yeah, we can read books, i see that. but a landing page or “let me show you” diagram would be nice.
upper right button looks like a login function page so i thought that i need to login ?
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@Radish8 @Kumirei
I cannot speak too much about the difference to Manabi Reader other than it does not require you to have an iOS device. In terms of functionality, there is certainly some overlap with Japanese IO (though their features appear to be more fleshed out at this point).
The content material is different, but that is also a practical decision in that the texts are public domain and we’re not stepping on anyone’s rights. The goal is to work with publishers directly to also include contemporary work. The books and novels are a starting point. The key differences and what we are about will hopefully become apparent in the coming weeks as new features will be released, @morteasd.
I’m also not sure where Manabi Reader and Japanese IO had their communication channels with potential and actual users, but we’re trying to be transparent and inclusive of our users. That’s why we started with the survey, invited some participants to provide regular feedback along the initial development, and have now opened it up to the general public while hopefully signaling our openness for suggestions and participation in the process.
And yes, resuming a text that you’re reading should be simple and it will be. Right now, all you have is part and paragraph information (but no indicator of how long the text is).
@Naphthalene, great observation. We had to take out bigger titles like こころ, 夢十夜, and 坊ちゃん for the time being due to technological limitations imposed by a currently economical difficult situation. As for the preface of the first volume of 吾輩は猫である, I can investigate if you wish - but it may take some digging.
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Oh, so you do have prefaces separate from their book on purpose? At least for now I guess. Roger that 
If it’s not due to technical limitations, here’s the link, if you need it:
https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000148/files/47148_32217.html
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Thanks for digging that out. That version has a gaiji (right after 此書を公けにするに就て中村不折氏は数葉の) as well with no alternative provided right then and there (we look at the alt attribute). For some gaiji, the hiragana reading is provided and we handle those cases. This one we cannot do at the moment, but it is not forgotten. So yeah, it is a technical limitation on our side as stated earlier.
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Oh, I see it! Looks like 挿画, though, and that word makes sense in context too. Let me see how some printed version have dealt with that.
Edit: Hm, I couldn’t find a printed edition that has the preface from 夏目漱石. Some blogs do have it, though, and they all use 挿画.
Example: http://neko.koyama.mond.jp/?eid=434382
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I appreciate the help.
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(Replying just in case you missed the edit above).
Also, I just realized that the subtitle of the blog I just posted is “挿画でつづる漱石の猫” (emphasis mine) 
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I appreciate the switch to hiragana, I find it much easier to read now.
They are everywhere for me when turning on furigana, using Chrome and Safari:
The ゞ on the very right has one, too.
I like the idea of using public domain works for reading practice, but I think to make the site more viable for beginner/intermediate learners, it’s probably necessary to include a guide for old 仮名遣い, ゐ, ゝ, etc. Apologies if this is something you are already planning on doing!
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Apologies that this has ended up quite critical, I like the general idea and I appreciate that it’s early days and you have a mountain of work to do. Hopefully everything I’m saying is constructive.
My 2-cents so far:
- Furigana display/dictionary look up on click really makes life easier. They’re probably the only features that would make me choose something like this over an (e)book.
- The text size and word spacing options are great.
- A bit more customisation on the layout would be quite helpful, specifically line spacing and column width (my computer screen is wiiiiide and yomi.ai wraps at about three times the width the text on this forum does).
- Ditto what others have said about book length and progress indications.
- A better description of what the site actually does on the front page would be good. I shouldn’t have to start reading a text to know.
- Pleeeease at least make the front page show something static when javascript is disabled
- Walls of Japanese text with help outside the reader view is a little intimidating (I’m specifically thinking of the Author bios and book title lists).
- On the one time pledge page: “We provide alternative means for you to get in contact with us, voice your opinions, report bugs et cetera.” I get giving higher tier patrons priority on general comms/input on development, but surely anyones bug report is valuable and will improve the service for everyone? I’m not sure how I feel about it being behind a paywall.
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Thanks again for all the feedback. It’s great waking up in the morning and seeing such great feedback @Myria and @theghostofdenzo. I had some time to think about it and added your points that were missing on our list to it.
I just wanted to address the last point that was made. Certainly, any contact with any of our team members is appreciated and valuable. That, of course, includes bug reports. Our intention was not to make it seem that we don’t care about input from users that don’t support us financially. I apologize that it came across like that.
What I tried to indicate, and this is not an excuse, is that higher tier patrons get additional contact options (my phone number, option for individual and group video conferences) to tell us these things. We would love to be able to talk to everyone 1-on-1, however, we’re not equipped for that operationally. I hope that makes sense. We will revisit our wording.
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We’ve been busy working on the backend and did some tests on the data side of things with recommendations based on vocabulary. That also brought up a discussion whether we should support login via social media accounts. No strong opinions have been expressed so far.
But we wanted to hold off on our decision and wanted to get more voices of our growing user base.
We’d like you to cast your vote over on our Twitter page within the next 24 hours.
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I wanted to vote, but turns out I would need a Twitter account for that. I do not have one nor plan to create one… so I guess that’s one way to answer your poll 
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I assume you’d align with the majority vote then, who voted against the ability to sign up/in via social media accounts then.
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First version of vocabulary upload is now live. Recommendations for texts based on your known kanji will become available soon.
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Sorry if that has been explained earlier in the thread, but what do the different pledge tiers do? The description on the website is a bit vague.
(Also, if the description is somewhere, it should probably be copied/referenced in the first post).
For instance, which pledge levels have access to the feature you just rolled out?
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I’d like to address that within the next 24h or so with a short video, where I’ll also showcase the state of the recommendations, if that’s okay.
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Here’s the promised video.
The video shows the kanji upload (0:41) and how it changes the reading lists for authors (2:13). Furthermore, I’ve answered the question “What do the tiers do?” at 5:08.
I cut the video abruptly, because I added too many minutes to simply make viewers aware of our twitter account, where we do small service announcements: https://twitter.com/yomidotai.
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You should really write up the info about the different tiers in a way that lets you compare them easily, like Patreon does (or like those tables they use for trying to convince you to buy the Pro Enterprise version of software).
Also, the bit about switching to a subscription model and how it affects backers should be clearly stated front and centre on the signup page, possibly with a check box asking people of they understand before going through to payment. I can see this causing painful misunderstandings…
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Doing that now.
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