Touch Kobo Touch Firmware 2.0

[John F]

Originally Posted by Splicer

...

Now my question is about the margin-issue with epubs .. I quickly checked both Sigil and Callibre for options to change margins throughout an ebook but couldn't find it.
Not being an epub/html expert, I expect that there's probably some margin-settings in some epub's that make them 'insensitive' for Kobo's margin-changes from the menu .. but could use some advice/help to tackle this issue (as when solved, I would be happy enough with 'epubs' and dont go after 'kepubbifying' anymore. ...

Calibre can be used to affect marigins.

Here is what I use in the Convert window in Calibre:

1) In the Page setup tab, there are some margin settings
2) On the Look & Feel tab, under Filter Style Information, check [] Margins. I believe this is the one that matters if you want to use the GUI on the kobo to change the margins.

Good luck.

[Jeff1192]

Installed 2.1.1 last night. My slow page turns with sideloaded epubs is now gone. Woohoo.

As for battery life, I have had mine set to sleep after 15min and turn off after 2hrs. I've been using these setting almost from the beginning and I very rarely charge my Kobo even though I use it everyday for at least 20-30minutes. I have gone more than a month without recharging.

[AndyBurns]

Originally Posted by Jeff1192

I have had mine set to sleep after 15min and turn off after 2hrs. I've been using these setting almost from the beginning and I very rarely charge my Kobo

I don't have a 2 hour setting, it jumps from "60 mins" to "never" ...

If you have WiFi disabled, what else is the kobo doing while it's asleep compared to being switched off?

[robko]

Originally Posted by AndyBurns

I don't have a 2 hour setting, it jumps from "60 mins" to "never" ...

If you have WiFi disabled, what else is the kobo doing while it's asleep compared to being switched off?

Probably the big thing would be keeping the "volatile" memory alive. This is the currently loaded stuff that requires constant energy to keep it in the memory. When you take the power away you lose what's being stored in it, so the firmware and the book has to be reloaded. No doubt might be more polling of the power switch to monitor for it to be flicked on.

[rjcroy]

I have just done a manual upgrade to 2.1.1. All went very smoothly, no problems so far. The page turns for my sideloaded epubs are as fast as I have seen them. Much better.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Splicer

I came a long way in creating a linux script that would make the changes (thankfully re-using the python/beautifulsoup script that was provided on the forum before) yet since 2.1.1 is available the speed isn't an issue anymore. The difficulty is in creating something thats generic enough to 'understand' the variations (one could also call it 'a mess') in how epubs are structured w.r.t. chapter-naming, split-file-naming, html-directory) etc. so came to the conclusion that this probably wouldn't make it into a flawless automated process .. so I wonder if it makes sense to continue down that path ..

Now my question is about the margin-issue with epubs .. I quickly checked both Sigil and Callibre for options to change margins throughout an ebook but couldn't find it.
Not being an epub/html expert, I expect that there's probably some margin-settings in some epub's that make them 'insensitive' for Kobo's margin-changes from the menu .. but could use some advice/help to tackle this issue (as when solved, I would be happy enough with 'epubs' and dont go after 'kepubbifying' anymore.

This was discussed a lot earlier in the year. Unfortunately, my searches can't find it. It is probably somewhere in the 1.9.17 firmware thread or the firmware upgrade thread.

But, I did remember how to do it in calibre. There are two options to look at.

- On the "Look & Feel" page, click "Filter Style Information". And then select "Margins". This will remove any margins that are in the source book.
- On "Page Setup", set all the margins to "No margin" (that is one less than zero). This will prevent page margins being set in the output.

I haven't done this for a while, and I think the latter is the more important.

If you don't want to convert the books, or convert them again, the Modify ePub plugin has an option to "Modify @page and body margin styles". That should also do it.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by WS64

I cannot confirm that, for neither 2.0 nor 2.1.
When I do changes to a book and put it back to the Kobo on both 2.0 and 2.1 the Kobo will still know the old TOC, all annotations and the location within the book, no metadata get updated at all.

The TOC and metadata not being updated is the what I see. But, I do lose books that have been updated.

I need to delete the book on the PC, boot the Kobo, connect again, put it back to the Kobo to get a fresh version of the book.

If you delete them using calibre, you should be able to immediately replace them. calibre removes the database records as well as the book and image files. I haven't done this enough to be sure that it working all the time.

One thing, with 2.0.0 or later, it isn't enough to delete a book using the Touch. There is still a record kept in the database about the book. A sync with Kobo removes this.

Also, deleting this record isn't enough. I found I had to delete it, disconnect the Touch and then put the book back on at the next connect. If I put it on and delete the record in the same session, the book wasn't processed. I can't find anything that gives a clue as to why it wasn't processed.

PS, all my books are on the SD card, maybe that makes a difference...

That could be it. There are other differences with using the SD card, so it is worth testing.

[beautifulsoup]

Originally Posted by DaMastah

I wonder too.... Maybe someone from Kobo can explain us.
Really it makes no sense : the hardware is the same, releases should be coordinated.

This.

[toeragamuffin]

It's no go for my touch. 2.1.1 just reboots whenever i try to open a book. When will Kobo get it together and release a proper firmware upgrade? Their kobo desktop insists on installing kobo 2 even though everyone knows it is broken. COME ON!

[volpo]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Yep, exactly my problem: inconsistent and day-dependent for some reason. My reading last night got me this far: real taps on the right of the screen work. Swipes to page forward however, very often do not. I'm not quite sure yet if my swipe was too long (in time -- so too slow) or if it was too short (in length) for the screen to understand... Also, swipes near the bottom on the right were more troublesome than swipes slightly higher up.

Backward swipes on the left of the screen (...hey, strange that I would do that, but anyway) work fine.

Silly question is there a bright or direct light source shining on the Touch? It wouldn't have to be very bright if the angle was correct. I think I notice external light having an effect on the position sensors of the Touch flooding them making them less responsive.

[PeterT]

@toeragamuffin Have you maybe considered that 2.1.1 is NOT available to us for a reason? That it is NOT cleanly installing on some non Japanese Kobos?

Yes... 2.0.2 had some issues but it was usable

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Splicer

Now my question is about the margin-issue with epubs .. I quickly checked both Sigil and Callibre for options to change margins throughout an ebook but couldn't find it.
Not being an epub/html expert, I expect that there's probably some margin-settings in some epub's that make them 'insensitive' for Kobo's margin-changes from the menu .. but could use some advice/help to tackle this issue (as when solved, I would be happy enough with 'epubs' and dont go after 'kepubbifying' anymore.

In Sigil, you would modify the margins by changing the margin settings in the stylesheet or embedded in the chapter files. There's no way to change the margins from Sigil.

In the body tag, I use <body class=epub> with the following in the stylesheet.css file:

.epub {
display: block;
font-size: 1em;
margin-bottom: 5pt;
margin-left: 5pt;
margin-right: 5pt;
margin-top: 5pt;
padding-left: 0;
padding-right: 0;
text-align: left;
word-wrap: break-word;
widows: 1;
orphans: 1;
}

The above sets up my basic settings which apply unless modified by other codes. For each paragraph in the file, I use several different styles mostly different in the right and left margins. The standard style is:
<p class="para">

.para {
display: block;
font-size: 1em;
line-height: 1.1;
margin-bottom: .2em;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 0;
text-indent: 0;
text-align: left;
text-indent: 4%;
}

The major change is setting 3 of the the margins to 0 so I can fit the maximum text on a page while the bottom margin gives me some space between paragraphs. The other change is the text-indent settings, for a non-indented paragraph (first paragraph of a chapter or after a break within a paragraph) get the text-indent set to 0. Since I copy/paste my standard style sheet, I didn't bother with the margin: 0 shortcut to set all margins to 0 on one line. The other settings plays with line spacing within the paragraph and spacing between paragraphs.

One issue I'm seeing with 2.1.1 is the opposite of the 2.0 top of page where text was too close to the top of the screen. With 2.1.1, I find occasional lines of text at the bottom of the page get the last couple of lines of pixels being cut off.

If you remove the margin settings from the styles, the KT will manage the margins but I've never been really happy with the results.

David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by volpo

Silly question is there a bright or direct light source shining on the Touch? It wouldn't have to be very bright if the angle was correct. I think I notice external light having an effect on the position sensors of the Touch flooding them making them less responsive.

I've also noticed that cleaning the edge of the screen seems to help with keeping the touch screen working. A stray cat hair or bit of dust are not your IR touch screens friend.

[Corpsegoddess]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I'm at work now and I can use the fast connection plus if I need to reset it just happens while I do other things.

I can't reproduce this. Last night I created a shelf with 334 books on it. The WiFi sync just now went OK. So, I created a shelf for each of the series in the library. That gave me about 40 shelves with up to 15 books on them plus the 334 book shelf. WiFi sync went OK. So, for all the books that have series, I added them to another shelf. That gave me a shelf with 334 books, a shelf with about 120 books and about 40 shelves with between 1 and 15 books. Again, the WiFi sync was OK. It did seem to be a lot slower.

When it hung for you, did you notice what phase it was in? With the extra shelves, the "Checking for updates" phase is taking a lot longer. Actually, I just tried again, and it timed out. While it was waiting, I knew it hadn't hung because when I pressed the clock icon, it showed the time.

Just so I know, what firmware version are you using?



I wish I could get my wife to do the same. Usually all I hear is "It doesn't work".

According to my device information, I'm using 2.0.0. Now, the reason I like to update by wifi is because I have a separate problem I still haven't been able to solve. This is my second Kobo touch; the first one had the same problem, Tech Support and I couldn't figure it out, they had me send back my first one and sent me this one and lo and behold--same problem.

Basically, every time I connect to my PC and Kobo Desktop is running, after about a minute or so (usually no more than two), the device tab grays out, I get a "Device Write Failed" Windows message, and if I open the Kobo folder from the "My Computer" folder, it's blank. This ONLY happens with Kobo Desktop. So, I can't update that way--but now it appears I can't update via wifi, either.

But back to the problem at hand--more data for you.

I have 30 shelves in total (I'm an admin assistant and an obsessive organiser).

The breakdown looks like this (books per shelf):

35
2
44
68
2
40
82
2
31
38
17
45
149
6
12
4
8
63
81
1
6
128
12
98
81
31
100
1
13
39

The update managed to download some new books I purchased from the Kobo store the other day (apparently they were "first in line"), but then froze right afterward, and it always seems to be on the "Checking for Updates" section.

I may eliminate some of the smaller-number shelves and see if this makes a difference.

Edit: Okay, I got rid of the smaller-number-of-books shelves, and the sync did indeed complete. So, maybe 5 pages of shelves was just too many for it to handle? Anyway, something for the devs to chew on, anyway...

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by davidfor

This was discussed a lot earlier in the year. Unfortunately, my searches can't find it. It is probably somewhere in the 1.9.17 firmware thread or the firmware upgrade thread.

But, I did remember how to do it in calibre. There are two options to look at.

- On the "Look & Feel" page, click "Filter Style Information". And then select "Margins". This will remove any margins that are in the source book.
- On "Page Setup", set all the margins to "No margin" (that is one less than zero). This will prevent page margins being set in the output.

I can't set mine to less than zero.