Pocket Reader
Simple reader app for Playdate.
- Supports TXT files
- Support for folders
- Automatically saves your position
- Displays progress in System Menu
- Option to reopen latest open file on launch
- Adjustable scroll speed and margins
The books featured in the screenshots were downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
Download
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Development log
- 1.6 and web loaderAug 28, 2023
- 1.5 - List view icon and some requested featuresJul 01, 2023
- 1.4 - Folder supportNov 22, 2022
- 1.3 - Options for how d-pad left/right should actJul 28, 2022
- 1.2 - More characters in the font and faster loadingMay 31, 2022
- 1.1 - Simulator loads files fasterMay 02, 2022
Comments
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hello. I was wondering if you would consider supporting printing in Korean as well.
I'm Korean, and I had such a hard time getting this device that I want to make the most of it!!
This is completely amazing, especially for someone who used to read books on their Nokia E72. The only small issue I found was that some books with first line indents are formatted with three squares ▢▢▢, do you know if there are any workaround for that or way to insert blank spaces instead? Thanks!
Ah yes, the font does not have the tab character, and it is not available in the font tool, so I’ll have to replace it with spaces in code. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
Thanks for the update!
I just finished my second book in this app, it is convenient works well, but I miss something like percentage of book red when menu button is pressed, or opening the last book from which I ended the app. Maybe some tilt controls :)
I will take these things into consideration, but I'm not sure about tilt controls...
This is a great Reader! I was looking for some useful apps for the Playdate and wasn't sure if a reader on such a small device would cut it. To my surprise lot of text, smooooth scrolling and great overall experience even in public transport. Maybe add optional creaking noise when using the crank :D
The only issue I have is with slovak charakters like č,š and alike it skips them or puts blank boxes. I put the document in UTF - 8 and ANSI but no help there. Is it a limitation of playdate or could it be implemented in later versions?
It's a limitation of the font. I did not make the font but I have added some characters to it and could look into adding more, but I am not a graphical designer so I can't guarantee the quality. Still, it would probably be better than nothing.
that would be great, if not I stick with English titles :)
Really like the idea behind this.
Only issue is that I've added so many books to it that it's become difficult to scroll to the desired one. Any thoughts of adding compatibility to folders so that I can put all my books from one series into a sub-folder to make it easier?
You're the second person to request folders, so I guess I'll look into that when I have time.
Thank you so much for creating this app! This kind of use-case is why I got the PlayDate. I personally love how books look on this style of screen and find it doesn't cause eye strain. Do you plan on providing folder support for organizing books? Also, does this have an option to change font size?
I don't currently have plans to add more features, as I would like to focus on new projects, but I might consider it. To support more font sizes someone would have to make versions of the font at those sizes, and I don't have the artistic ability to do that or the money to pay someone else to do it, so I'm not sure about that one.
I completely understand! I really appreciate the app as it stands, so no worries either way. In the meantime I used to do some pixel art, so I may poke around at a larger font for it.
Just wanted to come back and say THANK YOU AGAIN this app is so cool. It's strange how much I like reading on my playdate, especially since i have a kindle, there's something really awesome about having such a compact eReader. It reminds me of that awesome and (sadly) fictional clamshell eReader from It Follows.
First - this is cool as hell, thank you for making it.
Do you have any advice for accidental input? I hesitate to try actually reading anything with any length when dpad left/right takes to the start/end. Is there an 'undo'? Or, barring that, a way to turn off left/right, or maybe to re-map left/right to page fwd/back instead?
If you press right and go to the end, pressing left should take you back to your position (unless you've scrolled up after going to the end). Same thing for going to the beginning. I seem to have forgotten to mention that in the README. It never occurred to me that there might be a problem with accidentally pressing left or right, but I could see about adding a setting to turn it off.
Oh great, that actually makes good intuitive sense - I'll keep it in mind. Thank you again.
I'm sure this isn't your planned lifelong project or anything, but if I run into anything interesting, I'll let you know.
hey there, this app looks wonderful and i'm very eager to use it however i'm having trouble adding any books to pocket reader because when i load my playdate in data disk mode and look in the file system i don't see a pocket reader folder at all...any ideas?
This could be one of two things. Either you sideloaded via the website, which for some reason makes the folder be called something other than what I've specified, but it should still have "PocketReader" at the end of the name. Or it's that data folders aren't created until they are needed, so you can try opening the app once and it should create the folder.
for what it's worth, i just got my playdate and ran into the same issue. the for me, the filename if you sideload the app via the website \Data\user.XXXXX.pocketreader
otherwise, everything worked exactly as displayed! thanks for the awesome app!
This app rules! You've done a great job bringing an e-reader experience over to Playdate. It would be cool to have page flipping as an alternative option to scrolling but I imagine that might be challenging with txt files. I'm surprised by how much I enjoy reading on this little device vs a larger e-reader or smartphone.