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hectorqin/reader

★ 11,006KotlinAudience · generalComplexity · 3/5Setup · moderate

TLDR

Self-hosted server that brings the popular Chinese legado e-book reader to desktop browsers and iOS, letting you manage book sources and read web novels from any device without an Android phone.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((reader server))
    What it does
      Self-hosted reading
      Web novel access
      Cross-device sync
    Features
      Custom book sources
      Audio playback
      Progress sync
      Local file import
    Tech stack
      Kotlin backend
      Spring Boot
      Vue.js frontend
      WebDAV sync
    Audience
      Chinese novel readers
      Non-Android users
      Self-hosters
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Access your legado Android book library from a desktop browser or iPhone after self-hosting the server.

USE CASE 2

Read web novels from custom third-party book sources through a browser without opening an Android app.

USE CASE 3

Listen to audio books or read local EPUB and PDF files via a self-hosted web interface.

Tech stack

KotlinSpring BootVert.xVue.js

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 1h+

Requires self-hosting a Kotlin/Spring Boot server, README and UI are primarily in Chinese.

In plain English

Reader is a self-hosted server version of a popular Chinese e-book and online novel reading application. The original app, known as legado or 阅读3, runs on Android phones and lets users read web novels and books from custom sources. This project takes the same functionality and wraps it in a server backend, so readers can access their library from a desktop browser or iOS device without needing an Android phone. The server is built with Kotlin, Spring Boot, and Vert.x on the backend, and Vue.js on the frontend. Once deployed, it provides a web interface that mirrors the features of the mobile app: managing custom book sources (configuring where the app fetches chapter content), maintaining a bookshelf, searching across sources, reading with configurable themes and fonts, syncing progress via WebDAV, and importing local files in formats like TXT, EPUB, UMD, and PDF. Additional features listed in the README include manga support, audio book playback (in some browsers), RSS subscriptions, scheduled bookshelf updates, and Kindle reading support. The source detection feature checks whether a configured book source has become unavailable. The README is written in Chinese. The project includes a disclaimer explaining that it is a search aggregation tool that queries third-party websites for content, and that the developer is not responsible for content found through those sources. The full source code was open until version 2.5.4. Newer versions have only partial source available under a related repository. The project credits the original legado Android app and a companion web client as its foundation.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I deploy the reader server with Docker and access its web interface from my browser?
Prompt 2
Show me how to add a custom book source URL in the reader server's web interface and test whether it works.
Prompt 3
How do I sync reading progress between the reader server and the legado Android app using WebDAV?
Prompt 4
What local file formats can I import into the reader server and how do I upload a TXT or EPUB file?
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