Reading Experience
Current's reader is designed for extended reading sessions with careful attention to typography, spacing, and visual rhythm.
Typography First
The reader uses a carefully selected serif font for body text, optimized for readability:
- Line length: Capped at ~66 characters for optimal reading
- Line height: Generous spacing (1.625) for easy eye-tracking
- Paragraph spacing: Clear separation without excessive white space
- Font size: Customizable to your preference
Reader Features
Clean Content Extraction
Current uses Readability to extract the article content, stripping away navigation, ads, and clutter. What you see is the pure content, beautifully formatted.
Reading Progress
A subtle progress indicator shows how far you've read. Your position is saved automatically, so you can return later and pick up exactly where you left off.
Progress Tracking
Current tracks your reading at the paragraph level:
- Scroll position is saved in real-time
- Resume reading from the exact paragraph
- See "You were here" indicator in Study mode
- Track reading time spent on each article
Table of Contents
For longer articles with headings, a table of contents lets you jump directly to any section.
Image Lightbox
Tap any image in an article to view it full-screen. Pinch to zoom and swipe to dismiss.
Original Link
Tap the article title to open the original URL in Safari. Sometimes you need the original layout, comments, or interactive elements.
Reader Themes
The reader can use any of Current's five palettes, independently of the main app theme:
- Paper: Warm, book-like reading experience
- Ocean: Clear and focused with teal accents
- Dusk: Creative and contemplative with lavender
- Midnight: True black for OLED displays
- Slate: Modern and professional
See Themes & Palettes for details on each.
Independent Color Scheme
The reader can follow system appearance or override it independently. You might prefer the main app in dark mode but read articles in light mode, or vice versa.
Font Scaling
Adjust the reader's font size to your preference:
- Go to Settings
- Find Reader Font Scale under Reading
- Drag the slider to adjust
The scale applies to all text proportionally, maintaining the visual hierarchy.
Content-Type Handling
Current adapts its reader for different content types:
Standard Articles
Most articles render with the standard typography-focused layout described above.
Webcomics
Image-heavy content like webcomics displays in a special mode optimized for viewing comics, with large images that you can scroll and zoom.
Videos
Video content shows metadata including duration, channel, and engagement metrics. Tap to play in the embedded player or open in the original app.
Reddit Posts
Reddit content displays with special formatting, including upvote and comment counts.
Newsletters
For newsletter feeds, Current prefers the full feed content over extracted web content, since newsletters are often designed for email reading.
Reader Actions
Navigation
- Swipe back or tap back button to return to river
- Scroll to read through the article
- Tap title to open original in Safari
Swipe to Release
When finished reading, swipe left to release the article and return to the river in one fluid motion. This is especially satisfying after completing a long read.
Share
Tap the share button to share via the system share sheet. You can share the article link, copy it, or send it to any app.
Save for Later
If you want to save the article for future reading, tap the save button to add it to your Read Later list.
Accessibility
The reader supports system accessibility features:
- Dynamic Type: Text scales with your system text size preference
- VoiceOver: Full screen reader support
- Reduce Motion: Minimized animations when enabled
- High Contrast: Respects system contrast settings
Performance
The reader is optimized for smooth performance:
- Articles load quickly with content extraction happening locally
- Images lazy-load as you scroll
- Progress tracking doesn't impact scrolling performance
- Memory is managed efficiently for long articles