August was the biggest month Seekquel has had. Two e-reader integrations went live, books got their films and series attached, and the community can now be asked for a recommendation directly.
Here is everything, with a short guide for each so you can go and use it.
Read on KOReader, and it all lands here
If you read on a Kobo, a Boox, a PocketBook or anything else running KOReader, there is now a Seekquel add-on for it. Your place in the book, your reading time, your highlights and your finished books arrive on their own. Nothing is typed on the e-ink keyboard past the initial pairing.
Go to Settings, Integrations, KOReader, and download the add-on.
Unzip it and copy the seekquel.koplugin folder into koreader/plugins on your reader, then restart KOReader.
On the reader, open Tools, Seekquel, Connect this device. It shows eight characters. Type them into Seekquel and you are paired.
Read as normal. Your place syncs every twenty pages, when you close a book, when the device sleeps or wakes, and on a timer that starts at fifteen minutes.
You copy files across once. After that the add-on updates itself, and the KOReader screen in Seekquel tells you when a paired reader is running an old version. Choose what leaves the device from either end: the reader's own menu, or the device panel in Seekquel.
Files your reader sends that we cannot place wait for you under Books from your reader, instead of being added on your behalf. Point one at the right book and everything catches up, including reading time recorded while it was waiting. A saved article or a manga chapter can be marked Not a book, and several can be cleared at once.
It is free on every account. There is a full walkthrough in the KOReader guide.
Calibre, in both directions
The Calibre plugin went live on 24 August. Shelves, ratings, reviews and reading dates travel each way between the library you keep on your computer and the one you keep here.
Go to Settings, Integrations, Calibre, and download the plugin.
In Calibre, open Preferences, Plugins, Load plugin from file, and pick the zip. Restart Calibre.
Click the Seekquel button, choose Connect to Seekquel, and type the eight characters it shows into Seekquel.
In the plugin settings, map the Calibre columns you keep. Nothing is mapped to begin with, the rating included, and a column you do not map is never read and never written.
Two things worth setting up before your first sync. Under What to send, point the plugin at one of your Calibre virtual libraries or saved searches, so the manuals, rulebooks and conference papers in a real library stay out of it. And run Preview a sync, which shows exactly what would change on both sides and writes nothing.
You can also name your own status labels. If your column says Leyendo rather than Reading, it stays that way.
Free on every account, same as KOReader.
The films, series and games your books became
Books now carry their adaptations, and adaptations have pages of their own.
Open a book and scroll to Adaptations. Tap one and you get its page: cast and credits, seasons or runtime, and a rating you give the same way you rate a book. There is a Coming to screen rail for adaptations of books you have read that are not out yet, soonest first, and a Want to watch list you build as you go.
Three more things it does:
Filter your own library down to just the books that have an adaptation.
Missing one? Tap Add an adaptation to pair the book with a production we already hold, or Suggest new. Either way you get a notification saying what happened, with a link to the new page if it went in.
Mark something watched and it posts a card to your followers naming the book it came from, so they can shelve the book in one tap.
We also tell you when a book you have read gets adapted, and again when it comes out.
Ask the community for a book
Say what you are after and get real books back, each one shelvable in a tap.
Open the Community tab and choose Ask for a book.
Describe what you want. "Dark romance, but the mean one. Nothing with a redemption arc." works better than "any recommendations?".
Add a few tags if they help: genre, mood, length.
Post it. Replies come back as books, not comments. Tap Take this one and it goes straight to Want to read.
This replaces the old polls. A poll gave you percentages; this gives you a shelf.
Check what stuck: quizzes and flashcards
Finished a book and want to know how much of it you kept? Book Mastery sits on a book's page and shows whether it has a quiz, flashcards, or both.
Questions and cards unlock as you read, so nothing spoils a book you are partway through.
Answer a quiz and see your score next to how other readers did, question by question.
Grade a flashcard Again, Hard, Good or Easy, and it comes back around the point you would be about to forget it.
The Daily Quiz is three questions drawn from your own finished books, and finishing it counts towards your reading streak.
Free accounts get the first five questions or cards of any deck. Pro opens the full deck, the daily quiz archive, spaced repetition and your own decks.
Charts you can narrow, colour and compare
The Chart Builder got four upgrades in August.
Filters. Narrow any chart to one shelf or one tag, so it counts only those books.
Tag groups. On a tag chart, limit the axis to one of your tag groups, and hide any entry you would rather not see. The next one moves up to take its place.
Your own colours. Pick them rather than taking the theme's.
Period comparison. Put this year against last, or this month against the one before.
The builder itself was redesigned around a preview pane that stays pinned while you change things, so you are looking at the chart rather than at the form. Keep up to 20, and pin 4 to both your stats page and your public profile.
Chart Builder is Pro.
Read-alikes, chosen by readers
Under the algorithmic picks on a book's page there is now a section of pairings suggested by people who read both books, with their reasons attached. Readers vote them up or down, so the good ones rise.
Suggest one yourself once the book is on your shelf. Series pages have the same thing, pointing at other series.
Spanish and German
Seekquel now runs in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German. Every screen, every notification, every help article.
There is a Language and region page in Settings that also handles your date format and the currency prices show in. Notifications arrive in your language rather than the sender's, which matters in a club with people in three countries.
Library housekeeping
A run of smaller things that add up if you keep a large library.
Your own series. Group private books into a series you define yourself.
Pinned shelves. Keep the two or three you actually use at the top.
Select several books at once and act on all of them together.
Private books are editable now, and carry a series and a position.
Move a book back to Interested if you shelved it and changed your mind.
Save a shared quote straight to your notebook when you see one in the feed.
If you have never been sure whether something should be a shelf or a tag, we wrote a page that settles it: the tags or shelves cheatsheet.
Search knows what you pasted
Paste an ISBN or an Amazon ASIN into the search box and it goes straight to the book. Search now matches on names and identifiers rather than plot summaries, so a title search stops returning books that merely mention the word.
And when there is no confident match, it says so instead of filling the page with near misses.
The Monthly Challenge remembers
Four additions to the bingo card:
Every card you have played keeps its place. Open Past cards from this month's screen.
Not feeling this month's mix? Regenerate a fresh card at your preferred difficulty. Squares you already earned are credited straight back onto the new one.
Stuck on a square? Ask the community and replies come back as comments.
Each square also offers its own shortlist of books, lists, clubs or series that would satisfy it.
Three new themes and an icon to match
August added The Kiss (gilded gold over deep brown, Poiret One and Cormorant Garamond), Sherbet (an ice cream parlour in pink and teal) and Amethyst (violet with a green counterpoint). That makes 21 themes, each with its own palette and, for most, its own font pairing.
New alongside them: an app icon picker. Settings, Appearance, App icon. There are 23 icons, one drawn from each theme, and 6 of them are free. On Android the app closes and reopens to apply it, and asks you first.
Community review
Readers who consistently report things well now help decide whether flagged content comes back. Once enough people report the same thing it is hidden while it is checked, its author is told, and readers with standing vote to restore it or leave it hidden. Two agreeing settles it.
It sits in Settings, under Community review. This runs on the same reputation that governs catalogue edits: six tiers from Reader up through Scribe, Curator, Editor, Archivist and Librarian, where an accepted correction builds your standing and a rejected one costs a little.
Also in August
Pick For Me now matches on tropes and mood.
Your reading challenge can show on your public profile, and can be scoped to books of a certain length.
Browse filters for first publication year, and for books of unknown length.
A contributor credit line under Community Edits on every book, naming who fixed what.
Suggest a template for a whole series at once, rather than book by book.
Authors with a claimed page see follower and following counts on the Engagement screen.
Where to start
If you read on an e-reader, set up KOReader or Calibre first. It is the change that keeps paying afterwards, and both are free.
If you do not, open a book you loved and scroll to Adaptations. Then go and ask the community for something to read next.