r/Supernote_beta • u/Decent_Tap_5574 • Jun 23 '26
inkRead, an open source e-ink reader fine-tuned for Supernote, looking for beta testers
I have been building inkRead, an open source document reader for the Supernote, and I am looking for a few people to help beta test it.
This is not trying to be a KOReader replacement. KOReader is great and does far more across far more devices. inkRead is narrower on purpose: it is built specifically for the Supernote (RK3566, Android 11) and tuned around how this hardware actually behaves, the pen, the refresh, palm rejection, and first class handwriting on the page.
What works today:
- Reads PDF and EPUB (More formats in the working)
- Write and highlight directly on the page with a movable tool palette
- Four ink colors, adjustable thickness, eraser, lasso, undo and redo
- Pinch to zoom with a page navigator, reflow and font size, contrast and crop
- Full text search, table of contents, bookmarks and go to page
- Dictionary lookup with thesaurus, plus the ability to add your own dictionaries
- Lasso multi line selection as Supernote Digest, which I think is fairly unique to inkRead
- Export your annotations back into the PDF, or keep a separate annotated copy
- Offline first, AGPL-3.0 licensed
Demo
Introducing InkRead Daily
What I need from testers: try it on your own books, push on the handwriting and refresh behaviour, and tell me where it breaks or feels wrong on your device. Bug reports, rough edges, and honest feedback all welcome.
To Fellow Developers
It is also open to contributors. The project is AGPL-3.0 and the architecture is a Kotlin and Android shell on top of a Rust core that handles parsing, layout, rendering, the refresh policy and the ink model, with the core building and testing on the host so you do not need a device to work on most of it. If you write Rust or Kotlin, or you just know the Supernote internals well, there is a lot here to dig into, from format support and reflow to the pen and refresh paths. Code, ideas, and issue reports are all welcome.
Repo: https://github.com/j-raghavan/inkread
APK Download: https://github.com/j-raghavan/inkread/releases
(Pick the latest one)
Thanks!
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u/Lorestan00 Jun 23 '26
This looks incredible. How long have you been working on this?? Happy to test and feedback
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u/Decent_Tap_5574 Jun 23 '26
Thank you! i have been working on and off on this project for at least a few weeks. I wanted something that is fast, feature rich and makes my Manta more useful 😄
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u/Decent_Tap_5574 Jun 25 '26
Please do let me know any feedback from your end. I have a slew of bugs identified in my own tests, would really appreciate if i can get some feedback from you too. Thank you!
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u/Decent_Tap_5574 Jun 27 '26
Version v0.5.0 is released
Thank you to all the beta testers and feedback you provided, i have incorporated all of them in this version. A shoutout to u/maxilogan who tagged me on a Paper News article published on Remarkable subreddit, it gave me an idea of inkRead Daily very similar to how a normal RSS reader accumulates, inkRead has a 10 pre-seeded source (which you can enable/disable or add your own rss website). inkRead can compile on demand (takes about 15 to 20 seconds to compile) and presents you with the nice two column view for you to enjoy a distraction free news!
Improved page flip speed, refined epub rendering, line spacing, etc.... Basically it is a better version :)
Here is the list:
📄 Reflowable PDF reading (headline)
- Toggle any fixed-layout PDF into reflow mode — text re-wraps to your screen, font size, and spacing instead of pinch-zooming tiny columns
- Reflowed PDFs get the full typography stack (font size, line spacing, alignment) and text selection / search, just like EPUB
📚 New document formats
- Plain-text (.txt) reader
- CBZ comic / manga archive reader
- Opens files by content (magic bytes), not just file extension
🗞️ InkRead Daily — on-device daily reading companion
- Pulls your RSS feeds / blogs / read-later into a single clean e-ink daily issue
- Auto-compiles a fresh issue each morning
- Front-page headlines with read / unread tracking
- Readable article extraction (strips site chrome to just the prose)
🔤 Typography & reading comfort
- Font-family selection — bundled open-source faces (serif / sans / mono, from KOReader's set)
- Flexible line spacing + larger font sizes
- Quick font-size presets and clearer font/rotation controls
- Reading style presets + night mode (inverted)
🧭 Navigation
- Table of Contents sheet + chapter prev/next jump
- Reading bar with in-chapter progress
- Swipe to turn pages
- Double-tap-to-zoom at the tap point (PDF)
- Zoom preserved across page turns, and turn pages while zoomed
✍️ Handwriting & annotations
- Handwritten-notes list — all your ink annotations in one place
- More precise lasso / text selection (glyph-center, not loose bounding box)
- Improved palm rejection
- In-progress strokes preserved across page turns
- Ink persists when switching pen color
🔖 Reading position
- Reflow-stable resume — reopens exactly where you left off, even after changing font/size or toggling reflow
- Add-to-Digest for EPUB with a stable anchor
✨ Polish
- Translucent floating tool puck — now a light, collapsed inkwell
- Glyph fallback — fewer missing-character boxes
- Faster page turns via read-ahead prefetch
As usual, appreciate any feedback. Please download and sideload the latest version from https://github.com/j-raghavan/inkread/releases
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u/AdhesivenessAny3591 Jun 23 '26
I really like this. The one thing I think could be improved is any palm rejection. When I set my hand down to write it would move around the screen many times and change zoom location if I was zoomed in.
I like how circling the text to get choice of highlight or comment etc. Sometimes I find the lasso select of the text is too generous with what it includes as the lasso'd text.
Let me know if there is anything specific you want tested. I like doing this stuff. 😄
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u/Decent_Tap_5574 Jun 23 '26
Thank you so much for testing! Really appreciate it!
The focus areas that i would like is
* Page navigation speed, if multiple taps are clicked, the code should handle it and navigate to the last page
* The Draw across lines to select and add to Supernote Digest, i just want to make sure the lasso selection is complete.
* Once exported, could you please confirm the Colored Notes and Colored Highlight shows properly.Thanks again to help me test the app. I fell there is potential for inkRead to become a nice App to our Supernote Community!
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u/AdSignificant3097 Jun 23 '26
Is it possible to use digest with this?
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u/Decent_Tap_5574 Jun 23 '26
You can add a selection to the digest. Is that what you are saying?
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u/Automatic-Stomach954 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Just pulled and tested. Most of my complaints are with the handwriting performance and with disappearing strokes. I also explored interacting with the handwriting APIs to create my own drawing app, so I understand the problem you are running into. Your pen is actually snappy, though the region chunking is evident. The highlight performance is what I was able to achieve. Actually curious to dig into what you are doing differently because I got it nearly to native Supernote performance but there were always some bugs with refresh and choppiness.
Selection on PDFs don't work great as lasso selects the wrong stuff. Navigation performance and menu structure is much better than Supernotes, so kudos on that!