I got tired of reaching out of my blanket to tap the screen every page, so I built SwiftBook: an Apple Books-style EPUB reader for iOS that lets you turn pages with the volume buttons.
What it does:
- Import EPUBs → read with tap / swipe / progress bar / volume button page turns
- 5 fonts (PingFang, Source Han Serif Regular/SemiBold/Bold, Georgia)
- 4 reading themes (white · warm · dark · eye-care green)
- Font size, line spacing, margins, alignment — all adjustable
- Resume reading, TOC with chapter jump
Tech stack: SwiftUI + WKWebView. Pagination uses CSS multi-column layout rather than native scroll. Volume button detection uses AVAudioSession KVO + a silent looping WAV to keep the audio session alive.
The README has a detailed "Lessons Learned" section covering:
- Why WKWebView dimensions must be constant (or pages jump around)
- The quote-escaping bug that silently broke ALL JS interactivity
- Why you can't read @Binding during loadContent (progress reset to 0%)
- Gesture arena conflicts between tap zones and swipe on WebView
🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/KevinLeeeee323/SwiftBookApp
MIT licensed. Free to use, modify, contribute. Built with help from Claude / Codex / Deepseek.
Would love feedback — this is my first iOS app!
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