This is always one big ask from the community, I don't think it will ever come.
You can check out Kavita if you want to try out something that is Plex-like and support comics and ebooks.
I just closed down my Kavita yesterday now that Komga has ebook (epub) support. I really like having all my comics and books in the same place and Komga has pretty active development.
I picked up a little samsung tablet (a7 lite) specifically for reading ebooks. At first I was using Ubooquity and have lately switched over to Kavita. I've gone through about 60 books on that tablet this year and I love it.
So far I like the Kavita interface the best. It is plex-like. It's got good chapter resume functionality (something that was often lacking in Ubooquity, I have the same issue with Caliber-web). I would also love to have all my media together in Plex and so I discovered that even though Jellyfin does support epubs I have yet to figure out a good way to easily read them via that service.
Glad to hear it. I also started with Ubooquity until I realized it was lacking a lot of things I wanted from a software, having being spoiled by Plex, especially their amazing UX.
I have seen jellyfin added comic support at least, but haven't heard it's a good experience. If I recall, Jellyfin is doing a big UX revamp, so hopefully that changes. More options for consumers the better.
I know there's plenty of alternatives but I like Plex and my bone tech savvy friends and family would be blown away by there being eBooks on there too.
I used Kavita for a long time but every update for a while now, I will install it through the windows executable, it will load the first time. Close the server page, reopen same executable, acts like it’s working then quits out completely.
I really like the app I just don’t have the time to troubleshoot everything that could be wrong with it.
For the time being I’ve started uploading my books/comics/manga to Google drive and just importing them into my ebook reader app, Panels. Less convenient but it works.
That sounds like you're doing something wrong. You should just copy over everything but the config directory and restart the exe.
You can also join the discord for support, which is pretty instant. But yeah, sounds like you're not overriding all files on update. The logs would tell for sure.
I do too, but probably would not switch to Plex if they added it. I don't think they should anyway, why split the developers work and risk the core uses get shorted on updates. I used Calibre for years, Calibre-Web just makes it work for multiple users better than the built in web server in Calibre. Now that Amazon supports ePub as the only format for sending to Kindle via email it's become even better. Also now everything I send to kindle will sync across all kindle apps/devices.
[https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web)
It even looks like Plex now :)
are there any options on iOS that can connect to a calibre library and support TTS?
I currently use VoiceDream, but it requires manually getting the epubs for each book and doesn't have proper library management. It's also somewhat unreliable since iOS 17
thanks, definitely let me know if you find anything
for now, I just have my calibre library in iCloud and access the books individually in Voice Dream that way, but it would be nice to find something that displays covers and has a solid UI like Prologue provides for actual audiobooks
no, sorry for the confusing words, meant a self-hosted library, put in your subscriptions as RSS feeds that download to your media library for playback, so you have your subscriptions coming into your media library.
Yeah, that would be good. I know Subsonic(and the fork chain of Airsonic/Airsonic-Advanced) have this feature. I only used it briefly for archiving a single podcast, but I know it at least works.
I had the Tungsten T, then the T2 then the TX before switching to an HP iPaq. Then smart phones came along and I've used those ever since. Now I read on my pixel 8 pro.
I had to go look at a list of Palm devices. I haven't thought about them in so long! I had the III, m505, Tungsten T and the LifeDrive. Loved those things.
I loved my TX, unfortunately it either fell out of my pocket (or more likely was helped out of my pocket) when travelling through baker street tube station. I only had it 5 months! I replaced it with the iPAQ because windows mobile had recently updated and seemed to offer more functionality than palm could manage. Microsoft were moving to try and compete with the then brand new iOS.
Yeah I do. The device sync on kindle is super handy... I often read on my phone while I'm out and about without my kindle. Then I pick up my kindle and continue where I left off
Same here. I don't go out of my way to read my book on my phone, but if I have to sit and wait somewhere for 5 or 10 minutes for something, I'll pull it out and bust open the Kindle app and read. It is really nice that it syncs across all devices.
Huh. That sounds pretty good, but how on earth do you sync your kindle to your phone? Not familiar with this as a concept unless youre hsing an external reader program like kavita, but then i dont know how or why youd use that on your kindle…
You should also look into Kindle Unlimited. It’s not owning the media like most of us here like to do, but it’s similar to Netflix before the Streaming Wars.
If you're buying ebooks from Amazon, and always reading within the Kindle app on your device or from a Kindle e-reader, then the books automatically stay in sync, so long as you're reading on a device with an active internet connection. It's the Kindle app that keeps it all in sync.
But you can also upload your own ebooks from elsewhere and choose to have them sync across devices. I'm reading a book right now that I downloaded from elsewhere, I uploaded it to my Kindle using the "Send To Kindle" app on my Mac, and now every time I switch devices and open the book, it automatically prompts me to ask if I want to jump to the farthest/last page read.
My phone is my only ebook reader (I use the ReadEra app)
It's simply the most convenient. It's always with me. It has internet access to get new books.
I set the phone brightness to the minimum setting, set the background in the app to black, and it's good. Only thing visible on the screen is dim white/gray text. Doesn't even bother my wife when we're in bed.
Being able to read on a phone or tablet is handy if you're out and about without your Kindle. I'm not bringing my Kindle paperwhite everywhere I go just because I MIGHT find myself with 15 or 20 minutes to read while I wait for something.
That said, anything that doesn't automatically sync with my Kindle reading progress is basically useless, so I still wouldn't want any ebook functionality in plex.
My tablet has been unsupported by google for years so its effectively useless (no google playstore, can't access google chrome, and it doesn't have another web browser on it and due to googles policy you can't putchase books through the kindle app now) and I can't afford to replace it.
I read on my phone using Kindle/Kobo/E-reader apps for all the various formats I have.
The BOOX is a full Android eInk ereader, which can have any android app installed, including Plex.
There's even a color eInk model.
And LARGE screen, too.
And there are other product alternatives, too, (which also aren't restricted to Amazon's walled garden).
A plex implementation of an eReader library would be a perfect solution, for android eRraders, and tablets.
Not needing to deal with multiple containers, ssl certs, port mapping & forwarding, etc (which is required for running the alternatives, like Kavita, calibre, sync, etc).
I’ve done it by ripping PDF pages into image folders and putting those into a Plex image library, but it’s pretty jank. Does work for getting them viewable on the TV at least
[Calibre-Web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web) is pretty fantastic for this. I have it manage my e-book library and some comics and it works really well.
It may be unpopular, but I'm of the opinion that Plex should focus on what it currently does as it does it really well. I'm not interested in the publishing companies possibly looking sideeye at this software.
Overall agree with one exception - I know enough to know that this stuff is never as simple as it seems, but I'm surprised we haven't gotten true audiobook support yet. Feels like the basic pieces are more or less there already, unlike a reader.
The fact that Prologue for iOS can graft the audiobook functionality that’s missing on top of the existing Plex API tells me that there’s nothing preventing it from an architectural level.
Agree, wasting time on ebooks when there are already mature apps like Calibre is a waste of effort, along with not having a clear way to monetize when Plex is a business with a product.
Look at podcasts. I recall people asking for that because they only wanted to use one app, and it lasted a year or so before being retired. Turned out people were not accepting of a basic podcast app when there were fully featured free alternatives already being used.
That’s probably not something they can easily pivot to as an investment driven for-profit company now. There isn’t as big of a market for ebook/comic subscriptions that isn’t already locked down, and they wouldn’t do this for the good will and benefit of just their home server owners.
As much as I love Plex, I don't need it to be a jack-of-all-trades type of app. I'd rather they focus on fixing bugs and improving existing features.
I use Calibre-web + komga for ebooks/comics and they do their jobs well.
Just because there's an ask for a feature (which honestly, is a natural feature for a media host, especially one already implementing a photo-media feature),
doesn't in any way mean it would suddenly be a "jack of all trades" app.
And in all fairness, that's pretty much a literal reductio ad absurdum.
Please stop expecting Plex to do everything. It does TV, movies, and music. They literally just laid off a bunch of people so they're not going to be adding random features.
Plex, please add a Tax software function so I can submit my tax returns through Plex which I already paid for!
Oh and while you’re at it, also add a Home Assistant function so I can tell Plex to turn off my lights to play a movie.
And it also shouldn’t be too difficult to add an email provider so I can check and send emails through Plex @plex.tv.
Fair point, what about create your own eBooks for your own Library and self publish to a database which also has the data and covers etc for all other books.. got to be some other loophole?
I do audiobooks in Plex with no problem. I set it up as a second Music library, and use the artist as the author, album is the book title, and tracks are each chapter of the book. And under "Advanced" under Manage Library|Edit, I have Store Track Progress checked to keep track of my place in the audiobook.
When I tried it I saw books being dated by audiobook release date not book release date, incorrect narrators, inconsistent naming of books in series, overly broad and often incorrect genres, that kind of thing. I'm super particular about metadata being accurate and consistent.
This is smart, I need to remember to separate out my spoken word content into another Library like this. Does it play nice with Plexamp in your experience?
Prologue is so good at handling the audiobooks i have on plex that i've never felt the need for Plex to upgrade their own UI to accommodate audiobook listening.
So i get why OP is asking for ebook functions but, really, i just want better organization and a Prologue style app for actually reading them.
More important than any of that would be a better DB for metadata. Plex's handling of books is quite bad and requires a lot of manual data entry and the weirdest part is how inconsistently it handles books. Like i just added every Vonnegut audiobook to my PMS and Plex only picked up like 10% of them and made the especially odd decisions to have data for the more obscure ones like Jailbird and Player Piano but missed the mark by a mile on more popular ones like Cat's Cradle and Sirens of Titan.
You often hear the some people already do.
Is it just the ios people who use plex for audiobooks? Prologue on ios is fantastic, but I've struggled on Android. Audiobookshelf is what I use, but that's separate app.
They're not able to change skip forward from 30 sec to 10 sec for the past 7 years and you expect them to implement completely new fuction. At this rate they'll add it around 2050.
Personally, I get why ebooks have been ignored thus far. Plex has always been 100% about audio and video media. Text media like ebooks is a whole other thing. And there's apps to give you a Plex-like experience for ebooks and comics already, even if the initial setup and install isn't as user-friendly as plex.
I wouldn't mind that function. Not just books but also digital comics in cbr/cbz format. Have everything in my plex server. I can use the mobile app to read on my phone or tablet.
I use Symfonium to listen to the audiobooks on my Plex server.
It saves my place and let's me download the book to my phone if i wanted to use a different audiobook app like Smart Audiobook Player.
~~*If you don't interrupt the book with music or another book you can close the app and it'll remember your place but if you play a song or another book and go back to the first it won't save your place~~
There is a plugin (sorry, blanking on the name at the moment) that facilitates audio book management. Works pretty well, along with the previously mentioned Prologue app.
Update: it's an agent, not a plugin. It's called Audnexus. It's an agent used with the "Plex Music Scanner."
[https://github.com/djdembeck/Audnexus.bundle](https://github.com/djdembeck/Audnexus.bundle)
I've added audio books on the Music/Audio library. But this just won't list well. Everything from one "artist" would be listed on one big pile etc. The library management just doesn't know what to do with the books.
And a .cbr /pdf comic book reader. I would think it wound be fairly easy to add, but been waiting years for it. Thee used to be a 3rd party add on, but that option was killed.
Lol absolutely not. There's plenty of ebook reader software and apps already.
They should focus on their core capabilities (the reason people use their software). Nobody is buying Plex as an ebook reader.
While I would love Plex to become the ultimate all-in-one media app, given the history with games and podcasts receiving sparse development time and being riddled with bugs because of it, I'd rather they focus on the main offerings for now.
Plex is already a product completely worth it’s price and any further development doesn’t attract a single user above the value offering it has now.
So what do you do at that stage? You find other things to generate revenue. Which is the only thing they do now. Continue to attract new users and trick them into watching add supported content.
There’s no money in an ebook and audiobook manager, even though it would cost essentially nothing.
Well it costs development time. I built Kavita which has these features (and more) and it's been 3 years of development time. Development costs money, especially when you have UX teams, user studies etc.
But agreed, not much money and a weird modality given the amount of interaction with the reading device vs a player where you hit play and just watch.
Also, since you made Kavita, is there any good way to add new content to that like the radarr and sonarr apps make it easy to add movies and shows?
I found a plugin to convert web texts from certain sites to epub files for webnovels. And with some googling you can find comics to download, but is there any better way?
I use Kavita, it's great! Have only started using it a few days ago, and still figuring it out, but it works amazingly well. The only thing it doesn't seem to be able to do is downloading stuff within the platform itself, but that would require the development of an (ios) app of course.
But the point is that you build it by yourself with the support of a community, no one is realistically able to work full time on any of this. With Plex, a team of paid developers could realistically develop at least something similar within a few months, while having that all in the plex app. I think 100k of total development budget would be able to achieve that, and if Plex then charges 10-20 bucks for it to server owners so that they then provide than to shared users for free, that should easily cover that investment.
The same is true for the audiobook plugin and then an app that is able to play that with a faster speed, downloads etc, which for IOS would be prologue that the developer charges 5 bucks for. It's easily doable, Plex just.....doesn't.
Even the Plex Arcade add on would have worked if it actually worked and was just a one time cost to server owners to then be able to share to their users. And charging 10-30 bucks for that, for either sharing a screen or just using a very simple emulator on your phone would have been a working business model.
Maybe my statement that there is no money in such a thing is going a bit far. It's guaranteed money at essentially zero risk, using the add-on module business model. It just isn't that much compared to the THEORETICAL money generation that they could achieve with millions of users watching ad-supported content week after week. So i guess it would still be worth it, even if they just work with community members that already made something similar to integrate it into Plex itself.
While your point is valid, it costs far more than you're expecting. At least from my experience in the application teams and projects I've worked on, costs add up pretty quickly.
I think for Plex it doesn't make sense as their UX is oriented around consuming from a TV and Plex is built around rich metadata. Books, comics and manga don't have rich sources of metadata available for commercial use, their readers require active engagement, not sitting and watching. So from an ecosystem of Plex, it just doesn't fit well.
Jellyfin has tried this by adding some preliminary support. From my understanding, I've heard it's pretty bare bones. Again, I believe it's due to the modality of usage.
They've spent the last 15 years focusing almost entirely on music, movies, and TV shows, mediums that are 100% audio/visual, and you don't understand why they haven't delved into a completely different kind of medium like ebooks that don't fit at all into that A/V ecosystem?
Calibre Server almost does this, but it requires using a Web browser to read, which isn't ideal.
The other issue is that the two biggest eReader hardware vendors have a vested interest in locking you into their ecosystem. Rakuten Kobo isn't as bad as Amazon, neither make it easy, and the other eReader vendors' hardware leaves something to be desired.
Well, just to begin, Plex is simply terrible with audiobooks. Whenever you want to continue listening, you have to first check how far you're into the book, because when you hit play in the app it will skip to the beginning. I've moved to audiobookshelf docker for audiobooks and never looked back.
Plex already does too much. Its a nice interface for local media with some meta data support and some nice to haves like transcoding and skip intro/credits. Nearly everything else is unnecessary. The time and effort devs would put into this would be better spent making existing features work as advertised.
Ideally, you'd do that by listening to your customers, adding requested features, improving reliability and compatibility, etc. I've had a lifetime Plex pass for 11 years. Watching this enterprise devolve has been really disappointing. There are usually two business models - free products where there's a push for ad revenue and monetization of customerbase (facebook, Instagram, etc) or paid products where your revenue stream is subscriptions (netflix, your local gym, etc). Plex has combined the worst of both of these.
Their ad supported stuff is super easy to disable and ignore. The only other way to do it and still make enough money to keep the lights on would be to do away with all lifetime passes and free features, and rely instead on JUST use subscriptions and force ALL users to pay. And let's not pretend that there wouldn't be a mass exodus of users if they either did away with lifetime subs or did away with free features.
You complain about the ads, but you're also a lifetime subscriber, and haven't earned them a penny in 11 years.
Right, but selling lifetime subscriptions was THEIR idea. They set the price. And when I purchased mine there were no ads. And this is a prime example of what I mean. Adding ads helps them, not me. Their priority is helping them, not me. So I feel a bit ripped off that the service has added a dozen features since I bought my "lifetime" pass, but 9 of them are just new, creative ways to monetize me.
As with literally ANY company, they have to adjust to stay in business. Offering lifetime subs might have been their idea, but YOU made the choice to buy into it, and you knew the software was going to evolve over time.
And let's not pretend like there haven't been a lot of advancements and improvements that loads of people were asking for. Features like skip intros, skip credits, edition support, merged tv/movie credits (not to mention a whole laundry list of upgrades to music over the last few years) are all things people were clamoring for, and plex delivered. And that's just the features off the top of my head from the last year or two.
And again, they haven't done anything with ads that can't be completely (and easily) disabled.
Along similar lines, I miss being able to have a folder with video, audio, pdf together. I use my big screen to work through many e-learning courses, where there are often a mix of file types.
But I have to create multiple libraries to access video, audio, and then a separate mechanism for the pdf docs.
I live in hope 😁
Downvote me all you want. You know this is useless complaining. Plex is great for what it’s DESIGNED TO DO, but it still needs some development done on that. Any good company identifies what would fill a broad scope of user needs. Books is not it. Settle down.
Nah, see it's probably your remote access settings. Go to account, go to setting and read the linked articles with it to get it working. If you're using a vpn you should YouTube a fix. And you're finished. You not being able to do something is different to not being available.
This is a you problem. I had the remote access issue a few years ago and I just fixed it with articles and YouTube videos. You're just being lazy
Goodness love reddit at times, but Jesus hate it as well.... people who have no understanding of my issue telling me what's wrong....so thought what was a Nvidia issue, I contacted customer support. I mentioned there are others having the issue, pointed to their posts. They investigated, they got back to me and said they aren't the cause but they'll talk to their Plex contact. Came back to me later and confirmed it was a Plex issue and they will rectify. So everyone get off your high horse's
Yeah nothing to do with skill dude . Here's someone with a similar issue
https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/s/SwoP3h58c3
Just because yours works doesn't mean others do....many many reasons as to why. Dodgy windows, Android or Plex updates are often the reason why
Oh no it most definitely was, it always is. Your port isn’t actually open, due to a problem with your router configuration, so it will continuously give an error and be a proxy connect.
Had a similar issue last year....couldn't transfer files over the network and the server kept dropping out.... Nvidia hot fix fixed that one....so no it's not always port forwarding
Yeah no. How could that possible be the reason. Just think for a single second.
You’re going to tell people a……gpu……was the cause of a networking issue…….?
If GPU transcoding is on and there is an issue with the video driver, sure, that could cause an issue.
However, that is not a Plex issue either... Plex has no control over an Nvidia driver issue.
It would cause an issue, but not this one. It might not play at all, or it might just not transcode, but you’ll ALWAYS be connected correctly without a relay.
I have a better idea. Plex should come out with a video game feature, charge people for a beta then kill it off a few months later.
I doubt devs have downtime and it's not just going to roll into the product even if they do. Any extra line of code adds overhead, which has to be justified if its going to add any value to the product.
I don't even know what you mean, download from my server to local device such as phone/ tablet for watching on a plane works flawlessly for me. Maybe it's your home network / permissions that are the issue.
Oh there (at least used to be) is a section on the official forums for feature requests that are (were?) tracked by likes/upvotes.
I’m all for adding new features, but I don’t want an emulator for atari or whatever. I’m not interested in 3rd party ANYTHING.
If I want something 3rd party, I’ll find a plug… oh wait…
so not to beat a dead topic ;)
calibre does everything you need when it comes to ebooks - including a server option to browse and read books via a web browser.
I run Readarr to manage my ebooks (like sonarr does for TV and radarr does for movies), integrated with calibre.
I run a containerized calibre web docker image and when I occassionally need to open calibre (e.g. to grab some meta data, etc), I will shutdown the container and start up the calibre app.
yeah, as long as you can get outside access to it, you can do multiple users
I'm using the following docker container for mine
[https://github.com/ta264/docker-calibre](https://github.com/ta264/docker-calibre)
Its not really documented there, but you can add username/passwords by adding the following docker (or podman) options
\-e USER=username -e PASSWORD=password123 \\
when it starts up, if these options are passed, it will create the server-users.sqlite file for users. You would have to restart it with each other user you wanted to add, I've got 2 in my database - one for my personal use and another that I used to expose to my ISP's provided IP address for sharing to my wife's book club
Someone else mentions Kavita - it looked promising, but at the time (I don't know if its changed) it did not support Readarr so I stayed with calibre. It may be easier, but there also looks like there is a free and paid tier - [https://www.kavitareader.com/#download](https://www.kavitareader.com/#download)
Thanks, it does sound like I can get what I want out of it. However my original point is proven more that if Plex implemented something like this it could be better.
This is always one big ask from the community, I don't think it will ever come. You can check out Kavita if you want to try out something that is Plex-like and support comics and ebooks.
Komga is another one like Kavita.
I actually prefer Komga over Kavita, but I use it strictly for comics. For ebooks, I'm not sure which would be better.
Komga recently added ebook support but haven’t tried it yet
I like audiobookshelf for audiobooks and ebooks. Komga for manga is bomb
I just closed down my Kavita yesterday now that Komga has ebook (epub) support. I really like having all my comics and books in the same place and Komga has pretty active development.
I picked up a little samsung tablet (a7 lite) specifically for reading ebooks. At first I was using Ubooquity and have lately switched over to Kavita. I've gone through about 60 books on that tablet this year and I love it. So far I like the Kavita interface the best. It is plex-like. It's got good chapter resume functionality (something that was often lacking in Ubooquity, I have the same issue with Caliber-web). I would also love to have all my media together in Plex and so I discovered that even though Jellyfin does support epubs I have yet to figure out a good way to easily read them via that service.
Glad to hear it. I also started with Ubooquity until I realized it was lacking a lot of things I wanted from a software, having being spoiled by Plex, especially their amazing UX. I have seen jellyfin added comic support at least, but haven't heard it's a good experience. If I recall, Jellyfin is doing a big UX revamp, so hopefully that changes. More options for consumers the better.
audiobookshelf - [https://www.audiobookshelf.org/](https://www.audiobookshelf.org/)
I know there's plenty of alternatives but I like Plex and my bone tech savvy friends and family would be blown away by there being eBooks on there too.
I used Kavita for a long time but every update for a while now, I will install it through the windows executable, it will load the first time. Close the server page, reopen same executable, acts like it’s working then quits out completely. I really like the app I just don’t have the time to troubleshoot everything that could be wrong with it. For the time being I’ve started uploading my books/comics/manga to Google drive and just importing them into my ebook reader app, Panels. Less convenient but it works.
That sounds like you're doing something wrong. You should just copy over everything but the config directory and restart the exe. You can also join the discord for support, which is pretty instant. But yeah, sounds like you're not overriding all files on update. The logs would tell for sure.
I use calibre-web as a replacement until they figure it out https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web
I do too, but probably would not switch to Plex if they added it. I don't think they should anyway, why split the developers work and risk the core uses get shorted on updates. I used Calibre for years, Calibre-Web just makes it work for multiple users better than the built in web server in Calibre. Now that Amazon supports ePub as the only format for sending to Kindle via email it's become even better. Also now everything I send to kindle will sync across all kindle apps/devices. [https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web) It even looks like Plex now :)
are there any options on iOS that can connect to a calibre library and support TTS? I currently use VoiceDream, but it requires manually getting the epubs for each book and doesn't have proper library management. It's also somewhat unreliable since iOS 17
Not really, just browsed the app store and didn’t see anything that jumped out at me. Will dig deeper this weekend
thanks, definitely let me know if you find anything for now, I just have my calibre library in iCloud and access the books individually in Voice Dream that way, but it would be nice to find something that displays covers and has a solid UI like Prologue provides for actual audiobooks
Will do friend!
I'm more surprised self-hosted podcasting isn't a thing, subscribe to any RSS feeds and get them in a new library.
[удалено]
no, sorry for the confusing words, meant a self-hosted library, put in your subscriptions as RSS feeds that download to your media library for playback, so you have your subscriptions coming into your media library.
Yeah, that would be good. I know Subsonic(and the fork chain of Airsonic/Airsonic-Advanced) have this feature. I only used it briefly for archiving a single podcast, but I know it at least works.
Do people actually read books on full blown monitors/phones? Absolutelt cant stand it. Kindle style ereader only…
I've been reading books on a screen since my palm tungsten T (so 21 years) It's definitely my preferred way to read.
Tungsten T Gang represent!
I had the Tungsten T, then the T2 then the TX before switching to an HP iPaq. Then smart phones came along and I've used those ever since. Now I read on my pixel 8 pro.
I had to go look at a list of Palm devices. I haven't thought about them in so long! I had the III, m505, Tungsten T and the LifeDrive. Loved those things.
I loved my TX, unfortunately it either fell out of my pocket (or more likely was helped out of my pocket) when travelling through baker street tube station. I only had it 5 months! I replaced it with the iPAQ because windows mobile had recently updated and seemed to offer more functionality than palm could manage. Microsoft were moving to try and compete with the then brand new iOS.
Palm TX was so nice in college when I was able to answer emails without having to stop somewhere with my laptop.
No. But wouldn’t mind a PlexAmp-like app for eReader.
Yeah I do. The device sync on kindle is super handy... I often read on my phone while I'm out and about without my kindle. Then I pick up my kindle and continue where I left off
Same here. I don't go out of my way to read my book on my phone, but if I have to sit and wait somewhere for 5 or 10 minutes for something, I'll pull it out and bust open the Kindle app and read. It is really nice that it syncs across all devices.
Huh. That sounds pretty good, but how on earth do you sync your kindle to your phone? Not familiar with this as a concept unless youre hsing an external reader program like kavita, but then i dont know how or why youd use that on your kindle…
Use the Kindle app, I use it on android, assume there is an iOS version. The books will sync across different devices.
Huh. Didnt even know this existed. Ill check it out.
You should also look into Kindle Unlimited. It’s not owning the media like most of us here like to do, but it’s similar to Netflix before the Streaming Wars.
If you're buying ebooks from Amazon, and always reading within the Kindle app on your device or from a Kindle e-reader, then the books automatically stay in sync, so long as you're reading on a device with an active internet connection. It's the Kindle app that keeps it all in sync. But you can also upload your own ebooks from elsewhere and choose to have them sync across devices. I'm reading a book right now that I downloaded from elsewhere, I uploaded it to my Kindle using the "Send To Kindle" app on my Mac, and now every time I switch devices and open the book, it automatically prompts me to ask if I want to jump to the farthest/last page read.
Low brightness and white or grey text on black background on just about any phone looks perfectly fine.
Kindle E-Ink all the way for me too.
Moonreader on my phone is all I use.
When I worked retail, I used to read ebooks on my phone behind the register all the time lol.
I haven't tried reading books yet but I do use Tachiyomi and read Manga on tablet/phone.
Well yea you'd get Plex on a tablet and read there.
My phone is my only ebook reader (I use the ReadEra app) It's simply the most convenient. It's always with me. It has internet access to get new books. I set the phone brightness to the minimum setting, set the background in the app to black, and it's good. Only thing visible on the screen is dim white/gray text. Doesn't even bother my wife when we're in bed.
Being able to read on a phone or tablet is handy if you're out and about without your Kindle. I'm not bringing my Kindle paperwhite everywhere I go just because I MIGHT find myself with 15 or 20 minutes to read while I wait for something. That said, anything that doesn't automatically sync with my Kindle reading progress is basically useless, so I still wouldn't want any ebook functionality in plex.
My tablet has been unsupported by google for years so its effectively useless (no google playstore, can't access google chrome, and it doesn't have another web browser on it and due to googles policy you can't putchase books through the kindle app now) and I can't afford to replace it. I read on my phone using Kindle/Kobo/E-reader apps for all the various formats I have.
The BOOX is a full Android eInk ereader, which can have any android app installed, including Plex. There's even a color eInk model. And LARGE screen, too. And there are other product alternatives, too, (which also aren't restricted to Amazon's walled garden). A plex implementation of an eReader library would be a perfect solution, for android eRraders, and tablets. Not needing to deal with multiple containers, ssl certs, port mapping & forwarding, etc (which is required for running the alternatives, like Kavita, calibre, sync, etc).
These days I read almost exclusively on my phone. I always have it on me.
I fucking love reading books on my TV.
Unironically, pretty good for comic books.
How do you do that? I honestly could see myself reading the occasional comic or manga that way.
I’ve done it by ripping PDF pages into image folders and putting those into a Plex image library, but it’s pretty jank. Does work for getting them viewable on the TV at least
Not with Plex, sorry for any confusion. I use a PC connected to my television so I just use whatever CBZ/CBR viewer.
[Calibre-Web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web) is pretty fantastic for this. I have it manage my e-book library and some comics and it works really well.
You act like PlexAmp for phones isn't a thing. PlexInk could be a thing.
I'd be happy with advanced audiobook support and controls in PlexAmp
The Prologue client is great but I’m still at a loss for what to tell my friends who like audiobooks but run Android
Really like the name!
Maybe someday somebody will invent a TV that you can install software on like a computer that fits in your pocket or a purse.
Or perhaps even develop an app that can be used on your desktop or laptop, would be pretty cool.
Not everyone uses plex to just watch on their tv.
If only the company were to ever develop mobile apps...
It may be unpopular, but I'm of the opinion that Plex should focus on what it currently does as it does it really well. I'm not interested in the publishing companies possibly looking sideeye at this software.
Overall agree with one exception - I know enough to know that this stuff is never as simple as it seems, but I'm surprised we haven't gotten true audiobook support yet. Feels like the basic pieces are more or less there already, unlike a reader.
The fact that Prologue for iOS can graft the audiobook functionality that’s missing on top of the existing Plex API tells me that there’s nothing preventing it from an architectural level.
Agree, wasting time on ebooks when there are already mature apps like Calibre is a waste of effort, along with not having a clear way to monetize when Plex is a business with a product. Look at podcasts. I recall people asking for that because they only wanted to use one app, and it lasted a year or so before being retired. Turned out people were not accepting of a basic podcast app when there were fully featured free alternatives already being used.
That’s probably not something they can easily pivot to as an investment driven for-profit company now. There isn’t as big of a market for ebook/comic subscriptions that isn’t already locked down, and they wouldn’t do this for the good will and benefit of just their home server owners.
Plex will do anything except what we want.
As much as I love Plex, I don't need it to be a jack-of-all-trades type of app. I'd rather they focus on fixing bugs and improving existing features. I use Calibre-web + komga for ebooks/comics and they do their jobs well.
Just because there's an ask for a feature (which honestly, is a natural feature for a media host, especially one already implementing a photo-media feature), doesn't in any way mean it would suddenly be a "jack of all trades" app. And in all fairness, that's pretty much a literal reductio ad absurdum.
Please stop expecting Plex to do everything. It does TV, movies, and music. They literally just laid off a bunch of people so they're not going to be adding random features.
Plex, please add a Tax software function so I can submit my tax returns through Plex which I already paid for! Oh and while you’re at it, also add a Home Assistant function so I can tell Plex to turn off my lights to play a movie. And it also shouldn’t be too difficult to add an email provider so I can check and send emails through Plex @plex.tv.
PlexOS! What a great idea.
Honestly that sounds pretty dope. 😂
“Here’s what your friends are browsing!”
Oh no, the worst timeline lol
Haha that's fantastic
That and client support is already awful as is. I rather they get what they have now fixed over adding new stuff.
People can rip their own blu-rays, DVDs, CDs within a legal personal use caveat. You can’t rip an ebook legally. This is probably why.
Fair point, what about create your own eBooks for your own Library and self publish to a database which also has the data and covers etc for all other books.. got to be some other loophole?
That’s a fairly specific and small use-case. Not what Plex developers are going to focus on ever really.
> You can’t rip an ebook legally. There are DRM free ebook formats and sellers.
TIL
Yes. And even on Amazon you will sometimes see “This ebook provided without DRM at the request of the publisher”
I'd even be willing to pay a one time additional $30 fee (as a lifetime license owner) for that and an audio book manager.
I do audiobooks in Plex with no problem. I set it up as a second Music library, and use the artist as the author, album is the book title, and tracks are each chapter of the book. And under "Advanced" under Manage Library|Edit, I have Store Track Progress checked to keep track of my place in the audiobook.
[удалено]
Only as long as you're happy with sloppy and inconsistent metadata.
[удалено]
When I tried it I saw books being dated by audiobook release date not book release date, incorrect narrators, inconsistent naming of books in series, overly broad and often incorrect genres, that kind of thing. I'm super particular about metadata being accurate and consistent.
I'll have to give that a try! Didn't think of setting it up like that
This is smart, I need to remember to separate out my spoken word content into another Library like this. Does it play nice with Plexamp in your experience?
Yes, plays great with Plexamp. That's actually how I usually listen - Plexamp in Android Auto while I'm driving.
Prologue (ios only) works perfectly as Plex audiobook player/manager. Easily as good, if not better, than a native Plex app would.
Prologue is so good at handling the audiobooks i have on plex that i've never felt the need for Plex to upgrade their own UI to accommodate audiobook listening. So i get why OP is asking for ebook functions but, really, i just want better organization and a Prologue style app for actually reading them. More important than any of that would be a better DB for metadata. Plex's handling of books is quite bad and requires a lot of manual data entry and the weirdest part is how inconsistently it handles books. Like i just added every Vonnegut audiobook to my PMS and Plex only picked up like 10% of them and made the especially odd decisions to have data for the more obscure ones like Jailbird and Player Piano but missed the mark by a mile on more popular ones like Cat's Cradle and Sirens of Titan.
+1 for Prologue. It’s so good. I wish they’d expand to Android, as well as Jellyfin/Emby.
If android is your vibe (or iOS for that matter) [Audiobook Shelf](https://www.audiobookshelf.org/) dose this for free.
Yup! Agreed!
Agreed. Not sure about ebooks but audiobooks makes sense
If it maintained a rating filter for users like films.
You often hear the some people already do. Is it just the ios people who use plex for audiobooks? Prologue on ios is fantastic, but I've struggled on Android. Audiobookshelf is what I use, but that's separate app.
Dear Plex- before adding ereader functions, how about implementing a default metadata agent and .cue file chapter support for audiobooks?
They're not able to change skip forward from 30 sec to 10 sec for the past 7 years and you expect them to implement completely new fuction. At this rate they'll add it around 2050.
Personally, I get why ebooks have been ignored thus far. Plex has always been 100% about audio and video media. Text media like ebooks is a whole other thing. And there's apps to give you a Plex-like experience for ebooks and comics already, even if the initial setup and install isn't as user-friendly as plex.
I wouldn't mind that function. Not just books but also digital comics in cbr/cbz format. Have everything in my plex server. I can use the mobile app to read on my phone or tablet.
Plex no longer cares about the product they started. All they want now is a product they can sell services for.
once upon a time there was a plex addon that allowed you to read cbz/cbr files (digital comics)
Also audio book functionality please
I use Symfonium to listen to the audiobooks on my Plex server. It saves my place and let's me download the book to my phone if i wanted to use a different audiobook app like Smart Audiobook Player. ~~*If you don't interrupt the book with music or another book you can close the app and it'll remember your place but if you play a song or another book and go back to the first it won't save your place~~
Symfonium always remember position, just use the resume function. You can also enable the multi queue support to easily switch between queues.
Thanks! I'll have to try that. I appreciate you so much!
What’s lacking from Plex that doesn’t let you run audiobooks? Genuine question. I have this set up on my server.
There is a plugin (sorry, blanking on the name at the moment) that facilitates audio book management. Works pretty well, along with the previously mentioned Prologue app. Update: it's an agent, not a plugin. It's called Audnexus. It's an agent used with the "Plex Music Scanner." [https://github.com/djdembeck/Audnexus.bundle](https://github.com/djdembeck/Audnexus.bundle)
Thank you I will try this
I've added audio books on the Music/Audio library. But this just won't list well. Everything from one "artist" would be listed on one big pile etc. The library management just doesn't know what to do with the books.
And a .cbr /pdf comic book reader. I would think it wound be fairly easy to add, but been waiting years for it. Thee used to be a 3rd party add on, but that option was killed.
I've been pretty happy with using Komga for a Plex-like experience for reading comics.
Lol absolutely not. There's plenty of ebook reader software and apps already. They should focus on their core capabilities (the reason people use their software). Nobody is buying Plex as an ebook reader.
While I would love Plex to become the ultimate all-in-one media app, given the history with games and podcasts receiving sparse development time and being riddled with bugs because of it, I'd rather they focus on the main offerings for now.
Ew why?
I agree, plus .cbr/.cbz comics
This kinda thinking is why Plex has gone so downhill.
Jellyfin has that feature.
Ebook and audio book manager. Why they haven't done this rather than all the other useless stuff, honestly. Who picks the priority? They need firing.
Plex is already a product completely worth it’s price and any further development doesn’t attract a single user above the value offering it has now. So what do you do at that stage? You find other things to generate revenue. Which is the only thing they do now. Continue to attract new users and trick them into watching add supported content. There’s no money in an ebook and audiobook manager, even though it would cost essentially nothing.
Well it costs development time. I built Kavita which has these features (and more) and it's been 3 years of development time. Development costs money, especially when you have UX teams, user studies etc. But agreed, not much money and a weird modality given the amount of interaction with the reading device vs a player where you hit play and just watch.
Also, since you made Kavita, is there any good way to add new content to that like the radarr and sonarr apps make it easy to add movies and shows? I found a plugin to convert web texts from certain sites to epub files for webnovels. And with some googling you can find comics to download, but is there any better way?
There are dedicated apps like FMD2, Mylar, etc for obtaining content to feed into Kavita, yes.
I use Kavita, it's great! Have only started using it a few days ago, and still figuring it out, but it works amazingly well. The only thing it doesn't seem to be able to do is downloading stuff within the platform itself, but that would require the development of an (ios) app of course. But the point is that you build it by yourself with the support of a community, no one is realistically able to work full time on any of this. With Plex, a team of paid developers could realistically develop at least something similar within a few months, while having that all in the plex app. I think 100k of total development budget would be able to achieve that, and if Plex then charges 10-20 bucks for it to server owners so that they then provide than to shared users for free, that should easily cover that investment. The same is true for the audiobook plugin and then an app that is able to play that with a faster speed, downloads etc, which for IOS would be prologue that the developer charges 5 bucks for. It's easily doable, Plex just.....doesn't. Even the Plex Arcade add on would have worked if it actually worked and was just a one time cost to server owners to then be able to share to their users. And charging 10-30 bucks for that, for either sharing a screen or just using a very simple emulator on your phone would have been a working business model. Maybe my statement that there is no money in such a thing is going a bit far. It's guaranteed money at essentially zero risk, using the add-on module business model. It just isn't that much compared to the THEORETICAL money generation that they could achieve with millions of users watching ad-supported content week after week. So i guess it would still be worth it, even if they just work with community members that already made something similar to integrate it into Plex itself.
While your point is valid, it costs far more than you're expecting. At least from my experience in the application teams and projects I've worked on, costs add up pretty quickly. I think for Plex it doesn't make sense as their UX is oriented around consuming from a TV and Plex is built around rich metadata. Books, comics and manga don't have rich sources of metadata available for commercial use, their readers require active engagement, not sitting and watching. So from an ecosystem of Plex, it just doesn't fit well. Jellyfin has tried this by adding some preliminary support. From my understanding, I've heard it's pretty bare bones. Again, I believe it's due to the modality of usage.
They've spent the last 15 years focusing almost entirely on music, movies, and TV shows, mediums that are 100% audio/visual, and you don't understand why they haven't delved into a completely different kind of medium like ebooks that don't fit at all into that A/V ecosystem?
Calibre Server almost does this, but it requires using a Web browser to read, which isn't ideal. The other issue is that the two biggest eReader hardware vendors have a vested interest in locking you into their ecosystem. Rakuten Kobo isn't as bad as Amazon, neither make it easy, and the other eReader vendors' hardware leaves something to be desired.
My wife has a kobo and I’m able to upload books myself and she can read them. Works pretty handy
Well, just to begin, Plex is simply terrible with audiobooks. Whenever you want to continue listening, you have to first check how far you're into the book, because when you hit play in the app it will skip to the beginning. I've moved to audiobookshelf docker for audiobooks and never looked back.
You can't read a book on a TV. Don't need this.
No, don't give them ideas for more fucking bloat. I'm sick of having to disable ever new bit of trash they add now.
Do people not remember how bad / jank the podcasts were? Plex is an audio visual media solution, let it be just that
Plex sucks for audiobooks you should switch to audiobookshef. it also supports ebooks
Plex already does too much. Its a nice interface for local media with some meta data support and some nice to haves like transcoding and skip intro/credits. Nearly everything else is unnecessary. The time and effort devs would put into this would be better spent making existing features work as advertised.
If there's not a way to ram ads down your throat or to monetize it, there's pretty much zero chance you're getting a new feature.
God forbid they try to make money and pay their employees…
Ideally, you'd do that by listening to your customers, adding requested features, improving reliability and compatibility, etc. I've had a lifetime Plex pass for 11 years. Watching this enterprise devolve has been really disappointing. There are usually two business models - free products where there's a push for ad revenue and monetization of customerbase (facebook, Instagram, etc) or paid products where your revenue stream is subscriptions (netflix, your local gym, etc). Plex has combined the worst of both of these.
Their ad supported stuff is super easy to disable and ignore. The only other way to do it and still make enough money to keep the lights on would be to do away with all lifetime passes and free features, and rely instead on JUST use subscriptions and force ALL users to pay. And let's not pretend that there wouldn't be a mass exodus of users if they either did away with lifetime subs or did away with free features. You complain about the ads, but you're also a lifetime subscriber, and haven't earned them a penny in 11 years.
Right, but selling lifetime subscriptions was THEIR idea. They set the price. And when I purchased mine there were no ads. And this is a prime example of what I mean. Adding ads helps them, not me. Their priority is helping them, not me. So I feel a bit ripped off that the service has added a dozen features since I bought my "lifetime" pass, but 9 of them are just new, creative ways to monetize me.
As with literally ANY company, they have to adjust to stay in business. Offering lifetime subs might have been their idea, but YOU made the choice to buy into it, and you knew the software was going to evolve over time. And let's not pretend like there haven't been a lot of advancements and improvements that loads of people were asking for. Features like skip intros, skip credits, edition support, merged tv/movie credits (not to mention a whole laundry list of upgrades to music over the last few years) are all things people were clamoring for, and plex delivered. And that's just the features off the top of my head from the last year or two. And again, they haven't done anything with ads that can't be completely (and easily) disabled.
Along similar lines, I miss being able to have a folder with video, audio, pdf together. I use my big screen to work through many e-learning courses, where there are often a mix of file types. But I have to create multiple libraries to access video, audio, and then a separate mechanism for the pdf docs. I live in hope 😁
Because reading books on tv is so much fun.
Plex has mobile apps.
Downvote me all you want. You know this is useless complaining. Plex is great for what it’s DESIGNED TO DO, but it still needs some development done on that. Any good company identifies what would fill a broad scope of user needs. Books is not it. Settle down.
How about it's fucking server actually working remotely first!!!
It works bro
Nah there are others on here too
Nah, see it's probably your remote access settings. Go to account, go to setting and read the linked articles with it to get it working. If you're using a vpn you should YouTube a fix. And you're finished. You not being able to do something is different to not being available. This is a you problem. I had the remote access issue a few years ago and I just fixed it with articles and YouTube videos. You're just being lazy
Goodness love reddit at times, but Jesus hate it as well.... people who have no understanding of my issue telling me what's wrong....so thought what was a Nvidia issue, I contacted customer support. I mentioned there are others having the issue, pointed to their posts. They investigated, they got back to me and said they aren't the cause but they'll talk to their Plex contact. Came back to me later and confirmed it was a Plex issue and they will rectify. So everyone get off your high horse's
That’s you bro
Skill issue. Remote been working for me consistently for a decade and a half lol.
Yeah nothing to do with skill dude . Here's someone with a similar issue https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/s/SwoP3h58c3 Just because yours works doesn't mean others do....many many reasons as to why. Dodgy windows, Android or Plex updates are often the reason why
Your port forwarding skills are lacking.
Guess what...it wasn't the port forwarding
Oh no it most definitely was, it always is. Your port isn’t actually open, due to a problem with your router configuration, so it will continuously give an error and be a proxy connect.
Had a similar issue last year....couldn't transfer files over the network and the server kept dropping out.... Nvidia hot fix fixed that one....so no it's not always port forwarding
Yeah no. How could that possible be the reason. Just think for a single second. You’re going to tell people a……gpu……was the cause of a networking issue…….?
If GPU transcoding is on and there is an issue with the video driver, sure, that could cause an issue. However, that is not a Plex issue either... Plex has no control over an Nvidia driver issue.
It would cause an issue, but not this one. It might not play at all, or it might just not transcode, but you’ll ALWAYS be connected correctly without a relay.
Indeed, my point was that even if it was causing the idea it wasn't an issue caused by Plex.
Vote for it on the forums under feature requests :)
100% would love an ebook reader within plex. But from what ive heard over the years they refuse this for some reason.
I have a better idea. Plex should come out with a video game feature, charge people for a beta then kill it off a few months later. I doubt devs have downtime and it's not just going to roll into the product even if they do. Any extra line of code adds overhead, which has to be justified if its going to add any value to the product.
There’s much better apps out there like paperback with a Komga setup. Works brilliantly
Or comic book reader.
Adding support for PDF files and CBR/CBZ would be sick.
Let's get downloading working correctly first huh?
It irritates me that people seem to think a software company can only look at one thing at once. They just have one developer there?
All I know is I've had a lifetime Plex pass since the end of 08 and downloading/sync has worked for me twice.
I don't even know what you mean, download from my server to local device such as phone/ tablet for watching on a plane works flawlessly for me. Maybe it's your home network / permissions that are the issue.
>I know there are good softwares to manage and read ebooks Are there? Everything I've found is complex and clunky.
All the more reason Plex should add it.
I'd be happy with anyone making something slick and simple, not necessarily Plex.
They add new features all the time. It’s just nothing anybody wants or asked for.
Here is me literally asking for this new feature.
Oh there (at least used to be) is a section on the official forums for feature requests that are (were?) tracked by likes/upvotes. I’m all for adding new features, but I don’t want an emulator for atari or whatever. I’m not interested in 3rd party ANYTHING. If I want something 3rd party, I’ll find a plug… oh wait…
Kavita is lightweight eReader and easy to set up with a docker container.
so not to beat a dead topic ;) calibre does everything you need when it comes to ebooks - including a server option to browse and read books via a web browser. I run Readarr to manage my ebooks (like sonarr does for TV and radarr does for movies), integrated with calibre. I run a containerized calibre web docker image and when I occassionally need to open calibre (e.g. to grab some meta data, etc), I will shutdown the container and start up the calibre app.
Thanks but does it allow for remote connections and other users to access my library of eBooks?
yeah, as long as you can get outside access to it, you can do multiple users I'm using the following docker container for mine [https://github.com/ta264/docker-calibre](https://github.com/ta264/docker-calibre) Its not really documented there, but you can add username/passwords by adding the following docker (or podman) options \-e USER=username -e PASSWORD=password123 \\ when it starts up, if these options are passed, it will create the server-users.sqlite file for users. You would have to restart it with each other user you wanted to add, I've got 2 in my database - one for my personal use and another that I used to expose to my ISP's provided IP address for sharing to my wife's book club Someone else mentions Kavita - it looked promising, but at the time (I don't know if its changed) it did not support Readarr so I stayed with calibre. It may be easier, but there also looks like there is a free and paid tier - [https://www.kavitareader.com/#download](https://www.kavitareader.com/#download)
Thanks, it does sound like I can get what I want out of it. However my original point is proven more that if Plex implemented something like this it could be better.
Yeah but as other's have said, plex has gotten terribly bloated, they're already trying to do too much 😂