Bookplayer: Support for bookmarks

[nameisken]

I saw they are no bookmark function be supported. I am wondering, does this because no API(AVFoundation) to support it or any other reasons? in my experience, the bookmark is an essential feature in audiobook players, so does it have any possibility to implement it or any trouble with it?

[pichfl]

Thank you for your input! Bookmarks are tricky to get right, but could be very useful for non fiction and reference. If you can help us specify the bookmarks feature in more detail, we would be grateful.

• Could you elaborate on what you expect from a bookmark feature?
• How do you expect bookmarks to work? (How do you expect BookPlayer to create, edit, delete bookmarks? Is there a standard for this type of meta data?)
• Is there another app with that feature which works as you expect it to do?

We have #10 on our Roadmap which while rather different seems at least to be related to your request.

So much for converting your ticket into a feature request, now to answer your question: No, API is not the reason this wasn't implemented yet. BookPlayer is much more than just the rather small part of the actual playback and isn't limited to the API surface of AVFoundation.

The focus of BookPlayer is to provide an easy to use player for audiobooks. For the upcoming version support for Playlists, faster load times, and a more intuitive and cleaner UI were determined to be the most pressing points to work on.

As with all feature requests I'm closing this ticket to focus on the work that needs to be done for the current release. It will remain active on our Roadmap and can and should be discussed further.

[nameisken]

Thank you pichfl
I'm using Apple's iBooks and Amazon's Audible application to listen ".m4b" and ".aax" files, they are good but not perfect.

"iBooks" has essential functionality and convenient, snappy UI operations. unfortunately, it doesn't support bookmark feature.
"Audible" has more functionality and supports bookmark feature, unfortunately, it only supports its own cloud "aax" files, offline "aax" and m4b files will have odd chapter titles and no bookmark functions.

Why I'm so fancy the bookmark feature?
people are used to listening somewhere many times in an audiobook. An audible book same as a textbook which needs marks or underlines to warm up people's memory. this is a big difference for entertainment with music.

Why do I suggest to do it?
Why would people need another audible player when they already have Amazon and apple's player and they are good? this is a question. Except for the essential functions those players should all have(not too much), we should do on the difference which apple and Amazon don't, and the bookmark is the one.

I'm not sure but I would like to do some if I can.
I attached a few snapshots which to specify the bookmarks on Apple&Amazon's players.

---

[pichfl]

@nameisken I think you'll like the upcoming 3.0 version of BookPlayer.

Thanks a lot for the input! I'll ignore the part about the chapters and naming because they are not relevant for either the bookmarks nor in the context of BookPlayer as we use the chapter names and title found inside the file.

Looking at the screenshots and testing the Audible app myself I would describe this feature as follows:

• The player has a "Add bookmark" button
  
  
  
  • Saves the play position from the moment the button was pressed
  
  
  • Brings up a menu which allows me to add an optional text note to this bookmark, save or remove the bookmark
  
  
  • Optionally pauses Playback until either "Save" or "Cancel" was pressed (Audible does not pause and it's very stressful to try come up with a note while the book keeps babbling on)
  
  
• Under "More" there is a list which displays each saved bookmark with the following info:
  
  
  
  • Chapter
  
  
  • Position
  
  
  • Timestamp when it was saved
  
  
  • Text Note
  
  
• Each bookmark has these actions:
  
  
  
  • Edit note
  
  
  • Delete bookmark
  
  
• Bookmarks can be sorted by creation timestamp or position in the book
• Bookmarks should be visible as markers in the progress indicator of the Player

I do not see the "Share" option in BookPlayer for the first iteration as creating an audio snippet or editing audio in general vastly overshoots the scope of the app. Also I don't want to get into copyright issues. I'm also ignoring the range aspect of the bookmark "clips" with the same rationale.

[kour1er]

Just to add my feedback on how I use bookmarks - I think Bound has a really nice implementation of this. In the player section, the user can create a bookmark with one tap (which doesn't create a naming dialogue or anything - just one tap). There is then an additional menu button on the player which lists all created bookmarks for that book with the timestamp listed.

I find this really useful for when I'm listening to audiobooks falling asleep. I start playback, drop a bookmark, set the sleep timer. Then I can always go back to where I started from in that listening section very easily.

(btw version 3.0 is so nice great upgrade)

[GianniCarlo]

Thanks for your input @kour1er ! we'll be sure to look how Bound does it too once we get around to implementing this feature 👌 (although we wouldn't mind a helping hand if you want to try this :D )

[kour1er]

Of course - always happy to help!

[GianniCarlo]

Awesome!

[GianniCarlo]

let me know how I can help

[NightMachinary]

I suggest you also implement "auto-bookmarks" as the app Bookmobile does. It helps greatly to find one's position when something unexpected happens (e.g., you fall asleep). It would also be great to be able to export these bookmarks to a good format (say json). Syncing them with iCloud would also be nice.

[GianniCarlo]

Auto-bookmarks sound good 🤔 by any chance do you know how they might work behind the scenes? iCloud data/profile synchronization is in the pipeline 👌

[NightMachinary]

I don’t know, but the basic idea is that any action creates a bookmark,
like skipping ahead, pausing, etc.

On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 6:51 PM Gianni Carlo [e-mail]
wrote:

Auto-bookmarks sound good 🤔 by any chance do you know how they might
work behind the scenes? iCloud data/profile synchronization is in the
pipeline 👌

—
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer/issues/127#issuecomment-432702370,
or mute the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/Aii--oCZF5AtmO5bOz11Sczk9kgchFImks5uoIWEgaJpZM4UX9hI
.

[iamhenry]

Hi all. I'd like to thank you all for the hard work that is going into this amazing project.

I wanted to see if there's been an update as to when the bookmark feature will be implemented?

Thanks again!

[GianniCarlo]

Hi @iamhenry , this is currently on hold on my part, since it depends on a redesign (which state can be seen if you run the branch feature/player-redesign). Currently on my plate is to take up localization again and finish it this time, then refactor importing files, then finish redesign so bookmarks are supported 👌. If anybody is up to tackle this feature so we can have it earlier, please feel free to let us know so we can give pointers and provide design

[neotaruntius]

Hi @GianniCarlo ... Thanks for keeping us up to date on this feature. Do we have an ETA for when this feature will make it to the app? It's an essential feature for me!

[GianniCarlo]

Hi @neotaruntius ! Since last time, I did finish the localization feature, and I'm currently doing the refactor of importing files (it's proving to be a more complex issue than I thought), then we'll continue withthe redesign which includes bookmarks. Giving ETAs is difficult when we can only work on this in our free time, but I hope we can close 2020 with the next major version v4.0.0 which would include the redesign as well

[neotaruntius]

Fully understand and again very appreciative of your efforts. Thanks for the quick response @GianniCarlo !!

[jcqbrc]

Any update on this? Seems like an essential feature of non fiction books. Thanks!

[GianniCarlo]

soon-ish 😁 we'll be including this in our next major release v4 along some other surprises 💪

[jcqbrc]

Oh, very nice. Any sense of a timeline? :)

On Mar 17, 2021, at 1:16 PM, Gianni Carlo @.*> wrote:

soon-ish 😁 we'll be including this in our next major release v4 along some other surprises 💪

—
You are receiving this because you commented.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer/issues/127#issuecomment-801304563, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AOAEQZNUTSXCL3F47CL5GL3TEDWZXANCNFSM4FC73BEA.

[pichfl]

@jcqbrc it's done when it's done – this is how Open Source works.