Foliate (software)
{{short description|E-book reading application for Linux}}
{{about|the software|the botanical term|Glossary of botanical terms#foliate}}
{{Infobox software
| logo = Foliate icon 2020.svg
| screenshot = Foliate 3.1.1 on KDE Plasma 6.1.png
| caption = Foliate 3.1.1, displaying the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
| released = {{Start date and age|2019|05|26|df=yes/no}}
| latest release version = {{wikidata|property|reference|P348}}
| latest release date = {{start date and age|{{wikidata|qualifier|P348|P577}}}}
| programming language = JavaScript
| operating system = Linux
| license = GPLv3 or later (Free Software)
| language = Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Putonghua, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
| language count = 12
| language footnote = {{Cite web|url=https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/blob/master/po/LINGUAS|title = Foliate|date = 4 October 2021}}
| genre = E-book reader
}}
Foliate is a free and open-source program for reading e-books in Linux. In English, foliate is an adjective meaning to be shaped like a leaf, from the Latin foliatus, meaning leafy.{{Cite web |title=Foliate |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foliate |access-date=August 19, 2024 |website=Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary}}
Features
Foliate focuses on reading and supports book management with a dedicated library view.{{Cite web|date=2020-06-01|title=Foliate Makes Finding Free eBooks Easier, Adds Support for Comics|url=http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/06/foliate-ebook-search-comic-support|access-date=2022-02-13|website=OMG! Ubuntu!|language=en-GB}} It supports typical e-book formats with reflowable text: EPUB (primary focus), Mobipocket, AZW(3), and no formats with fixed layout, although PDF support is also available.
Its customizable and theme-based user interface is inspired by those of portable e-reader hardware devices. It follows the GNOME standards and automatically adapts to different screen formats. It is streamlined for distraction-free reading and is described as pleasant and more polished than other free desktop applications. Books are displayed in a paginated view, with double-page or single-page view depending on screen size, or in a continuous scrolling view, with customizable typeface, spacing/margins, brightness and size/zoom.
Control elements hide with an automatic fading effect while basic navigation with hidden controls is still possible by clicking/tapping on pages or arrow keys.It has a toggleable navigation sidebar, can display a reading time estimate with a progress slider with chapter markers and supports multi-touch gestures such as pinch zoom. A full-screen mode can be activated.
Foliate can browse the OPDS feed of Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks and Feedbooks, and can automatically download royalty free ebooks from these sources. It is also possible to manually add other OPDS sources.
Foliate supports speech synthesis using eSpeak, eSpeakNG or Festival, albeit without automatic detection of the content language. It is also possible to use Google's text to speech service in Foliate.{{Cite web|title=Is it possible to change Foliate's TTS client? · Issue #723 · johnfactotum/foliate|url=https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/issues/723|access-date=2022-02-13|website=GitHub|language=en}}
A full-text search is available (also for annotations), as well as word lookup (in Wikipedia and Wiktionary or offline dictionaries via a dictd interface) and integration of Google Translate.
The application stores reading progress, bookmarks and annotations in a central directory using one JSON file per book. These can be synchronized with other devices, although it uses a format that does not work immediately with other reading software. It can also check for spelling errors in annotations and export them as Markdown.
It is not able to synchronize e-books with a hardware reader device.
Technology
The application is written in JavaScript, based on the JavaScript interpreter GJS, the epub.js library, the rendering engine WebKit and GTK 4 (previously GTK 3) for the user interface. Optionally gspell can be used for spell checking of annotations. Support for the Kindle formats (mobi, azwX) was based on a Python module until version 3.0.0.
Version 3.0.0 added GTK 4 and LibAdwaita support. Released in November 2023, it is a full rewrite of the app. It now has its own e-book parser and renderer.{{Cite web |title=Release 3.0.0 · johnfactotum/foliate |url=https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/releases/tag/3.0.0 |access-date=2023-11-29 |website=GitHub |language=en}}
Distribution
Foliate is published as Free Software, and therefore with its complete source code, under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. It was first published on 26 May 2019 on GitHub.{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/commit/d6af4f0|title=Initial commit · johnfactotum/Foliate@d6af4f0}}
Binary files are distributed primarily as Flatpak packages via Flathub.{{Cite web |title=Foliate {{!}} Flathub |url=https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.johnfactotum.Foliate |access-date=2023-11-29 |website=Flathub - Apps for Linux |language=en}} These can be installed on several major Linux distributions using on-board tools.
It has been included in the default package repositories of several distributions, including Fedora, Arch and OpenSUSE. Additionally, there are Snap packages available through the snap store and a .deb file for Debian-based distributions which can also be installed and updated via a Personal Package Archive under Ubuntu and its siblings. It can be also installed in an Android phone using Termux and VNC.
See also
{{Portal|Books|FOSS|Linux}}
- Sumatra PDF, a free and open-source e-book reading application for Windows
- List of PDF software
{{clear}}
Sources
- {{cite web | last=Das | first=Ankush | title=Foliate: A Modern eBook Reader App for Linux | website=It's FOSS | date=2020-04-13 | url=https://itsfoss.com/foliate-ebook-viewer/ | access-date=2020-05-25}}
- {{cite web | last=Langner | first=Christoph | title=Tutorial – Foliate | website=Linux Magazine | date=December 2019 | url=http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2019/229/Reading-Material | access-date=2020-05-25}}
- {{cite web | last=Sneddon | first=Joey | title=Foliate is an Epic eBook Reader for Linux Desktops (Updated) | website=OMG! Ubuntu! | date=2019-05-30 | url=https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/05/foliate-ebook-reader-linux | access-date=2020-05-25}}
References
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External links
{{Commons category|Foliate}}
- [https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/ Website]
- [https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.johnfactotum.Foliate Flathub page]
- [https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate GitHub page]
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Category:Linux text-related software