Bloom Reader

Bloom is award-winning open source desktop software for Windows and Linux that communities, NGOs, and Education ministries around the world are using to create books in the worlds thousands of minority languages. These books are mostly distributed via paper, though some people are making epubs. We can now also use SIL's Reading Application Builder to package books as Android apps that can be downloaded from the Play Store.

So what's this "Bloom Reader" about? Bloom users tell us that it's difficult to find epub readers that are simple to use and that can reliably display Bloom books and play audio from Bloom Talking books. They want the simplicity of apps. But they don't want to have to create apps or have people download apps for each book that gets published. Instead, they want an app, kind of like a Kindle app, which people can use to read and share Bloom books.

Bloom Reader is a native java app with a WebView for displaying Bloom books (which are HTML). We want to support the older Android versions and devices that are common in the developing world.

Status

Bloom Reader is in active development with an official MVP release expected Fall 2017.

Road map

Prototype

Shows a list of books on the device's storage
user can swipe through pages to read the book

Books would get onto the device by plugging into a computer and transferring files over to some known location.

MVP

Works well with 3rd party file sharing apps.
Works with Android 4.4 (KitKat) and up
Comes with SIL's Andika literacy font
Book scales to fit device screen
Bloom desktop Publish tab offers a "Publish to Android Phone" option (Bloom version 4.0). That may have to reduce image resolution.

At this point, literacy projects could seed books into the community and let the community distribute them virally.

Needed for SIL PNG literacy research project

Plays talking books
Book thumbnails

Tie into BloomLibrary.org

BloomLibrary.org publishes an OPDS catalog of all its books.
User can see a list of all the books in her language that are on BloomLibrary.org.
User can preview books, perhaps in a very low-bandwidth form.
User can choose to download books to her device.
User gets notifications when new or updated books are available.

At this point, anyone could publish a book using the existing Bloom mechanism, and have it immediately downloadable by anyone with Bloom Reader. Books would still spread mostly from person to person in expensive internet areas.

Other things on the radar

Use Crosswalk to get an up-to-date browser that can handle Bloom's Talking Books.
Use Graphite-enabled Crosswalk to support languages with the most complex scripts.
Support Ken Burns animation as we do in BloomPlayer.js
Support background music that works across pages, as we do in BloomPlayer.js.
In-app sharing/synchronization via bluetooth and wifi-direct.

Building

git clone https://github.com/BloomBooks/BloomReader
cd BloomReader
gradlew (or, more likely open project in Android Studio)

Contributions

We welcome contributions, particularly if we pre-agree on UX.

jacobbullock/BloomReader