Chapter 1. Introduction & Quick Start

1.1 What is wxreader?

wxreader is a standalone e-book reader extracted from wxeditor, built with Rust + Slint: a single executable that starts instantly. It is completely free software — no licenses, tiers or feature locks; every feature is unconditionally available.

Core capabilities:

• Seven content formats: PDF (vector rendering, two-page spread), EPUB, MOBI/AZW3/PRC, Markdown (H1 chapters), TXT (automatic encoding detection + chaptering), CHM (TOC tree / index / full-text search), and comic folders (tree TOC, wheel paging, two-page spread).
• Personal library: shelves, favorites, three views (card / list / cover), six sort orders, title/author search, multi-select batch organizing (cut & paste, drag to shelf).
• Reading aids: text-selection notes and marks, automatic progress restore, reading-time tracking, sidebar TOC and full-text search.
• Personalization: 21 UI languages, 40+ dark and light themes (following the system or switching by time of day), window background images, custom themes, key remapping.
• Multi-window reading: one window per open book; re-opening a book focuses its existing window and jumps to the requested position.

1.2 System requirements

512 MB of RAM is enough for smooth use; disk footprint is about 20 MB.

1.3 Installation

Packages are named wxreader_<distro>_<version>_<arch>.<ext>:

• deb: sudo dpkg -i wxreader_*.deb
• rpm: sudo rpm -ivh wxreader_*.rpm
• pacman: sudo pacman -U wxreader_*.tar.zst
• apk (Alpine): sudo apk add --allow-untrusted wxreader_*.apk
• tar.gz: extract and run the bundled install.sh
• AppImage: chmod +x wxreader_*.AppImage && ./wxreader_*.AppImage
• macOS: drag from the DMG into Applications, or run the Pkg installer
• Windows: run the NSIS setup.exe or the MSI package

1.4 First launch

Just run wxreader — no configuration required:

1. The user data directory is created automatically on first start (see Chapter 9), along with default shelves.
2. Click the toolbar “Import” button (or “Books → Import Books”) and pick e-book files; for comics pick their folder (see Chapter 3 and Chapter 5).
3. Double-click a book card to start reading. Progress is saved automatically and restored on the next open.

You can also open directly from the command line: wxreader -open /path/to/book.epub.

1.5 Checking for updates

“Help → Check for Updates” contacts the update server. When a new version exists an upgrade dialog shows the changelog and hands the download to the updater; otherwise it reports “already up to date”. Network failures show an error message.