"playing" books - what are the "rules"

[RLanger7228 75]

As I was adding new content to my e-book library, I accidentally stumbled on the "play" feature.  This opened the file in an Emby native reader & allowed me to "consume" the content directly in Emby rather than having to download it & open the file in another reader.

I was quite thrilled, because I have a fairly extensive e-book.epub & article.pdf library.  I am very glad that the Emby staff addressed this request that I have seen discussed in several forums in the past.  This makes Emby a complete, stand-alone app to consume all the content on my NAS, that is easy for my family to use.

 

However, not all my books & articles have a play icon displayed when I select the individual item page.  All the ones I found that have "play" displayed can be read (e.g. screenshot 1), but some items simply do not have the Play icon, as in screen shot 2.

I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why some content gets the play icon & some does not.  I thought perhaps it had to do with when the content was uploaded, but I found "old" content that had the play icon.  ALL my e-books are in e-pub format, so that is not the issue.  All my articles are in PDF format, and some have the icon, though most do not.

 

What are the "rules" for which book/article content gets the play icon & which do not?

[Gilgamesh_48 1250]

10 minutes ago, RLanger7228 said:

As I was adding new content to my e-book library, I accidentally stumbled on the "play" feature.  This opened the file in an Emby native reader & allowed me to "consume" the content directly in Emby rather than having to download it & open the file in another reader.

I was quite thrilled, because I have a fairly extensive e-book.epub & article.pdf library.  I am very glad that the Emby staff addressed this request that I have seen discussed in several forums in the past.  This makes Emby a complete, stand-alone app to consume all the content on my NAS, that is easy for my family to use.

 

However, not all my books & articles have a play icon displayed when I select the individual item page.  All the ones I found that have "play" displayed can be read (e.g. screenshot 1), but some items simply do not have the Play icon, as in screen shot 2.

I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why some content gets the play icon & some does not.  I thought perhaps it had to do with when the content was uploaded, but I found "old" content that had the play icon.  ALL my e-books are in e-pub format, so that is not the issue.  All my articles are in PDF format, and some have the icon, though most do not.

 

What are the "rules" for which book/article content gets the play icon & which do not?

Actually Emby does not have a reader but calls the default reader of whatever device you are using. Many/some Emby clients cannot play ebooks at all and the directions I have been able to find do not even direct me as to how to install a different reader on my Shield as the one I have just does not work. Also I have not found any way to get any semblance of a book reader on my Rokus. 

It seems like the book functionality was conceived and a beginning was started but it was abandoned at half or less complete  and now Emby is afraid to remove their half functioning functionality because it would anger the subset of users that can actually use it. 
Ebooks are just about the only part of Emby i feel is poorly done and I recommend that people do not use Emby for Ebook functionality as it just does not work correctly.