Bookworms rejoice: plans for a new eBook reader for the GNOME desktop have been announced.
The app, tentatively titled ‘GNOME Books’, will be based off of the GNOME Documents application codebase and is being developed as part of this year’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC).
It aims to offer up a simplified and integrated way to browse, search and read eBooks on the desktop, and integrate with an existing online eBook store, like Google Books, to allow content to be purchased.
With the popularity of eBooks growing the demand for a dedicated desktop app is certainly there.
Current eBook readers, such as the Swiss Army knife that is Calibre, tend to favour function over form. GNOME Books sounds like it wants to offer a more Kindle-like approach – provide essential features within a UI that doesn’t make you want to ditch the book and watch the film instead.
To do this it will offer three distinct ‘modes’: an overview mode for viewing a list of books, a preview mode for reading books, and a store mode for browsing and buying new items.
Updates on the state of the application, as well as discussions on design and additional features, are to be posted by its developer, Marta Milaković, as Google Summer of Code progresses.
For more information you can read Marta’s announcement post.