Zotero Android

I recently bought a color Linux E-ink device to improve and optimize my reading habits. Reading research papers on my Kindle is not a pleasant experience. It does not have colors, is very restricted, and handles PDFs very poorly. The Kindle web browser is a mess and not usable. So, reading papers in particle physics and machine learning becomes a problem. Many times, I tend to be lazy and just don’t load anything or even leave my Kindle at home if I think I can spend time on a flight or commuting reading something. I also organize my reading through Zotero, and although I recently jailbroke my Kindle—thanks to WinterBreak—the most I could do was install the amazing KOReader app to read PDFs on my Kindle.

Anyway, I use Zotero on iOS, and I remember seeing that the Zotero team is working on an Android app. This was part of why I chose to buy my BOOX Tablet Go Color 7. After getting it and trying to download Zotero via the Play Store, I found out that the Zotero Android app is in beta testing, and even worse, the beta is full, so I cannot join. This was disappointing, but my first thought was that I might find the APK file. I found a Reddit post from last October that provided a link to the APK. However, I didn’t feel like it would be safe, and it was probably outdated by now. The app is in beta testing and likely has rapid releases. Then I tried to find some reputable websites, but I felt like this wasn’t going to work either.

So, the last option was to check how difficult it would be to build the app from source. Up to this point, I hadn’t looked into the repository at all. I also didn’t want to have to keep track of releases and build things manually. This was when I became curious about how they build and publish the beta and whether the process was open. Fortunately, it is, and it uses GitHub Actions to build and publish the beta. So I thought it would be nice if I could adjust it to build automatically and upload the APK file to GitHub repository releases instead. That is exactly what I did here after a couple of trials, as usual with GitHub Actions, to make everything work. The APK file is in the releases section.

Now, I use einkbrowser, which is a very good web browser for E-ink devices. I visited the repository and bookmarked the page. The GitHub Action checks for new tags (releases) in the upstream repository, and if it finds a new one, it builds the app and uploads the APK file to the releases with the new tag. Then I subscribe to my repository’s RSS feed to know when a new release is available. After that, I can go to the page from my BOOX and update by installing the new APK file.

Anyone can use this APK or fork and build their own. I just find it fun when I find a workaround for limitations using the power of open source.