New reading mode: Book reader

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The Lab version of Book Reader was a web-based feature I made years ago specifically for Bilibili Manga. It’s been stuck in the Lab for a long time because the experience on UWP was honestly pretty crappy.

Last year, I finally finished the core of a native version. It’s now time to officially introduce it as the third reading mode.

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A few things about the Book Reader:

• Book Reader isn't for Webtoons (the long vertical scroll types). It’s built for traditional Japanese and Western comics that use a standard layout.

• You can flip pages super fast with your scroll wheel or keyboard. Just a heads-up: you might see some weird visual glitches during fast flips, like the previous page suddenly disappearing.

• It’s all about the feel. The main goal is to mimic the page-turning effect and tactile feel of a real book. I highly recommend using it on touch devices, especially Surface-like devices.

• It always shows two pages at once. So, if you're on a Surface or a tablet, you'll need to hold it horizontally (landscape mode).

• Performance is "fine" for now, but I had to go "off-road." To make this work, I used some tech that isn't part of standard WinUI. After years of updates, UWP's WinUI 2 is actually pretty solid and stable now. In some cases, the custom tech I used for the Book Reader might not be as rock-solid or smooth as the native WinUI.

• It’s best if all images in your file have the same or similar aspect ratios when using Book Reader.

Available options in this mode:

Related: #34

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Use it on desktop:

SHANA.20260226_222749.mp4

Use it on Surface (Bilibili version but same):

SHANA.20220823_191453.2.mp4

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Shipped with 0.23.0. Will be available soon.