in response to: > http://studiotendra.com/2013/08/26/readmill-versus-kindle-readmill-is-worth-the-hassle i don't think my stuff has any of the major problems of the kindle app, so i will concentrate on the things that you like with readmill. let's start with one of the most basic of the variables: the "default" font. i believe the end-user should pick it. and thus we end that matter. i also believe the end-user should choose the leading (as a percentage of fontsize), and the measure/margins. these factors are very stable, so once a user has specified their choice on those things, there shouldn't be a problem. but, to the extent possible, the user should be able to change any of these things _quickly_and_easily_, and specify if that change is temporary or "permanent", and whether the change is for that book, or all books. the user should also be able to specify "author settings", those originally specified by the author or the publisher, but the "default" should be their _own_ default set-up. specifying the leading as a percentage of the font-size means that it adjusts itself "automatically", but no other factors should "auto-adjust". i would refuse to use an app that didn't allow me to adjust the _leading_ or the margins. (leading is probably the most underrated factor in the lot.) i hate developers with the gall to declare they "give" end-users "an optimal reading experience", as if that thing really existed. you might as well try to tell me that your lab has now churned out an "optimal flavor" of ice-cream, and now everyone has to eat that. *** i prefer reading solitary -- i regularly refused to buy any used-textbook where someone had highlighted the passages -- so i think social-networking features are largely unnecessary, but when annotations are made, there must be an option for web posting and comments. (and of course private access via cloud if it's preferred.) but both readmill and amazon instead use private systems, which do not permit comments, so i feel they miss the point. putting annotations in a silo is the wrong way to go, i say. put 'em up on the open web. (as for auto-tweets and such -- to facebook or wherever -- i can do without that noise. if you don't want to tweet it badly enough to compose one, then just keep it to yourself.) *** i am for fully-open e-books, so the issue of copy/paste is a waste of time in my mind. content should be available, and reuse widely encouraged. *** i have no brightness controller in my apps, but it's a nice touch. *** i _do_ believe in page-numbering. i don't currently show the number of pages left in the current chaper, but i could do that, easily enough. i don't detest the kindle locations as much as you seem to, since they seem to me to accomplish the task, and in a relatively elegant fashion. i feel a "progress indicator" should always be visible, but nonobtrusive. *** i think discussion about backlinks needs to be more detailed, since i don't think backlinks should be all that necessary in most cases, but maybe i am missing something. *** i _hate_ the way kindle repaginates, and the shifting-sand presentation of pages. i think it's totally terrible. *** once we have _fully-open_ e-books, the u.r.l. will _be_ the a.p.i., so dialog about an "a.p.i." is stupid. *** "library management" is a misnomer, as well, when we have open e-books. an open e-book is a folder of files, so "library management" is "file wrangling." and that is not a hard app to program. so "collections" become folders which contain the e-book folders inside 'em. (or alias-shortcut-pointers, so you can put one book into several collections.) the important thing here is to allow the users to manage the files independently, with any app they choose, including the operating-system itself. it also allows them to use many different reader-apps. viewer-apps take on "library management" because their creators want _lock-in_, and we are opposed to the idea of such silos. (this, by the way, is why kobo and the other vendors do not support readmill, because they want you in _their_ apps, so you will stay inside their ecosystem.) *** there's no reason that annotations cannot have styling, and images, if done correctly. *** as far as the "benchmark" comment, how can readmill be the "benchmark" when it uses a soon-to-be-abandoned file-format like .epub? so i disagree...