SIDEBOOK
========

A book that floats over everything and never takes focus. Read while a game
idles, code compiles, a video renders or an AI agent works: turn pages with a
hotkey, a click or the mouse wheel, and whatever you were doing stays active.

Reads TXT, EPUB and PDF. One small .exe, nothing to install.


GETTING STARTED
---------------

1. Run Sidebook.exe. A reading window appears in the bottom-right corner.
2. Drop a book on it, or click it to choose one.
3. Keep working. Sidebook remembers your place in every book.

If Windows SmartScreen warns about an unknown app, choose "More info", then
"Run anyway". Sidebook has no installer and sends nothing anywhere.


TURNING PAGES WITHOUT LEAVING WHAT YOU'RE DOING
-----------------------------------------------

These work from anywhere, even while a game or another app has focus:

  Ctrl+Alt+PageDown   next page
  Ctrl+Alt+PageUp     previous page
  Ctrl+Alt+B          show or hide Sidebook
  Ctrl+Alt+G          click-through on/off (clicks pass to the window behind)
  Ctrl+Alt+A          auto-turn pages on/off

On the page itself (none of these take focus away either):

  Click the right side    next page
  Click the left third    previous page
  Mouse wheel             scroll a few lines
  Ctrl + mouse wheel      text size
  Drag anywhere           move the window
  Drag an edge or corner  resize (the text reflows and keeps your place)
  Right-click             everything else


THE MENU (right-click)
----------------------

  Open book, Recent, Chapters
  Original pages / Reflowed text   (PDFs only, see below)
  Fit to width / Fit to page       (original pages)
  Theme: Paper, Sepia, Night, Clear (text only, for games)
  Font, Text size, Justify text
  Background and Window opacity
  Auto-turn pages every 10 to 90 seconds (pauses while the mouse is over it)
  Click-through, Hide, Keyboard shortcuts, Exit

Closing with the X hides Sidebook to the tray; Ctrl+Alt+B or the tray icon
brings it back. Exit from the menu to quit.


PDF BOOKS
---------

A PDF can be read two ways (right-click to switch):

  Original pages  The real pages, exactly as printed, as wide as the window
                  (Fit to width) or whole (Fit to page). A click or a page
                  hotkey turns to the next page; with Fit to width, a page
                  taller than the window takes a step or two on the way (its
                  top, then its bottom). The wheel scrolls freely. This is how
                  a PDF opens.

  Reflowed text   For a window too narrow to read the pages in. The pages
                  are read with the OCR built into Windows and turned back
                  into plain text that fits your window: running heads and
                  page numbers removed, hyphenated words rejoined, chapters
                  found, contents pages set with their page numbers, lists
                  kept as lists. Pictures and diagrams are cut out of the page
                  and placed where they belong. Pages are read in the
                  background, starting from where you are, and saved, so each
                  book is only processed once.

Reflowed text keeps the words, not the book's design: colours, fonts and bold
type are lost, and two-column layouts, footnotes and tables come out in a
plainer order than they were printed in.


GOOD TO KNOW
------------

- Settings and your place in each book: %APPDATA%\Sidebook\sidebook.ini
- Reflowed PDF text and pictures: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Sidebook\reflow
  (safe to delete; it is rebuilt when needed)
- The hotkeys can be changed in the [keys] section of sidebook.ini, for
  example:  next=Ctrl+Shift+Right
- If another app already uses one of the hotkeys, Sidebook says so when it
  starts; the rest keep working.
- Mouse wheel scrolling needs Windows' "Scroll inactive windows when I hover
  over them" setting, which is on by default.

Requires Windows 10 or 11.
