as well. Most specifically if you are using calibre as your source of data. Although it is also a similar project here are some of the key differences:
No offline support
Not e-ink friendly
Limited choice of source prodivers (Calibre and Kobo sync)
It is a self hosted product and comes with the hassle of maintenance.
In no way oboku wishes to undermine calibre-web and I want to personally thanks janeczku and all the contributors for making the calibre-web project.
Want to add your own app to help people find it or help differentiate it? Contact me to add it here. It's not a "who is best" contest but more of a starting point for users looking for what they need
Status
This project is still under heavy development and is not officialy released yet. If you like it and want to contribute, we are looking for translators and general contributors. If you would like to see a specific feature please open a new issue.
We are looking for testers and feedbacks.
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