Forma Firmware 4.11.11911

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And it is obviously just a good in johnnybland.

I mean, the first comment was really me wondering why @rashkae expected that quick turn to be automatically disabled when the footer was. After all, if it was automatically turned off, there would have been a post complaining about this as quickly as this one.

Because it breaks the expected word selection interface, (think, for example, dictionary look up of a word whose placement overlaps the tap zones for quick page turns.)

The previous generation sonys worked around the problem by making swipe and hold the action required for fast page turn. Kobo will likely have to figure something out if the dead space is no longer left wasted.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Because it breaks the expected word selection interface, (think, for example, dictionary look up of a word whose placement overlaps the tap zones for quick page turns.)

And the other way, doing a word look-up breaks the expected quick page turn interface. At the moment, I would prefer the quick page turns. I can think of several ways to get the word in another place on the screen to select it. And as a last resort, I can enter it in the dictionary search. But, the interface does need some thinking about with these changes.

The previous generation sonys worked around the problem by making swipe and hold the action required for fast page turn. Kobo will likely have to figure something out if the dead space is no longer left wasted.

How did that work? During the beta's when the quick page turn was introduced, Kobo tried a few things. None of them felt right and this seemed to be the best. I think Kindles have the same function. Anyone know how that is started?

[NiLuJe]

It's built into a PiP-like UI (dubbed Page Flip), that you can either access from the in-book menu, or via a swipe from the bottom (same gesture as the Android/Pixel App Drawer or Recents Apps UI in Pie), with page prev/next sidebars around the preview.

That makes it technically one more interaction away, but it doesn't clash with anything, and you also get a chapter skip pane at the bottom (like the Kobo's <-> menu), with a draggable thumb along the progress bar, and an easy way to get back to your current position, since you technically never leave it until you've confirmed your target page (by tapping basically anywhere that's not already a button on the preview popup) .

I don't *think* there's anything else of the sort available straight from a book page, but it's been a while, so, eh, take this with a grain of salt .

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, tell me, exactly what was wrong about my comments that you felt you needed to insult me about them? I know it is your default reaction, but, please tell me.

Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you!
Your responses come across as apologetic very often and that does not seem to agree with me. I hope you understand.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you!

Then I don't understand the point of the post.

Your responses come across as apologetic very often and that does not seem to agree with me. I hope you understand.

To be honest, I don't understand. Can you point to a post and explain how I "come across as apologetic"? If I know what I am doing that so offends me, then I'll know how to fix it. Or decide not to.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

It's built into a PiP-like UI (dubbed Page Flip), that you can either access from the in-book menu, or via a swipe from the bottom (same gesture as the Android/Pixel App Drawer or Recents Apps UI in Pie), with page prev/next sidebars around the preview.

That makes it technically one more interaction away, but it doesn't clash with anything, and you also get a chapter skip pane at the bottom (like the Kobo's <-> menu), with a draggable thumb along the progress bar, and an easy way to get back to your current position, since you technically never leave it until you've confirmed your target page (by tapping basically anywhere that's not already a button on the preview popup) .

I don't *think* there's anything else of the sort available straight from a book page, but it's been a while, so, eh, take this with a grain of salt .

Does Page Flip work with non-KFX files?

[NiLuJe]

@DNSB: Yes (I don't actually have any KFX content, because the PW2 hasn't been my daily driver for a while now ).

There might be some extra KFX cherry on top of that, but I wouldn't know about it (there was mention of a "nine-pages-at-a-time" preview mode available on "select books only" in the user's guide, so, make of that what you will )

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@DNSB: Yes (I don't actually have any KFX content, because the PW2 hasn't been my daily driver for a while now ).

There might be some extra KFX cherry on top of that, but I wouldn't know about it (there was mention of a "nine-pages-at-a-time" preview mode available on "select books only" in the user's guide, so, make of that what you will )

I suspect that page thumbnail mode was what I was thinking of.

[NiLuJe]

@DNSB: I didn't have access to the PW2 yesterday, so here's how it actually looks like (on a KF8) .

There's apparently a second icon in the bottom pane when the 9-pages thingy is available. The swipe gesture brings up the pageflip thingy directly.

[Martina Schein]

I have completely installed the update on my Kobo Aura H2O 2nd Edition, Version 1. It works fine including the patch, only the spaces from the text to the top and bottom are quite large. @davidfor already wrote this in his first post, I think.
I permanently hide the header and footer.

[GeoffR]

So is it really true that Kobo have removed the old full-screen mode and replaced it with something that doesn't work as well?

Or is it still possible to get the old full-screen mode (where every pixel of the screen was usable in ePubs) if you have fullScreenReading=true under [Reading] in the config file?

I'm still on 4.8.11073, and I think I'll be staying there if there is no longer a proper full screen reading mode.

Edit: The old full-screen mode had these features, are they still possible with this firmware?
1. Top/bottom margin sizes were adjustable via the margins slider in KePubs (and, with a patch, in ePubs)
2. True full screen (every pixel usable for book content) possible in ePubs (and, with a patch, in KePubs)

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

So is it really true that Kobo have removed the old full-screen mode and replaced it with something that doesn't work as well?

Or is it still possible to get the old full-screen mode (where every pixel of the screen was usable in ePubs) if you have fullScreenReading=true under [Reading] in the config file?

I'm still on 4.8.11073, and I think I'll be staying there if there is no longer a proper full screen reading mode.

Edit: The old full-screen mode had these features, are they still possible with this firmware?
1. Top/bottom margin sizes were adjustable via the margins slider in KePubs (and, with a patch, in ePubs)
2. True full screen (every pixel usable for book content) possible in ePubs (and, with a patch, in KePubs)

I don't usually use fullscreen myself but I did some tests using 4.11.11911 on my ClaraHD with your previously-shared 'Margin Test' epub using the page with the "max-size empty box".

Header: The minimum I could achieve was 3.5mm for both epub/kepub if I set Show Title to OFF in Reading settings. I'm not sure that any of the current patches can reduce this. See here for my notes.

Footer: By default, with Reading settings Show Footer OFF, minimum footer is 4mm for epub/kepub. This can be reduced to 1.5mm by enabling the standard patch 'Disable reading footer' and setting Show Footer to ON. Thanks to MGlitch for that discovery.

Left/Right margins: Minimum is still zero for epub and for kepub (if standard patch 'Custom kepub default margins' is enabled)


By default the Margin slider only changes left/right margins, in both epub/kepub.

If your standard patch 'ePub fixed/adjustable top/bottom margins' is enabled then all 4 margins are adjusted in epub. However, as it stands, the top/bottom margins are bigger than the left/right margins. I suspect these adjustable top/bottom values are being added to the existing minimum top/bottom values. As I don't normally use this particular patch I don't know whether tweaking the patch can equalise them better. If you want a specific test doing, feel free to ask.

[John F]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I don't usually use fullscreen myself but I did some tests using 4.11.11911 on my ClaraHD with your previously-shared 'Margin Test' epub using the page with the "max-size empty box".

Header: The minimum I could achieve was 3.5mm for both epub/kepub if I set Show Title to OFF in Reading settings. I'm not sure that any of the current patches can reduce this. See here for my notes.

Footer: By default, with Reading settings Show Footer OFF, minimum footer is 4mm for epub/kepub. This can be reduced to 1.5mm by enabling the standard patch 'Disable reading footer' and setting Show Footer to ON. Thanks to MGlitch for that discovery.

Left/Right margins: Minimum is still zero for epub and for kepub (if standard patch 'Custom kepub default margins' is enabled)


By default the Margin slider only changes left/right margins, in both epub/kepub.

If your standard patch 'ePub fixed/adjustable top/bottom margins' is enabled then all 4 margins are adjusted in epub. However, as it stands, the top/bottom margins are bigger than the left/right margins. I suspect these adjustable top/bottom values are being added to the existing minimum top/bottom values. As I don't normally use this particular patch I don't know whether tweaking the patch can equalise them better. If you want a specific test doing, feel free to ask.

Any chance you could do a screen capture with "show footer false" and no patches enabled (and not the first page of a chapter)?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by John F

Any chance you could do a screen capture with "show footer false" and no patches enabled (and not the first page of a chapter)?

Well I could, but I've now reset my ClaraHD back to using my standard patches. However, as this was one of the tests I already did, I can tell you what the results were. I see you're using a GloHD so I would expect the same visual appearance as my ClaraHD.

With no header or footer patches enabled this is what you'd get (from my previous post)

Footer: By default, with Reading settings Show Footer OFF, minimum footer is 4mm for epub/kepub.

Header: The minimum I could achieve was 3.5mm for both epub/kepub if I set Show Title to OFF in Reading settings.

As I previously mentioned, I used GeoffR's specially designed Margin Test epub to get these figures. If I were to use one of my 'real' books, the perceived footer height would vary depending on settings used for font-size, line spacing. The footer is going to look bigger than 4mm if the last line of text won't quite fit. This is exacerbated in my own books because I always have a non-zero inter-paragraph setting (margin-top:0.25em for standard body paragraphs). This means that the number of lines which will fit on a page varies wildly depending on how many complete paragraphs there are on that page.

If you want to take it further, provide a test epub and tell me exactly what settings to use for font-family (stick to built-in fonts), font-size, line spacing, left/right margin. I could then post a screencap using a completely unpatched ClaraHD.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by jiminrussell

I've updated my Forma to this new firmware level, hoping it fixes the issues I have with it freezing, we shall see.

It’s possible that this is a bug in the firmware. A friend tested this a bit more than I did but we came to the same conclusion enabling PIN mode causes the Forma to lock up. I’v posted in the kobo bugs thread but I’ll also post here. Not sure if this was present in the older firmware neither of us wanted to reset our devices.


On the Kobo Forma running 4.11.11911 there is a bug which will cause your Forma to 'freeze' while reading.

How to reproduce this bug:

1) Ensure you are on 4.11.11911 (not sure if it happens on the shipped firmware)
2) Enable the PIN setting in Settings>Energy and Privacy Settings
3) Put the Forma to Sleep (presuming power off would also work)
4) Wake/turn on Forma, open a book, kepub or epub, and take over 1 min or so to turn the page

The result is the Forma becomes unresponsive to touch, continues displaying the same page of the book, and you'll need to hit the sleep button to put it to sleep', then wake it, enter pin, and you're off to the races until you take over 1min to read a page.

I have submitted this to Kobo via customer support. I was unable to find a 'feedback' option the rep said was on the kobo website. But the rep said they would escalate the issue.

My friend likewise reported this issue. It’s easily reproducible and can be reverted by disabling the PIN. So anyone and everyone with a Forma can test this out.