Arianna is a new ePub reader that comes from KDE and is based on Foliate and Peruse

Arianna 1.0

KDE has introduced us today to Arianna, a new ePub reader that, until the contrary is confirmed, will be part of what is known as "extragear". KDE Gear is the name that KDE now uses for its applications, for a group that is updated together once a month. Then there is another group that goes a bit separately, is updated at other times and has another numbering. The most popular extragear component today would be digiKam.

The application is the brainchild of Carl Schwan and Niccolò Venarandi, and is written in Qt and Kirigami. Initially, this means that it will work best in a KDE environment, in the same way that those written in GTK and libadwaita work best in GNOME. Arianna is both an ePub viewer and a library to manage them. Use Baloo to find the ePubs that are stored on the device and organize them by categories, and this has its good points and its bad points. As good, the automation. As bad, that if it is used in a team of low resources and Baloo is deactivated, the books will have to be added by hand.

Arianna: KDE ePub Library and Viewer

In the general view, where all the covers are seen, we can see our reading progression or if there is something new to read. If a book has not yet been opened, the label "New" or "Nuevo" will appear when it is translated into Spanish. When a book has already begun to be read, a circle will be seen showing the percentage of the book already read.

If the library is large and we can't find what we want by browsing, also there is a search box. Among other functions, which are currently few, it has a progress bar that indicates how much we have read of a book and allows us to navigate to the next one. We can also use Arianna with the keyboard and search for text within the book.

progress bar

Its developers want to give the necessary credits, and say that Arianna would not have been possible if it were not for foliate, from where they copied the epub.js file for the integration, and Peruse, from where they copied and adapted the library management code.

For those interested in using Arianna, I have bad news and a half: the first, the bad news, is that it will be available on Flathub when they accept the application, currently under review. The bad news is precisely that Flathub is mentioned, and not another installation medium, at least for now. And it is that Arianna is taking her first steps, and she still has to improve as an application and its availability.

More information, in release note.


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