16 6 / 2010
Booktorious: A Client Side ePub Reader in JavaScript
Booktorious is a new proof of concept ePub reader in JavaScript by August Lilleaas. It is 100% open source, and is based on several libraries, all written by August except js-inflate.
js-epub Reads the EPUB file format, providing an array DOM objects of the chapters in the book. It also converts all images in the book to data uris. js-unzip EPUB files are packaged as Zip files. js-inflate Zips are containers that can use many different compression formats. EPUB books use deflate (compression) and inflate (decompression). js-unzip itself doesn’t implement decompression, it justs tells what compression algorithm the Zip file is using. Sarge My own DOM library. Call me crazy. Mediocre The JavaScript application framework I wrote. Unlike Cappuccino and Sproutcore, it doesn’t abstract away HTML and CSS. It’s not finished or production ready at all. Copperplate JavaScript templating engine with HTML-like synax. Used by Mediocre.
It only works in the latest browsers with the HTML5 FileReader API, so right now that is Firefox 3.6 and Chrome 6. I tried reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, as well as Through the Looking Glass which included images, and both rendered perfectly with good performance.
You can check out Booktorious here (be sure to use Firefox 3.6 or Chrome 6), and the code on Github. Nice work!
