Ubooquity 2.0.0 BETA
14 april 2017 Release
It's been a while (almost a year), but a new version of Ubooquity is available, with a few caveats and important remarks:
- Due to the deep modifications that have been made, this version is to be considered a BETA, with potentially a few more bugs than usual.
- Preferences file format and database structure have changed: you will loose your settings and a full rescan of your collection will be required. You might as well install this version in a new directory and keep the previous one (not running at the same time though, or don't use the same ports).
- This new version has to be configured using the web interface: the previous desktop UI has been almost completely removed, keeping only the bare minmum so that you can launch it without using the command line if you don't want to.
- Ubooquity now uses two different ports: one for the administration page, the other for your library.
- The Modern theme is now the default theme.
Now if you feel a bit adventurous, you can download the new version using the link below (the one on the "Download" page is still the last stable 1.10.1 version).
Also, if you post messages about this version on the forum, please mention this is Ubooquity 2.0.0, not 1.10.0, thanks !
Here is the detailed list of changes.
New features and improvements
- New internal HTTP server: NanoHTTPD has been replaced by Jetty. This should fix issues related to HTTP headers and connections.
- Bookmarks synchronisation: bookmarks are now saved on the server. You can start reading a book or a comic on a device and resume your reading on another one. Previous mechanism (saving bookmarks in cookies) can still be activated in the advanced settings.
- New UI: preferences have to be managed using the new web UI (which is now available on a separate port).
The desktop UI is now a simple launcher, with a few limited options.
- Command line options have changed a bit too.
Type java -jar Ubooquity.jar --help to get a description of the available commands:
Option Description ------ ----------- --adminport <Integer: Admin page port Specify on which port Ubooquity number> administration page will be available --debug Activate debug mode --headless Prevent Ubooquity from displaying a desktop user interface --help Display command line help --host <hostname or IP address> Specify the hostname or IP address to which Ubooquity is going to bind itself to --libraryport <Integer: Library port Specify on which port Ubooquity number> library will be available --remoteadmin Allow access to the administration page from a remote machine --workdir <directory path> Specify the working directory of Ubooquity
Miscellaneous
- Unreadable files are now ignored.
- Empty folders are now completely ignored as well.
- As mentionned before, the default theme is now "Modern". The legacy black theme will be provided as a stand-alone theme later.
- Comic metadata improvements. New fields are parsed: publisher, alt series, alt series index. Integration and display is not complete yet, though.
- Books and comics are now displayed using their file name instead of the title found in the metadata.
- Exclusion patterns have been simplified; the pattern does not have to match the whole path anymore.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a bug that prevented the fonts used by the online Epub reader from being properly extracted during Ubooquity startup.
- Fixed PDF description field set to "null" when metadata is not found.
- Fixed some PDF and Epub parsing issues.
- Fixed bug that prevented the reading of comics with a capitalized extension.
- Fixed cropped image when displaying comic pages in original size (in the comics online reader)
- Fixed font selector missing update in book reader
- Fixed OPDS sorting issue for OPDS client which did not respect the provided entries order
- And a few other minor ones...
I'll probably publish a few additional 2.0.x versions with bug fixes and small new features.
If you want a more stable version, wait for 2.1.0.
Ubooquity 1.10.0
08 may 2016 Release
Ubooquity 1.10.0 is available.
Update: 1.10.0 has been replaced by 1.10.1 which contains a fix for reading secured PDF documents and prevents the usage of Java new color management library (LittleCMS) which is apparently absent from some systems.
New requirements
Starting with this version, Ubooquity requires Java 8.
(Java 7 support by Oracle stopped more than a year ago, time to upgrade !)
Fixed bugs
- Fixed PDF rendering problem caused by some versions of Java (cf forum)
- Fixed user authentication not working when shared folders are symbolic links (cf forum)
Detailed explanation
-
About PDF
Apparently, the old library used by Ubooquity for PDF rendering has been broken by recent updates of Java (both 7 and 8). This library has been removed and all PDF (books and comics) are now renderend by an updated version of PDFBox, which happened to improve a lot recently.
Among the consequences is a probable performance hit (CPU and memory) for some people as JPedal (the old library) was faster than PDFBox. On the other hand, almost all properly formed PDF can now be read online provided your device is powerful enough.
-
About symbolic links
If activating user login prevented you from seeing your shared folders content (as described on the forum), you might have shared (knowingly or not) a symbolic link instead of an actual directory.
Ubooquity now supports symbolic links: to fix the issue, just edit and save your books/comics settings again.
Ubooquity 1.9.1
21 february 2016 Release
Ubooquity 1.9.1 is available.
Mostly bug fixes:
- The raw files section was not working anymore when running on Java 7 (Java 8 was not affected)
- The epub reader settings window could not be closed on Chrome
- Some comics were not displayed when using user authentication and having autoscan disabled
Ubooquity now also reads ComicRack metadata files (ComicInfo.xml) even when they are not properly named (lower case).
Ubooquity 1.9.0
06 february 2016 Release
Ubooquity 1.9.0 is available.
New features and improvements
-
Online epub reader
You can now read epub files online the same way you already could with comics and PDF books.
Miscellaneous
- The online comics reader manages double page splitting much better than before
- Thumbnails dimensions are now limited in the default and Modern themes. You don't need to manually resize your custom folder images anymore
- Better favicons for bookmarks
- Ubooquity is now fullscreen on Android devices when launched from a home screen shortcut
- Changed skin of the GUI (should me more usable on Linux)
- Fixed reverse proxy for PDF books online reader
- Raw files are now alphabetically sorted
- New logs: scan statistics and online reader accessed books/comics
Ubooquity 1.8.0
22 june 2015 Release
Ubooquity 1.8.0 is available.
Update: 1.8.0 has been replaced by 1.8.2 which contains a bug fix for the reverse proxy feature
New requirements
Starting with this version, Ubooquity requires Java 7 or later.
New features and improvements
-
Cache management
Ubooquity now provides caching information to your browser. This will avoid unnecessary file transfers and save bandwith. -
"host" option
By default, Ubooquity binds itself to all available network interfaces. This new command line parameter allows you to specify the hostname Ubooquity should use when configuring its binding.
Example: if you launch Ubooquity on your local machine (with the address 192.168.0.42, for instance), you will be able to access it with your browser on localhost:2202 and 192.168.0.42:2202. Now if you add "--host 192.168.0.42" to your command line, localhost:2202 won't work anymore. -
"workdir" option
This new command line parameter allows you to specify where Ubooquity should create its own files (database, logs, preferences, cache, etc). The "user.dir" method, sometime mentionned on the forum to achieve the same result, is not reliable. You should use the new setting instead. -
Comics folder customization
When displaying your comics grouped by folder, you can now add images and text to customize the appearance of theses folders. (cf forum request)
Add a "folder.jpg" image (also works with png and gif) in your folder to have this image displayed instead of the usual cover.
Add a "folder-info.html" file in your folder to have its HTML displayed on top of the content of the folder. The HTML can use other elements contained in the folder (like images, style sheets, etc) as long as their source path starts with "[[FOLDER]]" (e.g. src="http://vaemendis.net/ubooquity/[[FOLDER]]/dcComicsLogo1.png" ).
If you want to give it a try, download this example folder. Unzip it, share it, and see how it's done.
To use this new feature, "Folder metadata display" has to be enabled in the advanced options. -
New comics reader
The comics reader has been rewritten from scratch to make it more usable and add "fit to width/height" options, as well as an automatic split of double pages. (cf forum discussion)
-
New command line format
Command line paramaters should now be passed with a "--" prefix instead of "-" (although the old syntax is still working). Here is the complete list of available parameters:
Option Description ------ ----------- --debug Activate debug mode --headless Prevent Ubooquity from displaying a desktop user interface --help Display command line help --host <hostname or IP address> Specify the hostname or IP address to which Ubooquity is going to bind itself to --port <Integer: Port number> Specify on which Ubooquity is going to listen --webadmin Activate the web administration page --workdir <directory path> Specify the working directory of Ubooquity -
Extended exclusion pattern
The settings previously called "Folder exclusion pattern" (now "Scan exclusion pattern") has been modified to include files as well. Now, any file or folder whose path matches the regular expression defined by this parameter will be ignored by Ubooquity. (cf forum request)
Fixed bugs
- Fixed "raw files" not working on Linux/Mac OS (cf forum)
- Fixed a problem with rendering PNG files using color type 6 (cf forum)
- Fixed reverse proxy for OPDS feeds (cf forum)
- Fixed database path bug (cf forum)
- Miscellaneous minor bug fixes
Please note that the log format override method has changed (more specifically, the log configuration name has changed).
