Adding / synchronize books

Reading time aye?

There are two main distinct way to add a book with oboku. You can either add a book manually or let oboku synchronize it automatically.

Although adding a book manually is convenient and fast, it is recommended to use data source links as much as possible since it can be ultimately a lot easier to manage your contents.

Add from device

You can pick any contents from your device and add it directly to the app. By doing so the book will be saved to your library but the book file will only be available on that specific device. oboku does not store any content on its server. If you want to access a book from your other device you need to use one of the other following methods.

If you are on computer you can also drop a file directly onto the app. This will automatically open the screen to add a book.

Add from URI

If you have a book stored and accessible through an uri (eg: http://www.ideal-group.org/cris-archives/sample_epub3_ebooks.htm), you can copy paste this uri directly and oboku will use the uri (in the above case https://github.com/IDPF/epub3-samples/releases/download/20170606/cc-shared-culture.epub) as source to download the book. You will be able to access the book from any of your device as long as the uri is accessible.

Add from Google Drive / Dropbox / ...

The other methods to add a book uses external services (providers) and will vary in term of UI. Using Google Drive or dropbox will for example prompt you with their own picker. There will be more choice over time once more providers will be implemented on oboku. When using such providers you will also have access to your content everywhere however you will sometime be prompted with a login screen since oboku needs permission to access theses services on your behalf.

Due to the various way to request persmission and access content from external providers (google, dropbox, ...) oboku does not store any credentials on its server. You may be asked from time to time to login through the app to the given service to grand oboku temporary access. We will work on the way to smoothen the process and request you as less as possible to login again.

Synchronize with a data source link

The last option is in fact the most convenient one. Assuming you store your book in a supported data source (ex Google Drive), you will be able to create a link for that data source and have oboku synchronize all your content autimatically.

As for now oboku does not triggers a synchronization itself, you will always need to manually trigger it whenever you made changes on your data source. The synchronization itself is automatic, not the trigger.

We may at some point watch and trigger synchronizations automatically but because this will increase the cost of operating significantly this feature is on hold for the moment.