M3 feature request

[rfog]

I know M3 is the ultimate ebook reader for iOS. I know that and I've purchased the full version and give the biggest tip, but it will be the "ultimate of the ultimate of the ultimate [recursive to infinte] ebook readers" if it will implement this feature.

I know it could be difficult to implement and doesn't care if it is an inside app purchase extra to all purchases.

The thing is to automatically store the Journal/Annotations in the cloud (iCloud, Dropbox, whatever) and be synced across devices. I will try to explain the thing with a real sample.

I use to read on evenings in one of my iPads. Suppose I read in my 9.7 Pro and do some annotations/comments in the book I'm reading. The journal is stored inside the device. Instead of that, store it in the cloud.

Then I go to bed and continue reading same book in my iPhone. The annotations done in my iPad aren't available in my iPhone. If they were in iCloud, they could be automatically synced to it.

Once I finished a book, I would like to export the annotations/journal. Currently I need to export them for each of the devices I've been reading the book and find a way to mix them.

It won't be so difficult because even if you have two iThings open at same time, and annotate same thing in both, you can store both in iCloud. I don't want this to be done in real-time, I would like to have all different device annotations in the same file/timeline.

Annotation file format, to avoid sharing problems, could have a folder structure and each annotation/journal entry could be a file itself. For example:

Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing A
Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing A
Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing B
Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing B
Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing A

This the only share violation could be the file name, but then adding a number to the file name would resolve the issue. I mean

Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing A
Book1/exactly_same_datetime.note -> This came from iThing A
Book1/exactly_same_datetime1.note -> This came from iThing B
Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing B
Book1/datetime.note -> This came from iThing A

I think done this way it could be the easy to implement.

And then, perhaps have a button in library, or for each book, to download and mix all the annotations, and be able to export them in one file for all devices in what you have read your book.

What do you think, Kirs? (A simply no is a valid answer).

[kguil]

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I'm looking into something very similar to what you describe.

[rfog]

[Mr. Goodbar]

That would be a great feature add.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by rfog

(A simple no is a valid answer).

Not really, if Marvin aspires to be high-end e-reader software, and I'm sure it does. We've been requesting this feature from Kris ever since Marvin was born 5 years ago. I find this to be the top missing feature in Marvin, hands down – and I call it "the elephant in the room", compared to all the other Marvin lacks or functionality gaps. I requested this feature in Marvin's GitHub back in 2013:

https://github.com/kguil/Marvin-Roadmap/issues/109

[democrite]

Very much looking forard to it. Indeed, it also one of the things preventing my complete switch from iBooks. I have no doubt Kris understands the importance and has for sometime. Early iCloud and CloudKit problems are perhaps the reason why it wasn't in M2.

One thing to add. I'm not exactly sure how to determine a UUID for a book if it doesn't contain one already. For larger libraries it would be great to be able to delete a book, re-add it later, and retain annotations. I'd guess that's already planned if possible. One other thing, iBooks is picky about annotations and file order. The only change I might make is setting the cover to linear no, or moving the TOC to the end for languages that tend to do that in print but not neccessarily done by all e-publishers in a particular language. If annotations were linked to file name and such later changes didn't mess up annotations, that'd be a huge huge plus.

btw, I think the in-book annotation list could show dates. Perhaps the sectiOn name could be made a section header rather than repeated per annotation. A tab bar to sort by section or date, for long works that could have hundreds or more annotations, that'd be most helpful as well. A filter on that screen would be quite helpful too. Overall, I think the iBooks list, with a larger font and text in color plus some surrounding text, is so far more readable. Hope that's not too much. Certainly there are enough things to do at the moment but please consider someday.

[kguil]

@democrite In M3, you can delete a book without losing any annotations, highlights, or bookmarks.