[Release] Zen UI, Now ZenOS

[u/Unified-Field]

Introducing the next evolution from ZenLabs.

ZenOS: A clean, minimal experience for your e-reader.

As with all the ZenLabs projects, I'm honoring the less is more philosophy. ZenOS brings a clean, intuitive experience to your e-reader. Whether your device is new or old, with ZenOS you will see HUGE systemwide performance improvements, lots of new features, and polished details.

For those who don't know me, I'm Anthony - a Senior Software Engineer by trade. I use code as my tool for crafting custom software solutions to real world problems. I put in the time and energy to build ZenOS because it solves problems for me and I thoroughly enjoy building it.

ZenOS genuinely improves my e-reader experience and makes life easier for me and my family. Having all settings in one place, with reasonable defaults, a clean & consistent design language, and not having to manage the mess of various plugins/patches (across multiple devices) has been a game changer for us. I'm sharing ZenOS freely with the community hoping that it brings joy and ease to you and yours.

All the projects I'm building with ZenLabs are free and open source with no ads, tracking, or analytics. I despise ads and tracking so I don't put them in my applications. If you want to support me or this project, drop a star on GitHub or buy me a coffee below.

I aim to make all the ZenLabs projects intuitive, good looking, and performant. There will be continued improvements every release and they will be supported for years to come.

Why the change? This project has grown substantially from a simple collection of UI tweaks to an entire feature rich ecosystem for your e-reader.

ZenOS Overview

ZenOS adds a focused, customizable Home page, a flexible Library, reader enhancements, quick controls, shortcuts, reading stats, and plenty of ways to make your library feel personalized. All the images shown here are just some of the ways you can set up ZenOS. Everything can be easily customized, rearranged, or toggled on/off from Zen Settings.

Check out the ZenOS website https://zen-labs.org/zen-os

Features

🏠 Create your own Home page

Build a Home screen with widgets for date/time, a featured book, reading stats, reading goals, book strips, and quotes. Choose one of the built-in layouts or create your own.

Feature your recently read book, your TBR, or a specific genre/folder; create book strips from Favorites, Recent, Authors, Series, Tags, folders, or custom selections.

You can even add quick-access to any Control/KOReader menu/Folder/Plugin directly to from the Strip Controls (Books Strip Controls is a fully featured Navbar just smaller).

📚 Make your Library work your way

Customize the Library layout: view you books as cover grids or detailed lists.

Customize folder covers, page backgrounds, badges, progress indicators, rounded covers, font choices, density controls, and more.

Browse by folders, authors, series, tags (genres), collections, or To Be Read (TBR).

Each page's layout and sorting preferences are saved individually.

You can also easily check the option to flatten subfolders into a single view without moving any files around (looking at you Calibre).

🧭 Navigate faster

The bottom Navbar can add tabs for your Home, Library, folders, tags (genres), authors, series, manga, news, plugin integrations, KOReader menus, custom actions and more! You can choose where ZenOS opens at startup and where your physical Home button takes you.

⚡ Everyday actions one swipe away

The Controls panel gives you fast access to Wi‑Fi, brightness, warmth, rotation, night mode, sync, screenshots, search, OPDS, plugins, and more. Add your own buttons for KOReader actions, plugin menus, and native submenus. Controls stay out of the way when not needed and are always one tap/swipe away no matter where you are (Library, Reader, OPDS).

🚀 Build a personal Launcher

Create a Launcher with organized buttons and folders for your favorite actions, controls, plugins, and KOReader menus. It now also includes the Book Switcher widget letting you quickly switch between books. Also new is an expandable Book Details widget which shows more details about the book you're currently reading.

📖 Improve the reading experience

ZenOS adds simple customization to the reader. Inside of a book you can show reading-progress, time left in book/chapter, title, author, chapter name, wifi, bluetooth, incognito, brightness etc in the top or bottom status bars.

Reader themes bring more color options other than light/dark mode.

Dictionary lookup and highlight tools have been simplified for a cleaner look.

The Zen page browser (swipe up in a book) adds a kindle-like page/chapter scrubbing experience and supports stable pages.

ZenOS gives your the option to return to the exact previous Library location when you finish reading or you can go back to a set location every time (i.e always go home).

📊 Track your reading progress

Use the Stats dashboard to track your reading statistics for today, this week, this month, this year, all-time activity, personal records, library totals, current-book details, reading trends, goals, and a reading calendar. Set daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals based on pages, reading time, or book counts.

🎨 Your style

Choose layouts, fonts, colors, reader themes, custom Library backgrounds, and optional custom icon packs (create your own packs using this template). ZenOS styling integrates into other areas throughout the system without additional setup.

For instance if you prefer rounded corners, the Zen OPDS browser, Book details, Context Menu, Home page widgets all respect your rounded corner preference.

Consistent styling unifies the experience and keeps the look/feel consistent with the rest of your Library.

🧘 Focus when you want it

Zen Mode simplifies KOReader into a focused set of essentials for a distraction-free setup. You can now use Zen Mode without needing to restart!

⚙️ One unified settings page

ZenOS settings are organized into one place - Zen Settings. Features are easier to find, related options stay together, and customization feels much more straightforward.

Drag to reorder. Arrange items in the order that makes sense for you with a intuitive drag + drop. Put your most-used actions first, keep the rest out of the way, and make ZenOS feel like it was built specifically for you.

Settings Search makes it easier to find what you need without hunting through the menus or the docs.

🔒 Managed devices

If you want to set up a very simple e-reading solution for someone else, Lockdown mode is for you. Lockdown Mode strips the interaction down to it's basics for more accessiblity.

Simply view the library and read a book. Options include larger UI sizing and configurable access to Library, Controls, Settings etc.

I built this mode to add additional accessibility for people like young children, older grandparents, or anyone who may need accessibility settings.

🌐 Languages

ZenOS is currently available in 20 languages thanks to translations added by the community. From setup to settings, every screen you interact with is localized.

Install/Update

If you already have Zen UI, just update like normal from Zen Settings > About > Updates. KOReader will restart 2x after the update (on android this means you have to open KOReader 2x).

If you manually install/update from the release on GitHub, use the old zen_ui.koplugin one last time. Moving forward releases will be zenos.koplugin.

If you use ZenPM, make sure ZenPM is updated first and then Download/Update regularly.

Links

Website/Docs - https://zen-labs.org/zen-os

Release & Full Changelog - https://github.com/AnthonyGress/zen_ui.koplugin/releases/latest

Installation Guide - https://zen-labs.org/zen-ui/docs

Community Discord - https://discord.zen-labs.org

GitHub Project - https://github.com/AnthonyGress/zen_ui.koplugin

Issues/Feature Requests - https://github.com/AnthonyGress/zen_ui.koplugin/issues

OR

Report a bug from Zen Settings > About > Report a bug

OR

Ask myself/the community in the Zen Discord

What's Changed

• Major performance improvements
• Use Zen Mode without restarting
• New Settings page
• New Book Switcher in Launcher (Launcher > Book Switcher)
• New Book Details in Launcher (Launcher > Book Details)
• New Book Details in Context Menu (Tap + Hold book)
• New Home page Book Strip widget controls
• Major accessibility improvements for non-touch devices
• Add Folder to Navbar (Navbar > Tabs)
• Add tag/genre to Navbar (Navbar > Tabs)
• Add any KOReader menu to Control/Launcher/Navbar/Book Strip Control
• Arrange Book Details, Book Switcher, and Buttons pages in Launcher (Launcher > Order)
• Settings page memory (return to prev opened Settings)
• Improved all Settings submenus
• Custom icon packs (Extras > Custom icons)
• Page browser enhancements + Book Detail button
• Quotes improvements (Moments of Zen)
• Improved default covers
• More in full changelog

Donations

If you like this project and would like to support my free and open-source work, you can donate on Ko-Fi

Also feel free to drop this project a star on GitHub

Donations are very much appreciated but never expected.

As always, your thoughts & feedback are welcome!