Ubooquity 1.4.0 is here.

Here is a list of what has changed.

New features

• Support for mobi files. Let me know how it works for you, I have not many mobi files to test this feature.
• Support for PDF files in the books section. The difference with PDF as comics is that PDF books get their metadata displayed (although I did not find many PDF with proper metadata) and their cover rendered instead of being just a extracted picture.

Miscellaneous

• Web administrator password field characters are now hidden.
• Debug mode has been removed as the bug it was supposed to help solve (partially displayed covers) was not really a bug.
• Default display mode for books is now "by folder" (instead of "flat"), same as the one used for comics. The difference with comics default display mode was confusing.
• IP address of users trying to login are now written to the log file, to help identify potential attacks.
• The number displayed on folders (in "folder" mode) now recursively includes all files in the folder and in its subfolders.
• The number displayed on foldersis now displayed even if over 99.
• Added a loading icon between pages when reading comics.
• Slightly improved layout on smaller screens.

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.5.0 is available.

New features

• Better PDF support: Cover rendering is now working for all types of PDF files (image-only PDF as well as text+images PDF files)
• PDF in the "books" section can be read online, like comics. Ubooquity now uses two different PDF rendering engines: one for comics (image-only PDF), one for books (text+images PDF). Depending on the type of your PDF file, be careful to put it in the right section to have a correct display when reading them online (if you just download them, it makes no difference).
• Ubooquity now supports themes. A new lighter theme can be donwloaded on the Themes page. This pages also explains how to install and create new themes.
  
  

Miscellaneous

• Improved image quality on high pixel density devices
• Miscellaneous performance improvements
• Better user access logging (see this tutorial on how to customize your logs)

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.6.0 is available.

[UPDATE] If you use the "Modern" theme, you will have to download the new version of this theme on the themes page.

New features

• SSL support : You can now access your files in a more secure way by using the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP. To do that you will need to get a SSL certificate (either by buying one or generating a self-signed one), generate a Java keystore and configure Ubooquity to use it.
• Reverse proxy : If you want to use reverse proxy, you can now choose the prefix which will be added at the beginning of every URL served  by Ubooquity.
• "New comics/books" links : two new links on the home page which will take you to a page containing the latest comics and books added to your collection.

Miscellaneous

• Added an option to disable files auto scan at startup (if you want your files scanned only when you press the "scan" button).
• Failed logon attempts for the webadmin page are now displayed on a single line so that they are easier to parse with fail2ban.
• Log files rotate when they reach 1 MB instead of 5 MB.
• Removed session limitation restricting a user to a single active session (you were automatically logged out of a device when logging into another). You can now have several sessions on different devices at the same time.
• Removed port range restriction (ports under 1024 are now authorized).
• Fixed advanced preferences page in webadmin.
• Fixed several bugs related to user rights management.
• Fixed a bug preventing the comic pages displayed in the online reader from being wider than 1200 pixels.
• Fixed online reader keyboard shortcuts in Chrome.
• Fixed a bug which was degrading perfomances of the online reader when a scan was in progress.

No OPDS support yet, and the online reader has not been improved much either. But work is in progress and these features/improvements will probably be delivered in the 1.7.0 version.

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.7.0 is available.

This upgrade will trigger a complete rescan of your of comics and ebooks files. You will not lose your settings, but depending on the size of your collection, it could take time.

If you use the "Modern" theme, you will have to download the new version of this theme on the themes page.

New features

• Comics Metadata : Ubooquity now reads and displays comics metadata in the ComicRack format. You can write such metadata in your comics with applications like ComicRack (obviously) or ComicTagger.
• Better PDF support : Ubooquity now embeds two new libraries which will improve PDF support, especially for documents containing JPG2000 images or using cryptography features (not fully encrypted PDF though). They will no longer generate errors when scanned and their cover will be displayed correctly.
• OPDS feeds : You can activate OPDS feeds in the "advanced" option of Ubooquity. Your feeds will be available at the following addresses (port and IP are just examples):

http://10.0.0.1:2202/opds-comics
http://10.0.0.1:2202/opds-books

These feeds support authentication through HTTP Basic Authentication (same credentials as the ones you already use). This authentication method is not as secure as the one already used by Ubooquity, so be carefull if you use OPDS feeds on an open network without activating the SSL/HTTPS feature.

I have done some tests with a few ebooks/comics readers with OPDS support. Unfortunately the OPDS specification is not followed at 100% by all the applications. Here are the results of my tests:

Note that the the "Comics online reading" column corresponds to a feature not supported by the original OPDS standard but is an extension developped for Ubooquity and Challenger Comics Viewer. More details here.

Miscellaneous

• Added an option to automatically minimize Ubooquity interface at startup.
• Added an option to hide empty folders.
• Improved ebooks metadata display (publication date, language, file format).
• Trailing slashes and backslashes are now automatically removed when entering shared folder paths in the web administration page.
• Fixed a rare bug which added a pink overlay on some comics images.
• Fixed a bug on folder images: Ubooquity now always uses the first image found in the directory or its subdirectories.

The improved comics online reader development is still in progress.
 

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.7.5 is available.

This is a minor release: a few bug fixes and a few very specific features.

Fixed bugs

• Problem with special characters (e.g. accents) in user names with iOS
• Incorrect comics file name when downloading (happened when comics contained metadata, the downloaded file name was the title instead of being the original file name)
• Incorrect sorting of comics titles containing accents
  This bug is fixed only on new databases. This means that if you want to have this bug fixed when updating Ubooquity, you will have to manually delete the file "ubooquity-4.h2.db" in your working directory (after having stopped Ubooquity of course). Since this file contains the scanned comics and ebooks data, this operation will trigger a full rescan of your collection.

New features

• Limited* support for WebP images in comics
• Limited* support of DJVU files
• New advanced option to exclude folders from scan using regular expressions
• New advanced option to bypass root folder page when there is only one root folder

* Limited by the platform Ubooquity will run on. Both feature were succesfuly tested on Windows, but they don't work on Raspberry Pi (Linux). So they might or might not work depending on your setup. These limitations come from the libraries I use, nothing I can do about it.

Technical stuff

• Added an OPDS tag for "current folder content" (should be used by Chunky reader in the future)
• Allowed use of fonts and SVG files in themes, for better customization possibilities

Get it on the download page

A word of warning for Java 6 users. This the last version supporting Java 6. Next version will require Java 7 to run. (Java 6 has been obsolete for many years anyway)

Ubooquity 1.7.6 is available.
Just minor bug fixes.

Fixed bugs

• Fixed option to bypass single root folder
• Apply "java.awt.headless" system flag when using headless option

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.8.0 is available.

Update: 1.8.0 has been replaced by 1.8.2 which contains a bug fix for the reverse proxy feature

New requirements

Starting with this version, Ubooquity requires Java 7 or later.

New features and improvements

• Cache management
  Ubooquity now provides caching information to your browser. This will avoid unnecessary file transfers and save bandwith.
• "host" option
  By default, Ubooquity binds itself to all available network interfaces. This new command line parameter allows you to specify the hostname Ubooquity should use when configuring its binding.
  Example: if you launch Ubooquity on your local machine (with the address 192.168.0.42, for instance), you will be able to access it with your browser on localhost:2202 and 192.168.0.42:2202. Now if you add "--host 192.168.0.42" to your command line, localhost:2202 won't work anymore.
• "workdir" option
  This new command line parameter allows you to specify where Ubooquity should create its own files (database, logs, preferences, cache, etc). The "user.dir" method, sometime mentionned on the forum to achieve the same result, is not reliable. You should use the new setting instead.
• Comics folder customization
  When displaying your comics grouped by folder, you can now add images and text to customize the appearance of theses folders. (cf forum request)
  
  
  
  Add a "folder.jpg" image (also works with png and gif) in your folder to have this image displayed instead of the usual cover.
  Add a "folder-info.html" file in your folder to have its HTML displayed on top of the content of the folder. The HTML can use other elements contained in the folder (like images, style sheets, etc) as long as their source path starts with "[[FOLDER]]" (e.g. src="[[FOLDER]]/dcComicsLogo1.png" ).
  If you want to give it a try, download this example folder. Unzip it, share it, and see how it's done.
  To use this new feature, "Folder metadata display" has to be enabled in the advanced options.
• New comics reader
  The comics reader has been rewritten from scratch to make it more usable and add "fit to width/height" options, as well as an automatic split of double pages. (cf forum discussion)
  
  
   
• New command line format
  Command line paramaters should now be passed with a "--" prefix instead of "-" (although the old syntax is still working). Here is the complete list of available parameters:
  

  Option                           Description
  ------                           -----------
  --debug                          Activate debug mode
  --headless                       Prevent Ubooquity from displaying a
                                     desktop user interface
  --help                           Display command line help
  --host <hostname or IP address>  Specify the hostname or IP address to
                                     which Ubooquity is going to bind
                                     itself to
  --port <Integer: Port number>    Specify on which Ubooquity is going to
                                     listen
  --webadmin                       Activate the web administration page
  --workdir <directory path>       Specify the working directory of
                                     Ubooquity

• Extended exclusion pattern
  The settings previously called "Folder exclusion pattern" (now "Scan exclusion pattern") has been modified to include files as well. Now, any file or folder whose path matches the regular expression defined by this parameter will be ignored by Ubooquity. (cf forum request)
   

Fixed bugs

• Fixed "raw files" not working on Linux/Mac OS (cf forum)
• Fixed a problem with rendering PNG files using color type 6 (cf forum)
• Fixed reverse proxy for OPDS feeds (cf forum)
• Fixed database path bug (cf forum)
• Miscellaneous minor bug fixes

Please note that the log format override method has changed (more specifically, the log configuration name has changed).

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.9.0 is available.

New features and improvements

• Online epub reader
  You can now read epub files online the same way you already could with comics and PDF books.
  
  
   

Miscellaneous

• The online comics reader manages double page splitting much better than before
• Thumbnails dimensions are now limited in the default and Modern themes. You don't need to manually resize your custom folder images anymore
• Better favicons for bookmarks
• Ubooquity is now fullscreen on Android devices when launched from a home screen shortcut
• Changed skin of the GUI (should me more usable on Linux)
• Fixed reverse proxy for PDF books online reader
• Raw files are now alphabetically sorted
• New logs: scan statistics and online reader accessed books/comics

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.10.0 is available.

Update: 1.10.0 has been replaced by 1.10.1 which contains a fix for reading secured PDF documents and prevents the usage of Java new color management library (LittleCMS) which is apparently absent from some systems.

New requirements

Starting with this version, Ubooquity requires Java 8.
(Java 7 support by Oracle stopped more than a year ago, time to upgrade !)

Fixed bugs

• Fixed PDF rendering problem caused by some versions of Java (cf forum)
• Fixed user authentication not working when shared folders are symbolic links (cf forum)

Detailed explanation

• About PDF
  Apparently, the old library used by Ubooquity for PDF rendering has been broken by recent updates of Java (both 7 and 8). This library has been removed and all PDF (books and comics) are now renderend by an updated version of PDFBox, which happened to improve a lot recently.
  
  Among the consequences is a probable performance hit (CPU and memory) for some people as JPedal (the old library) was faster than PDFBox. On the other hand, almost all properly formed PDF can now be read online provided your device is powerful enough.
   
• About symbolic links
  If activating user login prevented you from seeing your shared folders content (as described on the forum), you might have  shared (knowingly or not) a symbolic link instead of an actual directory.
  Ubooquity now supports symbolic links: to fix the issue, just edit and save your books/comics settings again.

Get it on the download page

Ubooquity 1.9.1 is available.

Mostly bug fixes:

• The raw files section was not working anymore when running on Java 7 (Java 8 was not affected)
• The epub reader settings window could not be closed on Chrome
• Some comics were not displayed  when using user authentication and having autoscan disabled

Ubooquity now also reads ComicRack metadata files (ComicInfo.xml) even when they are not properly named (lower case).

Get it on the download page

It's been a while (almost a year), but a new version of Ubooquity is available, with a few caveats and important remarks:

• Due to the deep modifications that have been made, this version is to be considered a BETA, with potentially a few more bugs than usual.
• Preferences file format and database structure have changed: you will loose your settings and a full rescan of your collection will be required. You might as well install this version in a new directory and keep the previous one (not running at the same time though, or don't use the same ports).
• This new version has to be configured using the web interface: the previous desktop UI has been almost completely removed, keeping only the bare minmum so that you can launch it without using the command line if you don't want to.
• Ubooquity now uses two different ports: one for the administration page, the other for your library.
• The Modern theme is now the default theme.

Now if you feel a bit adventurous, you can download the new version using the link below (the one on the "Download" page is still the last stable 1.10.1 version).
Also, if you post messages about this version on the forum, please mention this is Ubooquity 2.0.0, not 1.10.0, thanks !
 

Download Ubooquity 2.0.0 BETA
 

Here is the detailed list of changes.

New features and improvements

• New internal HTTP server: NanoHTTPD has been replaced by Jetty. This should fix issues related to HTTP headers and connections.
• Bookmarks synchronisation: bookmarks are now saved on the server. You can start reading a book or a comic on a device and resume your reading on another one. Previous mechanism (saving bookmarks in cookies) can still be activated in the advanced settings.
• New UI: preferences have to be managed using the new web UI (which is now available on a separate port).
  The desktop UI is now a simple launcher, with a few limited options.
  
    
   
• Command line options have changed a bit too.
  
  Type java -jar Ubooquity.jar --help to get a description of the available commands:
   

  Option                                 Description
  ------                                 -----------
  --adminport <Integer: Admin page port  Specify on which port Ubooquity
    number>                                administration page will be available
  --debug                                Activate debug mode
  --headless                             Prevent Ubooquity from displaying a
                                           desktop user interface
  --help                                 Display command line help
  --host <hostname or IP address>        Specify the hostname or IP address to
                                           which Ubooquity is going to bind
                                           itself to
  --libraryport <Integer: Library port   Specify on which port Ubooquity
    number>                                library will be available
  --remoteadmin                          Allow access to the administration
                                           page from a remote machine
  --workdir <directory path>             Specify the working directory of
                                           Ubooquity

Miscellaneous

• Unreadable files are now ignored.
• Empty folders are now completely ignored as well.
• As mentionned before, the default theme is now "Modern". The legacy black theme will be provided as a stand-alone theme later.
• Comic metadata improvements. New fields are parsed: publisher, alt series, alt series index. Integration and display is not complete yet, though.
• Books and comics are now displayed using their file name instead of the title found in the metadata.
• Exclusion patterns have been simplified; the pattern does not have to match the whole path anymore.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented the fonts used by the online Epub reader from being properly extracted during Ubooquity startup.
• Fixed PDF description field set to "null" when metadata is not found.
• Fixed some PDF and Epub parsing issues.
• Fixed  bug that prevented the reading of comics with a capitalized extension.
• Fixed cropped image when displaying comic pages in original size (in the comics online reader)
• Fixed font selector missing update in book reader
• Fixed OPDS sorting issue for OPDS client which did not respect the provided entries order
• And a few other minor ones...

I'll probably publish a few additional 2.0.x versions with bug fixes and small new features.
If you want a more stable version, wait for 2.1.0.

Ubooquity 2.0.2 is available.
This version fixes bugs found in 2.0.0 thanks to your messages in the forum.
This version is still considered BETA. Wait for 2.1.0 if you want a stable version.

Download Ubooquity 2.0.2 BETA
 

Change log

Bug fixes:

• Fixed crash at startup on platform where JavaFX library is not available
• Fixed empty, unnecessary page in OPDS feed when total number of items is a multiple of pagination number
• Fixed unreachable folder info resources
• Make web server more resilient to invalid keystore
• Fixed file download from OPDS feeds

Improvements:

• Add support for custom script in user themes (just add a file named themeScript.js at the root of your theme, it will be included in all pages served by Ubooquity, except for the online reader and admin page)
• Add option to display metadata title instead of filename

Ubooquity 2.1.0 is available.

This is the first 2.x stable version. If you were still using version 1.x, you should now be able to upgrade without taking too big a risk. And in any case, should you need them, previous versions are still available for download.

Download Ubooquity 2.1.0

Change log

(since 2.0.2)

• Fixed PDF wrong MIME type
• Added link to the library on the admin page
• Added public preferences access through user API ( /public-api/preferences )
• Added option to prevent database removal of unavailable root folders
• Added limited support for AZW and AZW3 files
• Added page up/down keyboard shortcut in comics reader
• Modified the bookmark API to include update date in bookmark

If you upgrade from Ubooquity 1.x, read the 2.0.0 release notes, as they contain important information about database and preferences format changes (in a nutshell, you'll have to reconfigure Ubooquity and rescan your collection).

The documentation has also been updated to reflect 2.x modifications.

Ubooquity 2.1.1 is available.

This is a minor release: a few bug fixes and a few very specific features.
To upgrade, just stop Ubooquity and replace the Ubooquity.jar file.

Download Ubooquity latest version

Change log

Bug fixes:

• fixed a bug preventing bookmark saving on Ubooquity server for PDF files shared in the "books" section
• fixed log display issue on administration page
• fixed wrong MIME type for some "folder info" resources

New features:

• prevent Ubooquity from responding to HTTP CONNECT requests
• add FictionBook (FB2) ebook format support
• add Comic Book Info metadata support for CBZ files (with a small variation compared to the specs: Ubooquity expects boolean instead of "YES/NO" in the credits.primary field)

Ubooquity 2.1.2 is available.

To upgrade, just stop Ubooquity and replace the Ubooquity.jar file.

Download Ubooquity

Change log

Bug fixes:

• fixed 'writers' replaced by 'publication date' in comics metadata
• fixed comic metadata reading bug

New features:

• new option to bypass Calibre individual book folders (try it if you share a Calibre library)

Miscellaneous:

• "__MACOSX" folder in archives are now ignored (they used to prevent cover display)
• OPDS pages now have unique ids
• improved security
• updated internal RAR library (RAR 5 files are still not supported though)

I have been informed today of a severe vulnerability in the last available version of Ubooquity 2 (version 2.1.2).

A fixed version is available on the usual download page, version 2.1.4.

Please update as soon as possible.

Ubooquity 3 is not impacted by this vulnerability and can be used safely.

A new minor version of Ubooquity v2 was published to further improve the security of cookies for user and admin sessions.
It is available on the download page.