Firmware 2.6.1 Pass or Fail?

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by PeterT

If you use the option to create a Database Trigger on the Dismiss Tiles from Home screen menu.

What this does it create some database magic, that every time an entry is added to the database table that controls what is on the home screen, the entry is updated to make it non displayable.

When you create the trigger, it uses the current options you have selected in Tile Types.

Ahh...I still hadn't updated the plugin from the beta version. Got it.

Thanks again! I might not have got the point without your pointers.

[graycyn]

If it's true that .png images do not display in epub, then that would be a total FAIL for me. I want to see all images in my books. I do not wish to convert epubs to kepubs, I use my readers not only for my reading, but to test epubs I make. I sure hope they fix this!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by graycyn

If it's true that .png images do not display in epub, then that would be a total FAIL for me. I want to see all images in my books. I do not wish to convert epubs to kepubs, I use my readers not only for my reading, but to test epubs I make. I sure hope they fix this!

It is true. Check the two test files attached. To see some of the text, you'll need to use a font capable of displaying the glyphs. I've been using Code2000 since it's a freebie. Ryumin works for the most part but it give a horrendous display on the Greek and Cyrillic glyphs. For general reading, Charis SIL works though DejaVu Serif is a better choice for the Greek alphabet since Charis SIL covers Latin, Cyrillic and IPA but not Greek.

The JPG and PNG files come in full colour and 16 level grey scale, the GIF and TIFF are in full colour only.

Edit: The comment about .png files may no longer be true. Kobo has a refresh of the 2.6.1 firmware with a 2013-June-17 date code which displays .png images in an .epub file. OTOH, 16 level grey scale .png images look like crap.

Regards,
David

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Edit: The comment about .png files may no longer be true. Kobo has a refresh of the 2.6.1 firmware with a 2013-June-17 date code which displays .png images in an .epub file. OTOH, 16 level grey scale .png images look like crap.

Regards,
David

I guess some fix is better than nothing. Do .png images with more than 16 shades of gray look OK? Otherwise I may have to try took avoid the update when my replacement Aura arrives.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Edit: The comment about .png files may no longer be true. Kobo has a refresh of the 2.6.1 firmware with a 2013-June-17 date code which displays .png images in an .epub file. OTOH, 16 level grey scale .png images look like crap.

Your comment seems to be still true for Mark 3. There is no refresh up to now.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I guess some fix is better than nothing. Do .png images with more than 16 shades of gray look OK? Otherwise I may have to try took avoid the update when my replacement Aura arrives.

Full colour .png images look okay. The only issue I've seen is with .png images that have been converted to 16 levels of grey. I started doing that when a couple of generations of firmware did a crappy job of converting some colour images. Now the conversion on device looks good so I may drop doing the conversion myself.

Regards,
David

[irc24]

Really Pleased with my Glo with last firmware.

But here, the two BUGs:

1) When I rotate a PDF of 90 degrees two black bands appear at the sides... They disappear only if I zoom in.




2) With the Kobo Font, when I read epub, if there's a word in the last line with characters "p, g, q, y", the low part is cut off and appear on the next page.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by irc24

2) With the Kobo Font, when I read epub, if there's a word in the last line with characters "p, g, q, y", the low part is cut off and appear on the next page

This is happening to me on Kepubs as well with some fonts (stock ones if I'm not mistaken).

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by irc24

...
2) With the Kobo Font, when I read epub, if there's a word in the last line with characters "p, g, q, y", the low part is cut off and appear on the next page.

The Kobo Nickel font has always done that as far as I know. It's a decent looking font, but the descenders on the following page is super annoying. It doesn't happen all the time, but enough that it's a font I avoid. It's also one of those fonts that displays italics in bold normal, so another reason I avoid it.

[Stephjk]

Originally Posted by Barneyabz

Decided that whilst 2.6.1 is sleek and seems to perform well I don't like the way the light adjustment works (extra click and in the middle of the screen) Also don't like losing the black bar at the bottom.

Snap, is there any way to get the black bar back?

[Anak]

Originally Posted by irc24

Really Pleased with my Glo with last firmware.

But here, the two BUGs:

1) When I rotate a PDF of 90 degrees two black bands appear at the sides... They disappear only if I zoom in.

About PDF issues: these will probably never be fixed.

Originally Posted by irc24

2) With the Kobo Font, when I read epub, if there's a word in the last line with characters "p, g, q, y", the low part is cut off and appear on the next page.

This is due one of the "choices" Kobo made for you! They chose to add a top and footer with book and page number information. Resulting in viewport (size) conflicts as these bars are non transparent overlays of the reading area (viewport).

Your pictures show clearly (Kobo employees take notice! Note, applicable to all Kobo devices)

• header and footer are unnecessary wide, which is caused by
  • a) placing the actual informational text at a position to far from the screen edge,
  • b) surrounding these texts with huge margins.
• rendering issues, as mentioned in this post (among others). These rendering issues making it even worse for the bottom bar. As sentences seem to "break" without reason making the gap of the bottom bar and book text area even bigger. No, I'm not being anal (no pun intended), the pictures speak for themselves.

With the current firmware (2.6.1) the margins of the

• top bar are almost 2 times bigger than the actual text size
• bottom bar are almost 2.5 times bigger than the actual text size (* note)

(* note) measured under perfect conditions which are almost never met due to several rendering issues, which add unidentified additional "gaps" to the bottom bar. The size of this additonal gap varies but on average about 1 text line.

If Kobo decides to fix them then the most likely solution will be to enhance the size of the bars instead of making them smaller. The odds are in favor of the first "solution" if you simply read bug threads on MB (or reported bugs on other sites) and how Kobo solved these or tried to.

But what if…
In reading mode (not to be confused with the bars that are displayed when in menu mode)

1. The text size of the top and bottom bar stay the same
2. The surrounding margins are reduced to the same height of the text

Yes, these are very conservative bar margins. The bars in reading mode require no user input, meaning there is no justification for extra wide margins. The information itself is perfectly readable.

[rayhigh]

My takeaway from all these issues are that either 1) Kobo's programmers are lazy 2) incompetent or 3) their manager is a complete tool who refuses to allow them to fix the issues. I worked in software for two decades. FFS, it would take a quality programmer a week to sort out ALL of these issues!

[Corpsegoddess]

I haven't downloaded this update yet, I'm just about to. I was wondering, though--does it correct the SD-card borking that seemed to occur with 2.5.2?

This is the thread I started about that: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=214455

I haven't been on here in a while, and I'm just wondering if there was any movement or resolution on that issue.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Corpsegoddess

I haven't downloaded this update yet, I'm just about to. I was wondering, though--does it correct the SD-card borking that seemed to occur with 2.5.2?

This is the thread I started about that: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=214455

I haven't been on here in a while, and I'm just wondering if there was any movement or resolution on that issue.

Same old borking that has been around for me since the Aura came out. On a plus side the Aura has only rebooted on me once since 2.6.1 and it did recover after a time. Rather than fiddling with it after I was in bed I turned it off and read on another reader. It was fine in the morning

Helen

[Corpsegoddess]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Same old borking that has been around for me since the Aura came out. On a plus side the Aura has only rebooted on me once since 2.6.1 and it did recover after a time. Rather than fiddling with it after I was in bed I turned it off and read on another reader. It was fine in the morning

Helen

Well poo. I haven't tried anything with my SD card since that whole thing started--I've kept it out of my Aura and I'm simply loading books directly onto the device.

However, since I did buy the card specifically to use for my library, it would be nice if this got resolved.

Thanks for the information, Helen. =)