Introducing Variant - A Reader App for Windows 10

I've been working on Variant for the last couple of months since I decided to learn C#. I've finally got it to a place I'm happy releasing it and get some feedback. If you experience any crashes or other weirdness especially if you can reproduce it please report back here for now while I set up a better system. Once I iron out what ever bugs we can find and polish it up some more (better icons and animations) I'll submit it to the store (it will be free).

Current Features:

• Allows you to stream comics from your server.
• Saves current and furthest read positions for each comic.
• Layout options (single, double, and double with the cover on its own).
• Fitting options (fit all, fit width, fit height).
• Manga Mode.
• Automatically skip subdirectories which contain single directories (reduces clicking!).

Planned Features:

• The ability to download issues/series to your pc from your server.
• The ability to watch a series, it will automatically download new issues for all "watched series" and delete issues which have been read.
• Recents page for recently added issues.
• Database backup and syncing between devices.
• Toggle directory skip (increases clicking!)
• Ability to select where the databases, cover cache and issue page caches are stored.

How to Install:

WARNING: Before installing the app you will need to install a certificate to your "Trusted Root Certificate Authorities". If you have no idea what this means don't do it.

1. Download latest bundle and the certificate from here.
2. If you have already installed the certificate skip to step 9.
3. Double click the certificate file.
4. Click "Install Certificate...".
5. Select "Local Machine".
6. Select "Place all certificates in the following store" and click "Browse...".
7. Select "Trusted Root Certification Authorities".
8. Click "OK", "Next" and finally "Finish".
9. Double click the "appxbundle" and click "Install".

Usage:

• You will first need to add a user, this is a local user account. Each local user can have multiple Ubooquity accounts/servers associated with them.
• After that add a server, if all has gone well you will based with the directories in the root of the added server.
• You can click through to directories containing comics.
• If you want a prettier / faster experience you can right click on the server name in the menu pane and select "Scan Covers". This will obtain the directory structure of the server and start downloading issue covers in the background.
• You might need to hit the refresh button in the command bar to see thumbnail being used on folders.
• I suggest you set thumbnails in the Ubooquity admin section to 400 x 560 (Width x Height).

Merry Christmas!

Gauntlet

Known Bugs/Issues:

1. There is a known bug that causes extremely infrequent crashes I'm pretty sure I know what it is and will have a possible fix out on Tuesday/Wednesday. It doesn't seem to cause any data loss for the app so.
2. The "busy scanning circle" in the top left stops after scanning the directory structure. I know exactly why it does this and is an implementational issue I have to sort out expect it sorted in the next release (Tuesday/Wednesday).
3. When loading comic pages there is no indication of what is happening. I had loading circles for individual pages before but the spinning annoyed me and I removed them. I plan on rewriting that part so pages that aren't loaded can't be "turned" to.
4. You will not be able to change the layout of a comic until it is fully loaded. This currently a feature but when I deal with point 3 above you should be "fixed".
5. "No settings page!" This is coming, all the selectable setting autosave when you change them.
6. Image scaling issues. Text in a comic book can look pretty bad when scaled to fit the screen on 1080p or lower resolutions. I'm experimenting with fixes currently. Won't be out Tuesday/Wednesday need to check how they will affect the memory usage.