PRSCustomizer: Customize and personalize your PRS505 Reader

[Valloric]

Jeff, you may want to add an option to PRSCustomizer that allows the users to easily replace the default Reader fonts. Yes, the customizer comes with its own Cyrillic/Eastern European support, but there are other reasons why one would want to change the default fonts. I for one wanted to replace the default text font with Caecilia, becuse it looks awesome and is faaaar easier on the eyes than Dutch Roman (which is the Reader's default).

What I did was follow instuctions given here on how one changes a font to something the Reader can use (basically one needs to rename the font on both the file and font level), then replaced the font PRSCustomizer created for me in the sdcard folder.

It would be really nice if PRSCustomizer could have something like "Load personalized font" button, and the program would do all the necessary work of renaming the font and file and placing it in the required folder so it all works with the device. That would also make it easier for people to add their own languages too, so you and porkupan wouldn't have to do it all by yourselves.

Cheers,

Valloric

EDIT: Oh, and just in case anyone does the same thing I did (replaces the default fonts), you have to reload all the books you have on the Reader. That is, delete them, then add them again. If you don't, a few lines of text from the previous page will appear on top of the next page. This is because the book you loaded before the font change was adjusted for the font you previously were using. Deleting and adding the book again solves the problem.

[porkupan]

Jeff,

Since you asked to be notified about the current status of hacks and features, I just wanted to let you know that I added the Italian and Croatian locales, fixed the Russian letter sort (for both Russian and Ukrainian) and rearranged the code around a bit in order to be able to support more of it (apparently the JS functions in Kinoma can only be up to certain number of characters long). Made it a little bit more modularized, too.

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by porkupan

Jeff,

Since you asked to be notified about the current status of hacks and features, I just wanted to let you know that I added the Italian and Croatian locales, fixed the Russian letter sort (for both Russian and Ukrainian) and rearranged the code around a bit in order to be able to support more of it (apparently the JS functions in Kinoma can only be up to certain number of characters long). Made it a little bit more modularized, too.

Thanks porkupan!

I've uploaded PRSCustomizer 0.05a with porkupan's changes included. If you've already downloaded 0.05 this download is only required if you want to upgrade the localization functions.

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by Valloric

Jeff, you may want to add an option to PRSCustomizer that allows the users to easily replace the default Reader fonts

Thanks for the feedback Valloric. I want to tread carefully here, because I've learned by hard experience that it's easy to brick a reader via the fonts.

[Peto]

Originally Posted by JeffElkins

Thanks for the feedback Valloric. I want to tread carefully here, because I've learned by hard experience that it's easy to brick a reader via the fonts.

Yeah, me too. Seems easier than it is.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by Peto

Yeah, me too. Seems easier than it is.

I must be lucky then... although there's IMO a limited amount of things you could screw up. Basically, you need to:

1. Rename the font file correctly.
2. Edit the font's metadata correctly, and this can be relatively easily done with FontCreator.
3. Make sure you're working with a TrueType font, and NOT an OpenType one, because that will surely brick your reader. If you have an OT font, you can convert it to an OT font with TT outlines with FontCreator, and the Reader supports those (I'm running just such a font file on mine).
4. Place the file in the correct folder of the universal flasher.

That's it, from what I can see. You can only mess up one (or more) of those steps, I can't see where else you could go wrong. I got everything working on my first try, in a whole 15 minutes. No bricking, nothing. Had to reload my books again though, for correct pagination (although that is to be expected).

EDIT: If there's demand, I would be willing to write up a detailed, step-by-step guide (with screenshots) on how one can easily change their default fonts.

[porkupan]

Originally Posted by Valloric

That's it, from what I can see. You can only mess up one (or more) of those steps, I can't see where else you could go wrong. I got everything working on my first try, in a whole 15 minutes. No bricking, nothing.

I agree that it's not difficult at all. But there is a couple of issues. First, you have to get a hold of FontCreator. Preferably a licensed copy so no one gets in trouble. Second, how do you propose to automate this process through the PRSCustomizer tool? You would need to know the structure of the TTF file, where does the Font Family Name fit, what name to use for the file, which font you are replacing. All sorts of complications for a tool that was not intended for this sort of task.

You can easily make a separate set of fonts manually, and stick it into the FONT directory on the card. But automating this seems like an overkill.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by porkupan

I agree that it's not difficult at all. But there is a couple of issues. First, you have to get a hold of FontCreator. Preferably a licensed copy so no one gets in trouble. Second, how do you propose to automate this process through the PRSCustomizer tool? You would need to know the structure of the TTF file, where does the Font Family Name fit, what name to use for the file, which font you are replacing. All sorts of complications for a tool that was not intended for this sort of task.

You can easily make a separate set of fonts manually, and stick it into the FONT directory on the card. But automating this seems like an overkill.

Well I obviously didn't mean automating it through FontCreator. There is definitely a way do change the font family by opening the font directy in binary mode and doing it that way. In fact, I'm sure there's an open source library that could help with interfacing with the font file.

The final name for the font file is fixed. The reader expects font files to be named "tt0003m_.ttf", "tt0011m_.ttf" and "tt0419m_.ttf". The middle one is the font for body text, that is Dutch Roman AKA "Dutch801 Rm BT" specifically. So that's not a problem.

But finally, I would agree that it could be a lot of work. Doing it by hand takes 15 minutes, but is apparently prone to "operator error" , and PRSC could help with that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Valloric

I must be lucky then... although there's IMO a limited amount of things you could screw up. Basically, you need to:

1. Rename the font file correctly.
2. Edit the font's metadata correctly, and this can be relatively easily done with FontCreator.
3. Make sure you're working with a TrueType font, and NOT an OpenType one, because that will surely brick your reader. If you have an OT font, you can convert it to an OT font with TT outlines with FontCreator, and the Reader supports those (I'm running just such a font file on mine).
4. Place the file in the correct folder of the universal flasher.

That's it, from what I can see. You can only mess up one (or more) of those steps, I can't see where else you could go wrong. I got everything working on my first try, in a whole 15 minutes. No bricking, nothing. Had to reload my books again though, for correct pagination (although that is to be expected).

EDIT: If there's demand, I would be willing to write up a detailed, step-by-step guide (with screenshots) on how one can easily change their default fonts.

Please do. I would be very interested in seeing the process.

[jerryleejr]

Maybe I missed it but where is the dmg file for this??

[Thoran]

Jeff, many thanks for your perfekt work!

Greetings from Germany

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by jerryleejr

Maybe I missed it but where is the dmg file for this??

There is no dmg. It's prscustomizer.app and stored within the zip archive.

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please do. I would be very interested in seeing the process.

As would I, please do.

[pkaak]

Maybe it is already explained somewhere in the treath.. but after 10 pages of reading I couldn't find it that quickly.
Can someone explain the different hacks for me.. or maybe you can explain it in the readme file of the program. Just for the newbies with us

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by pkaak

Maybe it is already explained somewhere in the treath.. but after 10 pages of reading I couldn't find it that quickly.
Can someone explain the different hacks for me.. or maybe you can explain it in the readme file of the program. Just for the newbies with us

From the first message, the hacks:

Localization by porkupan
(Currently English,French,German,Russian,Spanish,Polish,Dutch ,Czech,Italian,Croatian)
Unicode fonts with Cyrillic/Eastern European Support
Uniform font size for menus
Multiple Iconsets (currently four)
One-key shutdown (Joystick center key)
Personalized About Screen (Name,Telephone,Email)
Joystick page forward
Volume key page turns
Volume key history navigation
Circle pad history navigation
Clock (24/12 hr)

Which of these require explanation?