Changing Kindle 3 Screensaver - Page 3

judith009 · 09-17-2010, 02:43 AM

Hm, that's interesting. But I don't think it's the solution, because it completely disables sleep mode, which is a bad thing. In other words, when you press the sleep switch, instead of going to the screensaver, it does nothing. That means it's just like as if you never pressed the sleep switch. I've tested it, all of the buttons work and everything after pressing "sleep", so basically it just disables sleep mode.

Is there any way around this? It'd be nice if it would go to sleep while not displaying a screensaver. Thanks

vaderag · 09-17-2010, 07:34 AM

I'd really like to be able to show the front cover of my current book as the screensaver too... rather a silly feature to miss out if you ask me!

isotherm · 09-17-2010, 10:19 AM

It's still nice to be have the option of disabling sleep mode, even if it requires a convoluted process. Sometimes (e.g. craft instructions and recipes, as mentioned in another thread; also sheet music, etc.) you want to look at the same page for a long time. IMO they should at least add UI options to: 1) Disable screensaver (but continue power management); 2) Screensaver as cover of book; 3) Existing screensaver image collection. 4) Your own screensaver images would be nice, but it seems like at least the first 3 would be nice in the UI. As someone else mentioned somewhere, in the case of option 1, they could put a black border around the page when it goes to sleep, with a message how to wake it up again.

kingduct · 09-17-2010, 10:46 AM

When I saw the thread title, I was hoping a way had been found! Frankly, I tire at looking at the same set of dead authors over and over. I much prefer the artistic/scientific/architectural sketches, but there are so few that I also tire of them. Maybe they'll make a download with more screensavers available.

Jack Tingle · 09-17-2010, 11:18 AM

I'd like to militate for a restful, soothing, practical setting of "None". That way, when the K3 is off, the screen is blank. I don't mind the pictures, but my personal default on such things is almost always "None".

Regards,
Jack Tingle

anmend43 · 09-22-2010, 03:31 PM

It looks like there's a hack. I'll try it and post back if it bricks it.

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kind...nd_3.x_Kindles

vaderag · 09-22-2010, 03:40 PM

Still wont automatically use the current book as a cover tho, will it?

NiLuJe · 09-22-2010, 03:58 PM

No it won't. And that's not something that'll ever be doable via a hack (ie. not touching the framework itself).

vaderag · 09-22-2010, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

No it won't. And that's not something that'll ever be doable via a hack (ie. not touching the framework itself).

Well i'm not sure about that... from looking at it, the screensaver hack takes images off the kindle and uses them as the screensaver...

In mobi files, the cover (as far as I can tell) is stored as a PNG or JPG, so 'all' you'd need to do is read the data for which book is currently in use (which must be stored somewhere), and then read the PNG from within that mobi file...

I'm not saying it'd be easy, but it must be possible.

NiLuJe · 09-22-2010, 04:32 PM

Except you can't feed the framework the list of files to use on the fly. It's loaded at framework startup only. And you can even less tell the framework that you want *this* file specifically next, even if it is in the file list, it shows them in a dumb sort ascending loop. And that's not even taking into account pulling the cover from the book itself. It's not easily doable without rewriting part of the framework, which we can't, since it's obfuscated.

s0litaire · 09-22-2010, 04:34 PM

Currently the kindle needs to be "restarted" for it to see any new images in the sceensavers folder. which would be a pain.

what we'd need is a way for it to "see" a new image without restarting the device.

I'm wondering if a symlink could be used:
Create a symlink to a blank image from an empty default location (i.e. "00_image_600.jpg") to an image in the "Linkss" folder.
Then the book image is copied and renamed to "00_image_600.jpg" and placed in the "linkss" folder. A script could be written to copy and rename the image from the book to the linkss folder when a book is opened.

If it's the only image in that folder, would the kindle read this new image or the previous one?

NiLuJe · 09-22-2010, 04:45 PM

The userstore is a vfat partition, not sure that's even doable. Maybe with a bind mount, but I really don't know how it handles changing files. That's a nice idea though. But that still doesn't solve the issue of how the hell do we, out of framework, know when we switch booklet, and which book we're opening (Even sniffing the syslogs, I'm not sure there's enough info, if it's an amazon book, we get the ASIN, if it's not, we only get the filesize & timestamp). And even less how to pull the cover out of this book.

anmend43 · 09-22-2010, 05:02 PM

I can confirm the hack does work for kindle 3 wifi. Everything appears to be functioning normally. Got those hideous default images off finally!

clarknova · 09-22-2010, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by s0litaire

Currently the kindle needs to be "restarted" for it to see any new images in the sceensavers folder. which would be a pain.

what we'd need is a way for it to "see" a new image without restarting the device.

I'm wondering if a symlink could be used:
Create a symlink to a blank image from an empty default location (i.e. "00_image_600.jpg") to an image in the "Linkss" folder.
Then the book image is copied and renamed to "00_image_600.jpg" and placed in the "linkss" folder. A script could be written to copy and rename the image from the book to the linkss folder when a book is opened.

If it's the only image in that folder, would the kindle read this new image or the previous one?

This would work, but you wouldn't even need the symlink, just a default filename of "cover.jpeg" that would be overwritten with the cover image.
That way you could even have custom screensavers mixed in with the cover image.

This still leaves some problems:

1) How do you know what book the person is reading? Assuming that the kernel is mounting the FAT FS correctly and recording atime, you could have a script that checked the most recent file atime in the documents directory. However, busybox's ls and find commands have no way of checking atime.

2) Extracting the book cover metadata. We can do it, but it would probably need to be written in C and cross-compiled or an awk script -- assuming busybox's awk implementation is complete.

NiLuJe · 09-22-2010, 05:13 PM

And I don't know if the goingToScreenSaver event is actually triggered early enough for doing anything useful here. Unless there's something earlier? (watch the syslogs live and do stuff when switching booklet?)

09-22-2010, 04:32 PM	#40
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	Except you can't feed the framework the list of files to use on the fly. It's loaded at framework startup only. And you can even less tell the framework that you want this file specifically next, even if it is in the file list, it shows them in a dumb sort ascending loop. And that's not even taking into account pulling the cover from the book itself. It's not easily doable without rewriting part of the framework, which we can't, since it's obfuscated. Last edited by NiLuJe; 09-22-2010 at 05:17 PM.

09-22-2010, 04:45 PM	#42
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	The userstore is a vfat partition, not sure that's even doable. Maybe with a bind mount, but I really don't know how it handles changing files. That's a nice idea though. But that still doesn't solve the issue of how the hell do we, out of framework, know when we switch booklet, and which book we're opening (Even sniffing the syslogs, I'm not sure there's enough info, if it's an amazon book, we get the ASIN, if it's not, we only get the filesize & timestamp). And even less how to pull the cover out of this book. Last edited by NiLuJe; 09-22-2010 at 04:49 PM.

09-22-2010, 05:13 PM	#45
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	And I don't know if the goingToScreenSaver event is actually triggered early enough for doing anything useful here. Unless there's something earlier? (watch the syslogs live and do stuff when switching booklet?) Last edited by NiLuJe; 09-22-2010 at 05:16 PM.

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09-17-2010, 02:43 AM	#31
judith009 Groupie Posts: 151 Karma: 2000 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3, Voyage	Hm, that's interesting. But I don't think it's the solution, because it completely disables sleep mode, which is a bad thing. In other words, when you press the sleep switch, instead of going to the screensaver, it does nothing. That means it's just like as if you never pressed the sleep switch. I've tested it, all of the buttons work and everything after pressing "sleep", so basically it just disables sleep mode. Is there any way around this? It'd be nice if it would go to sleep while not displaying a screensaver. Thanks

09-17-2010, 07:34 AM	#32
vaderag Member Posts: 24 Karma: 50 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle	I'd really like to be able to show the front cover of my current book as the screensaver too... rather a silly feature to miss out if you ask me!

09-17-2010, 10:19 AM	#33
isotherm Connoisseur Posts: 79 Karma: 187319 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Kindle 2	It's still nice to be have the option of disabling sleep mode, even if it requires a convoluted process. Sometimes (e.g. craft instructions and recipes, as mentioned in another thread; also sheet music, etc.) you want to look at the same page for a long time. IMO they should at least add UI options to: 1) Disable screensaver (but continue power management); 2) Screensaver as cover of book; 3) Existing screensaver image collection. 4) Your own screensaver images would be nice, but it seems like at least the first 3 would be nice in the UI. As someone else mentioned somewhere, in the case of option 1, they could put a black border around the page when it goes to sleep, with a message how to wake it up again.

09-17-2010, 10:46 AM	#34
kingduct Enthusiast Posts: 45 Karma: 220 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: none	When I saw the thread title, I was hoping a way had been found! Frankly, I tire at looking at the same set of dead authors over and over. I much prefer the artistic/scientific/architectural sketches, but there are so few that I also tire of them. Maybe they'll make a download with more screensavers available.

09-17-2010, 11:18 AM	#35
Jack Tingle Punctuation Fetishist Posts: 557 Karma: 1070000 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: The Bluest Commonwealth In East America Device: Kindle PW, Nexus 7 (2013), Galaxy S5 phone, Galaxy Tab 4 8.0	I'd like to militate for a restful, soothing, practical setting of "None". That way, when the K3 is off, the screen is blank. I don't mind the pictures, but my personal default on such things is almost always "None". Regards, Jack Tingle

09-22-2010, 03:31 PM	#36
anmend43 Member Posts: 15 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: kindle 3	It looks like there's a hack. I'll try it and post back if it bricks it. https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kind...nd_3.x_Kindles

09-22-2010, 03:40 PM	#37
vaderag Member Posts: 24 Karma: 50 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle	Still wont automatically use the current book as a cover tho, will it?

09-22-2010, 03:58 PM	#38
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	No it won't. And that's not something that'll ever be doable via a hack (ie. not touching the framework itself).

09-22-2010, 04:34 PM	#41
s0litaire Member Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kindle 3	Currently the kindle needs to be "restarted" for it to see any new images in the sceensavers folder. which would be a pain. what we'd need is a way for it to "see" a new image without restarting the device. I'm wondering if a symlink could be used: Create a symlink to a blank image from an empty default location (i.e. "00_image_600.jpg") to an image in the "Linkss" folder. Then the book image is copied and renamed to "00_image_600.jpg" and placed in the "linkss" folder. A script could be written to copy and rename the image from the book to the linkss folder when a book is opened. If it's the only image in that folder, would the kindle read this new image or the previous one?

09-22-2010, 05:02 PM	#43
anmend43 Member Posts: 15 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: kindle 3	I can confirm the hack does work for kindle 3 wifi. Everything appears to be functioning normally. Got those hideous default images off finally!