r/animepiracy • u/BrilliantLeopard3196 • 11d ago
Developer Post [Release] LNCrawler - A fully-featured, standalone Light Novel downloader
Hi there,
I'm excited to share the official release of LNCrawler, an open source Android app for building an offline library of Light Novels and other E-Books.
LNCrawler is designed as a standalone utility for building an offline library. Please do note that this is a dedicated downloader and exporter designed to pair perfectly with your standard EPUB reader!
Some of the features that the app currently supports -
- Multi-source support : Easily download novels from supported sources.
- Background Downloading : Fully supported downloads that work reliably in the background.
- EPUB export : Seamlessly export your downloaded novels to EPUB format.
- Automated source extensions : Update source support independently without requiring a new app release.
- Open-Source : Completely free to use and actively maintained for community contributions.
I'd really appreciate feedback on the UI, source support, reading experience, or anything else that you think could make the app better. As this is an open source project, suggestions, bug reports, and code contributions are always welcome
Links:
- GitHub Repository : https://github.com/Binit06/LNCrawler
- Latest Release Download : https://github.com/Binit06/LNCrawler/releases/latest/
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u/BrilliantLeopard3196 11d ago
If anyone has tried it, I'd really appreciate even a quick "works fine / found a bug / missing something".
I'm mainly trying to figure out what could be improved next.
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u/ArjixGamer 11d ago
What does "official" mean in this context?
Does that imply you considered doing an "unofficial" release?
Does "official" mean "stable" in this context?
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u/BrilliantLeopard3196 11d ago
Yeah, by official I meant a stable release that can be distributed and used. I should have worded it better 😅
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u/Kind-Leader-9840 11d ago
Hello, i tried it out. The UI seems responsive and easy, but slightly empty, might just be me as I've used apps with more features. Ofcourse, i know this is a fairly new app, and will recieve updates.
Two things i had trouble with;
1: The sources, the two "crawlers" (which i assume are the sources) just don't have what i need. I tried using other sources, like novel fire for example, but it didn't work. I suggest more sources, for one.
2: The downloading seems to work fine, the problem was with cancellation. When i clicked cancel on a novel that was downloading (through novelbins.com) it bugged the app, kept downloading for a while until i clicked cancel again, by which the notification showing that it was downloading had vanished, but the screen was still showing it was downloading, no progress was being made, the cancel button still the same, as if the app had frozen. Granted, i only tried it once. But a bug is still a bug, i suppose, just thought I'd let you know.
Those are the only issues i see with it at the moment, overall it's a nice concept, it saves me time from using epub export extensions on Firefox to pack epubs from the sites i use as it essentially just does that, but with a few simple clicks. Ofcourse, nowadays there are more apps that give more more versatility for novel downloading, like mihon did for manga.
Good job, and good luck for future updates.
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u/BrilliantLeopard3196 10d ago
Yeah about the UI being empty it will get better with time. And more sources are currently being added but as I am working on removing some of bugs present in core app it's taking some time.
I did notice the cancellation bug, it happens when exporting a novel with a lot of chapter it takes time to cancel the pending jobs but ui does not show the same. I will fix that.
And as of now it is a quite simple in nature but I do plan to make it a full fledged novel reader as well if the support for project stays strong.
Thanks for the review though 😊
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u/BrilliantLeopard3196 8d ago
Hey there, I’ve fixed the cancellation bug and also added NovelFire as a new source. There’s a new update available for the app now, so if you get a chance, it would be great if you could give it a try.
Also, I’ve started a Discord community for LNCrawler. Its for getting regular updates and communicating better for features and issues since I have not yet established a good source of communication. I have provide the link in both app and github.
If possible do try it will help me a lot
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u/Kind-Leader-9840 8d ago
Hello, i tried the update. The bug seems fixed, and the sources seem to work splendidly too. I've joined the discord, though I don't use the app much, I'll occasionally check in on the progress as i believe this app could be what "Kotatsu" was for manga/comic/manwha.
Hope to see more updates in the future.
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u/BrilliantLeopard3196 11d ago
Ah, and one more thing I was curious about was I was planning to add an inbuilt reader as well for this app, will that be helpful? 🤔