6 months ago I posted here about Kavita, an open source application that I have been working on that aims to be Plex for reading, and in these past 6 months I’ve yet again delivered so much that it warrants an update to this subreddit.

Last Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/139te6y/kavita_plex_for_reading_an_update/

What is Kavita?

Kavita is a fast all-in-one reading server which supports comics, manga, and books out of the box, making it easy to share your entire collection with friends and family. Kavita supports a wide range of formats (including epub and pdf), has responsive built-in readers, and offers OPDS-PS support for external reader support.

What’s new in the last 6 months:

  • Automatic Collections/Reading Lists: Kavita now can build out Collections and Reading lists from ComicInfo.xml and Epub’s OPF formats. Configurable in your library settings if you want disabled.
  • Kavita+: A subscription service (to support me) that expands Kavita’s ability into external metadata. Unlocks Scrobbling to AniList, External Ratings, External Reviews, Recommendations (and even recs that you don’t own).
  • Personal Bookmarks: The ability to bookmark any text in an epub and quickly jump back to it. Great for cookbooks where you want to save your favorite recipies.
  • Localization: Full localization support via Weblate with quite a few fully translated languages
  • In Depth Metadata Filter: Completely rewrote the metadata filter to allow ANDing and ORing with a crazy number of potential fields to query against then the ability to save these as Smart Filters, which can be found to Side nav or Dashboard.
  • Customization: All users can now customize their side navs and dashboard and bind Smart Filters (aka Metadata Filter query saved) to either, turn on/off any item and reorder them.
  • OPDS Rework: Tons of OPDS Polish to make the experience top notch and pushing as much metadata as possible to the user in a way that works in as many apps as possible. Lots of extra flattening as well (a big critique on Kavita’s implementation)
  • A ton more (just look at the release notes from here)

If you want to check it out for yourself, we have a demo available on our site:

https://www.kavitareader.com/

Wiki

Discord

Subreddit

Github

Download

    • majora2007@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago
      1. All Series or your library view
      2. Kavita doesn’t support adding via the UI nor likely will. But you can add it to the underlying storage and either use the API to trigger a scan, the UI, or just let the folder watcher do it’s thing and scan it in for you.
      3. Into a reading list? Usually I bulk select items and use the context menu to add to a reading list, but I think CBL import is much more flexible and easy for big reading orders.
      4. You can remove them via internal metadata or just remove them from the UI. Not sure if you’re asking for something else.
      5. The pencil item
      6. On Deck is in progress or recently released chapters of a series you might have finished but new stuff was released. You can remove it via Customize Dashboard.
      7. See above.
      8. You can’t remove Home
      9. I’m not sure why you would. No program to my knowledge has no cover art.

      I would highly recommend you visit our Wiki to learn about how to use Kavita. A lot of your questions indicate that you haven’t played around much with it.

      • DistantRefaktor@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        I am using the Demo by the way. So maybe the Demo needs to be updated? I am not seeing a lot of what you are talking about.

        1. Neither of those options work. Certain things get grouped. Like the Amazing-Man Comics. That is grouped. That doesn’t show the different books in the series. A cool idea would be options for different groupings and to disable it entirely.
        2. Boo.
        3. No, I mean the view. I hate icon view. I would like lists view like when you get to the list of books in a series.
        4. I don’t see this option in the Demo.
        5. I don’t see this option in the Demo.
        6. I don’t see this option in the Demo.
        7. I don’t see this option in the Demo.
        8. Boo.
        9. I guess this more the hate I have for icon view.

        Also, different issues.

        1. When trying to filter, there is no option for Author or Illustrator. Can I add those, just not in the demo?
        2. Is there an option to at least remove the cover from the series summary that I am not seeing in the Demo?
        3. Is there an option to disable the translucency/fake glass effect not present in the demo?
        4. In the Book list, can we get an option in the menu to skip to reading to save the clicking and scrolling?
        • majora2007@alien.topOPBEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          If you’re using the demo, you’re not going to be able to do a lot of the things, because you’re not the owner of the server.

          You would be able to import a cbl or create a manual reading list, but some things are admin only, like editing metadata from the UI. Would be weird if a random user on your server could grief your metadata.

          There is actually a feature request for using a non-card based view for rendering out series, but not many people from the community have shown interest.

          > When trying to filter, there is no option for Author or Illustrator. Can I add those, just not in the demo?

          Wow, what a find. I can’t believe it was missed in 3 releases now. I’ll add those in the next release.

          > Is there an option to at least remove the cover from the series summary that I am not seeing in the Demo?

          No, the cover images are how nearly every server works. Although, we do have custom theme support, so you probably could easily by using a custom theme for yourself.

          > Is there an option to disable the translucency/fake glass effect not present in the demo?

          No option needed. You can use a custom theme and just override those variables so it can be to your liking.

          > In the Book list, can we get an option in the menu to skip to reading to save the clicking and scrolling?

          I didn’t fully understand what you’re asking but for the epub reader, it will save where you scrolled to and resume that when you open. If you’re seeing it different, it is likely due to people being on the demo, as a new release just came out today.

          • DistantRefaktor@alien.topBEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            Nevermind. I was browsing the wiki and came across this gem.

            Planned:
            Find non-owned series by Person (like Authors)

            I am not paying $4 a month for a bunch of features I don’t want or need to get the one I do.

      • DistantRefaktor@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Nevermind. I am not going to use this. I was looking on the wikipedia and Kativa+ and saw this gem.

        Planned:
        Find non-owned series by Person (like Authors)

        I am not paying $4 a month for a bunch of stuff I will not use to get the feature I want.

        Also prolly explains why you cant search by author.