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Try the Demo

The demo at https://plainshelf.org/demo/ is the full PlainShelf web app, running entirely in your browser. You can try it without installing anything. The PlainShelf server is compiled to WebAssembly and runs in the page itself, and the library is kept in your browser's storage. The site only serves the app's files. Books you import are converted in the browser and are never uploaded.

The demo is rebuilt with every release, so it matches the latest release.

What you can do

The demo starts with an empty shelf named Demo Shelf. You can import TXT, Markdown and EPUB files (EPUB Import), read them, sort them into folders, and use the trash, just as with the server.

A Demo bar in the corner adds two buttons that the regular app does not have:

  • Export shelf downloads the whole shelf as a zip.
  • Import shelf… replaces the whole shelf with a zip.

The bar also reminds you that the shelf is kept only in this browser, and warns when the browser cannot keep it at all. On a first visit it offers to ask the browser to keep the shelf (below).

Do not confuse Import shelf… with the app's own Import menu, which adds individual books.

Where your library is kept

The shelf is stored in the browser's Origin Private File System, so it normally survives a reload or closing the browser. It is kept separately for each browser and each device. Nothing syncs it between them.

Browser storage is not guaranteed. Export the shelf regularly if you want to keep it.

  • Clearing site data for plainshelf.org deletes the library.
  • The browser can clear it on its own. Unless it has agreed to keep it, a browser may delete the demo's storage when the device runs low on space, and Safari deletes a site's storage after some days without a visit.
  • Several tabs share one library. One tab runs the server and the others pass their requests to it. When that tab closes, another one takes over.
  • Closing the tab right after a change can lose the last moment of edits. A change is written to storage within a fraction of a second, and a closing tab cannot wait for that write to finish.
  • Reading progress, history and stats are kept in the browser's local storage, as in the regular web app (Architecture). They are not part of an export.

If the browser offers no such storage, the demo still runs, but only in memory: a reload starts over with an empty shelf, and Import shelf… is refused because the reload that follows an import would lose it. This can happen in some private windows. Even where a private window has storage, the browser discards it when the window closes.

Ask the browser to keep it

The browser can be asked not to clear the demo's storage on its own. The Demo bar offers this on a first visit with Keep this shelf, and Settings → Browser storage shows whether the browser has agreed and can ask again. That tab exists only in the demo.

The browser decides. Some agree only for a site that is bookmarked, installed or visited often, and Firefox asks you first. Even when it agrees, clearing site data still deletes the library, so keep exporting it.

Move a library between the demo and a real install

An export is an ordinary shelf. The zip holds books/ and trash/, the same layout as a shelf directory's lib_root (Data Model).

From the demo to PlainShelf:

  1. Click Export shelf.
  2. Unzip the file into an empty shelf directory.
  3. Point a local shelf at that directory.

Book IDs, folders, covers and the trash come along.

From PlainShelf to the demo:

  1. Stop PlainShelf, as for a backup.
  2. Zip the shelf directory. The zip may have the directory itself at the top.
  3. Click Import shelf… and choose the zip.

Only books/ and trash/ travel, in either direction. app/ holds an install's caches and is rebuilt. shelf.json, the shelf's own settings such as ignored directories and NSFW folders, is left out too, so the demo runs with those settings at their defaults. Moving to a real install, copy shelf.json across yourself if the original shelf had one.

An import replaces the demo's books and trash, and every open tab reloads onto the imported shelf. A file that is not a shelf zip is refused and changes nothing. The zip may be at most 512 MiB.

Limits

  • The whole shelf is held in memory while the demo runs, so a large library is slow to open and costs memory in proportion to its size. Your browser's storage quota also applies.
  • One shelf only. The demo has no config file, so it cannot add shelves or use an SMB shelf.
  • The demo needs HTTPS and a service worker. Covers are loaded through the service worker. If the browser blocks service workers, the demo still works without covers.
  • Not every browser is tested. Chromium runs the demo's automated check on every change, and Firefox runs it nightly. Safari's storage has not been verified, because the WebKit engine used in testing does not provide it.

For daily use, install PlainShelf. Your files then live in a folder you control and can back up, rather than inside a browser.