[Kavita] Support for Plain Text Files (*.txt)

[TenviLi]

Idea Description

Description:

I have a large collection of novels stored in plain text format (*.txt). Currently, I am unable to manage these novels with Kavita unless I convert them to *.epub format, which can be time-consuming.

It would be extremely helpful if Kavita could natively support plain text files (*.txt) as a readable format. This feature would allow me and others with similar collections to manage and enjoy our novels without the need for conversion.

Benefits:

• Simplifies the management of text-based novels without requiring conversion.
• Saves time for users who have extensive libraries in *.txt format.
• Expands Kavita’s versatility in handling different text file formats.

Thank you for considering this enhancement!

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Extensive File support
Manga/Comics: ZIP, RAR, RAR5, CBR, CBZ, CB7, CBT, TAR.GZ, 7ZIP/7Z
Books: EPUB2, EPUB3, PDF
Raw Images: JPG/JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF

Idea Category

User Experience

Duration of Using Kavita

3 years

Before submitting

• I've already searched for existing ideas before posting.

[smith113-p]

note that there is a duplicate request for this, #2561

[majora2007]

I'm not saying we will implement this, but I was shown a personal fork where this was done. It can be done by creating an epub on the fly for a text file, each newline becomes a separate paragraph to allow progress tracking. Metadata support would be hard, since there is a strict no sidecar policy in Kavita.

[smith113-p]

Speaking for myself only:

Converting to epub sounds good to me. Although I would prefer that only empty lines separate paragraphs, e.g.:

This is some text
split across multiple
lines.

Now here is a new
paragraph

For metadata, using the filename as the title or maybe allowing a "Author - Title.txt" convention would work for me.

[scare376]

Why would it be more ideal? What if the writer doesn't use an empty line to distinguish paragraphs. Then the entire text file would be a single massive paragraph.

[scare376]

Newline means where the writer would hit enter. Word wrapping is dependant on resolution at that point to determine lines

[smith113-p]

In the files that I have/have seen, it is more common that the author uses blank lines to separate paragraphs, but maybe that is a minority, idk