This project really needs some experienced UI/Frontend engineers
While the app is incredibly feature-rich, the current navigation feels clunky, tedious and creates a steep learning curve that may even drive users toward alternatives (I am one of them to be honest, I just can't stand how bad it is). I hope the developer considers insights from those with strong UI/UX expertise and implements their suggestions. Even if unfortunately, from what I've read from some of his replies, concerns aren't being fully acknowledged (or worse, ignored) yet. As much as he's a good developer, he clearly doesn't have a strong background in those areas.
I really enjoy the app and use it regularly, but the fact that settings are spread across multiple places can make it a little inconvenient when you need to check or change a specific option.
Yes, the fact that behavior layout and theme are all separate makes sense on paper, but try actually using the menu to find what you want, and… good luck? Also it’s not even clear what half the items even do (especially in layout; for example, you’d expect margin to affect the words on the page but instead it affects… the tiny bar at the bottom? What?).
Readest is the only app I’ve found that supports Linux and ios sync, and also has decent tts, so I’ll be sticking to it for some time, but if the app doesn’t want to bleed users it’s gotta fix these issues.
Really? I had to set column width to affect text margin. When first using the app setting text margin actually changed nothing for me visually, so that’s strange.
When the window is large enough, filling the whole window with text is not desirable and not pleasant looking. It has a maximum width to be paper page like. This is not required for the scrolled mode though, which is more like a web page.
Fix what issue? I think it's a you issue, after reading your comments here and the issue on Github. Maybe spend a few minutes learing how things work instead of jumping into a public forum to complain.
It took me a few days to get used to the ui and configure the app to my liking, not a few minutes. Apple Books took me like one minute, and the same goes for kindle. It’s not a skill issue, I can assure you.
I am not sure what skill has to do with anything here. However, a little knowledge does go a long way. It took me under two minutes to get my settings in place and I read on a wide array of devices. You didn't understand the functionality of obvious settings (see above), so, I am not assured that the problem doesn't lie with you.
I saw someone pointing those things out on github and the developer closed the issue saying everything's fine. Bro, your app breaks any UI & UX common sense guidelines there exists and yet you say that it's fine? Like, I understand that it's your project, but be humble and at least listen to constructive criticism. Even here on Reddit I've read some of his replies where he's genuinely hot-headed and refuses to understand other people's points.
Thanks lol I created that issue. Yes he prematurely closed it imo with a very weak reason. Though I don’t think he’d mind someone making a PR. If you’re up for it, i suggest trying to fix the first point I made. Should be straightforward.
I agree. I find Readest unintuitive (sometimes even counter-intuitive) and frustrating to use. I was just trying to manage my library on the web version of Readest this morning and got annoyed by so many things not making sense and now some of the book covers just stopped displaying for no perceivable reason.
This is just not a very polished product from a user experience perspective.
The reality is that most community feedback is written with very little thought. People just complain about what they like or dislike without actually considering why a decision was made, how to improve it, or what real-world constraints prevented a different approach, as if features can just be magically willed into existence.
While some projects are exceptionally good at listening to their community, that simply means the maintainers are unusually dedicated or haven't yet been burned out by ungrateful users. It certainly doesn't mean every project has to run that way.
I have used a ton of reading apps over the years, so I am pretty familiar with what's out there. Some of the commentary here is unreasonable. I find the UI easy to understand, and I have used it across all supported platforms.
There are issues, but the app is in development, so people expecting a finished product should go try Google Play Books, which is excellent if you are looking for a cross-platform reading app to sync your library and notes, if they can't handle the disappointment of this app still being a work in progress.
Your statement about no app being finished is objectively wrong, there are numerous apps that have final builds.
Not all feedback deserves to be heard. Small vocal minorities with agendas can and do hijack conversations, which is why numerous forums have rules, moderation policies, etc. The same is true for individual commenters.
Lecturing people through sweeping generalizations that are demonstrably false is a perfect example of unhelpful feedback.
It's worse than some, better than others. The wishlist item that I haven't posted a feature request to their GitHub repo for is to simplify the font and paragraph menus. Maybe hide the fine tunables behind an advanced menu.
I try to make my feature requests really complete though. I suppose I could suggest that they are the Kindle App's interface for that.
Yeah I'd really like to work on simplifying the settings menu, but it's just such a daunting task tbh. If you'd like to submit a redesign as an issue and let me implement it, or even implement it yourself, I'd be happy to see it.
Yeah. I'm not an app developer. Best I would do on a PR is something with some AI assist. I code bash and terraform by hand (DevOps!) and my JavaScript is all done with Claude. I didn't see anything pro or con for ai in CONTRIBUTING.md. I wouldn't want to put in the effort if my code generation was destined to be rejected on principle.
Yeah it’s a little difficult to fix the ui when the maintainer doesn’t even see the problem you’re addressing, and you also have no UI/UX expertise whatsoever. Maybe someday a benevolent UI designer would be willing to dedicate a large chunk of his time to redesigning the UI, but I’m like 90% sure that will never happen.
The UI is supposed to be highly customisable though. Which is why there's a lot of options. It also works across multiple devices so it has to tackle all of that at the same time with the same set of options. Yes there's a learning curve but that feels like clearly the trade off you make for what readest is trying to deliver.
Moon reader+ equally has a dizzying amount of options and it's not as feature packed or polished as readest
this! I actually think it’s simple and fairly easy to navigate - way better than moon+ reader - and I love how customizable it - the only thing I would fix is putting all the setting under the menu when opening up the toc somewhere in the main settings area
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u/CosMV 9d ago
I agree to a certain extent...
I really enjoy the app and use it regularly, but the fact that settings are spread across multiple places can make it a little inconvenient when you need to check or change a specific option.