So I have come up with something that I'm pretty excited about.
Note that this is NOT ready for prime time yet (consider it alpha at most), so installation is manual. I have only tested this on Kindle Touch 5.1.0 (because that's the only device I have around).
For the time being, if you have a different version or model, you won't see any effect, so don't even bother to install it. But if you are on 5.1.0 and are curious, then:
- Rename the attached kpatcher.zip to kpatcher.jar and copy it to /opt/amazon/ebook/lib/
- Modify /opt/amazon/ebook/bin/init.xargs: insert the line "-istart kpatcher.jar" above the "-istart portability-impl.jar" (i.e., kpatcher.jar should be the first "istart" line).
- reboot, or simply killall cvm
Then, go to Menu > Settings, Menu > Legal and be prepared for a surprise
There is also Menu > Settings, Menu > Device Info to check out. And finally, try to enable TTS on a non-english (or TTS-disabled) book
(and then go back to device info). Oh, and there's /tmp/kpatcher.log as well.
This is somewhat of a logical follow-up to
this older post, but it is MUCH more powerful. In fact, with this approach, we can modify every single class in the framework, without having to overwrite Amazon's files or distributing copyrighted binary files. Yeeehaaa!
Note: As said, the "demo" works on KT 5.1.0 only. However, the general approach is suitable for all models (in fact, maybe even more for older models than for the Touch, because on older models the entire UI is in Java, which is not the case on KT).
Update: attachment removed. See first post for the newest version.