Kobo to start own forums?

[murg]

I was reading a blog post from Anne R. Allen (via Digital Reader (Hi Nate!)), and she has the following in the post:

Kobo reps tell me they plan to start forums and discussion groups to rival the Kindleboards. Let's hope they'll be monitored by polite Canadians so we can leave the crankypants Kindleboarders behind to snipe at each other in the Amazon jungle.

One hopes they don't apply their legendary software management, development and testing skills to this endevour.

[Danger]

Should be interesting. Ever since I started critising their firmware programmers I stopped getting any Kobo emails. No more recommended books, no more discounts, no emails on their latest contests. I know they have stopped sending me emails because my wife is still getting them and now forwards them to me when it looks like a good discount. Nope they don't end up in my junk filter either. Wonder if I'd be allowed to sign up on their website.

[david_e]

I hope they do. It might give me a better perspective of which issues are legitimate and which ones are self-caused, regarding firmware, anyway.

I see all the threads bemoaning updates, compare this to my own experiences, and can't quite make them align. An example of this is the complaint that books are opening a page or two earlier than when they were closed. I did have this happen once, but the book had been processed through Calibre. Everything that has come directly from Kobo or another retailer has worked perfectly.

With all the hacks and plug-ins, I'm afraid I'm rather dismissive of some people's complaints, and not so sympathetic.

[volpo]

Originally Posted by david_e

With all the hacks and plug-ins, I'm afraid I'm rather dismissive of some people's complaints, and not so sympathetic.

I had no problem with updates either until 2.3.1. I now have the bug that you so easily dismiss and another that required me to login/out to correct. It seems that blaming the user is lowest common denominator of tech support. Why is it always so easy to blame the user? What is your criteria? Are you sure that there are no bugs? One day you too will have a problem with something, only to be told that you are doing something wrong. You won't like it either.

Not sympathetic, dismissive, I just want you to know that when you start having problems with your Kobo there will still be people here who will be glad to help and commiserate with you.

If you have been here long enough then you would have seen many updates that serve no other purpose than fixing bugs in previous releases.

People in glass houses.....

[murg]

Originally Posted by david_e

I hope they do. It might give me a better perspective of which issues are legitimate and which ones are self-caused, regarding firmware, anyway.

I see all the threads bemoaning updates, compare this to my own experiences, and can't quite make them align. An example of this is the complaint that books are opening a page or two earlier than when they were closed. I did have this happen once, but the book had been processed through Calibre. Everything that has come directly from Kobo or another retailer has worked perfectly.

With all the hacks and plug-ins, I'm afraid I'm rather dismissive of some people's complaints, and not so sympathetic.

How did I cause the ebook I'm reading to open a few pages earlier than I was last reading it?

How did I cause the wrong book cover to be displayed on the sleep screen?

How did I cause the text selection (for annotation) to be so broken that I cannot select the exact text that I want to, and have resorted to selecting chumks of text just to have the annotation in the system?

How did I cause selecting a word for dictionary lookup to select the entire screen of text, and then try a dictionary lookup on all that text?

How did I cause the battery to come loose in my Glo, so that it now rattles around?

How did I cause the bright pixels on my previous Glo, making me go through the hassle of exchanging it.

I'll stop there. I could go on for pages...

And by the way, the reason I bought my Kobos is because they allowed sideloaded epubs. And running something through Calibre shouldn't affect how the device deals with which page to open an ebook to.

[Danger]

Originally Posted by david_e

An example of this is the complaint that books are opening a page or two earlier than when they were closed. I did have this happen once, but the book had been processed through Calibre.

Actually this is one I have experienced from 1.9.17 on the Touch through to 2.1.5 on my Glo. Usually it goes back a page on me. It's been with me so long now I just live with it. None of my Books have been processed through Calibre. I have another program that removes the DRM for me. Yes I paid for the program, what can I say I think it was worth it

[Danger]

... duplicate of above my bad ...

[david_e]

Originally Posted by volpo

...I just want you to know that when you start having problems with your Kobo there will still be people here who will be glad to help and commiserate with you.

If you have been here long enough then you would have seen many updates that serve no other purpose than fixing bugs in previous releases.

People in glass houses.....

Yes, I tend to forget this is primarily a place people come to for assistance and not just interaction.

I think an official site would attract more users. An official site might also provide the opportunity to get official responses to some of these issues that people report.

It's not that I don't believe people are having real problems, I just question their origin. If there are more people voicing the same concerns, instead of just a very vocal few, it is much more likely to be legitimate, at least to me.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by david_e

Yes, I tend to forget this is primarily a place people come to for assistance and not just interaction.

I think an official site would attract more users. An official site might also provide the opportunity to get official responses to some of these issues that people report.

It's not that I don't believe people are having real problems, I just question their origin. If there are more people voicing the same concerns, instead of just a very vocal few, it is much more likely to be legitimate, at least to me.

Like you, I haven't seen the two biggest new issues with 2.3.1 (reopening to the wrong spot, change of font size on new chapter). For either of them, I can't find a consistent pattern to test from reports here. Some people are only having it with books processed by calibre. Others only for books they have bought and not touched in any other way. I have tried both and haven't had a problem. But the number of reports that come in tell me there is a problem. And as they really started in 2.3.1, then it is a change that Kobo made.

[murg]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Like you, I haven't seen the two biggest new issues with 2.3.1 (reopening to the wrong spot, change of font size on new chapter). For either of them, I can't find a consistent pattern to test from reports here. Some people are only having it with books processed by calibre. Others only for books they have bought and not touched in any other way. I have tried both and haven't had a problem. But the number of reports that come in tell me there is a problem. And as they really started in 2.3.1, then it is a change that Kobo made.

The open to wrong page bug is happening for me on completely reformatted epubs, that haven't gone through Calibre.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by murg

The open to wrong page bug is happening for me on completely reformatted epubs, that haven't gone through Calibre.

What do you mean by "completely reformatted". Are you editing them and cleaning them up? If so, what are you doing to them? And is there a chance of seeing one?

Calibre might not be involved here, but at least 50% of the ePubs that I have bought have been through a calibre conversion. A common process seems to be to develop one format of the ebook and then use calibre to convert to the others. Or start with a Word document and convert to all formats using calibre. I would have no hassle with this if they clean-up afterwards or at least start with a clean source.

[murg]

Originally Posted by davidfor

What do you mean by "completely reformatted". Are you editing them and cleaning them up? If so, what are you doing to them? And is there a chance of seeing one?

I completely strip out any existing css, replacing it with my standard formatting. I greatly simplify the formatting, using html tags were possible in favour of css.

The books are set up as one chapter per file.

If the books have been through Calibre/Gutenburg/AnythingElse at some point, any evidence of this is removed.

While I don't do this for all books, the ones I'm having issues with are the cleaned up ones. And I didn't have these issues before 2.3, or even when I first loaded up 2.3. This last bit has me wondering...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by murg

I completely strip out any existing css, replacing it with my standard formatting. I greatly simplify the formatting, using html tags were possible in favour of css.

I do a similar thing, but I am not sure how you use HTML in place of CSS. The only spots I can think to do this is to use empty paragraph for section breaks instead of increasing the top or bottom margin of the paragraph. Is that it?

The books are set up as one chapter per file.

The only way to do it.

If the books have been through Calibre/Gutenburg/AnythingElse at some point, any evidence of this is removed.

While I don't do this for all books, the ones I'm having issues with are the cleaned up ones. And I didn't have these issues before 2.3, or even when I first loaded up 2.3. This last bit has me wondering...

That is interesting. Something different in the last few books? Maybe try the first one you read and see what happens.

[Lynx-lynx]

David_e and davidfor, and anyone else who's interested in experimenting, could you please download the following Mobile Read Library book onto your Glo and start using the book as if you were reading it, and then use the home button to exit and go back to the front screen.

Then from the front screen, or from Library, select the book again and see if it comes back at the page you exited from.

A Thousand miles up the Nile

This ebook was formatted by HarryT.

See how you go

[murg]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I do a similar thing, but I am not sure how you use HTML in place of CSS. The only spots I can think to do this is to use empty paragraph for section breaks instead of increasing the top or bottom margin of the paragraph. Is that it?

I use the css to define how the tags work, rather than using css classes. I have a standard css file that goes into each epub.

Use <body> rather than <body class="calibre7">
Use <p> rather than <p class="calibre7">
Use <i>, <b>, <sup> rather than <span class="calibre7">
Use <h3> rather than <h3<span class="calibre7"><span class="calibre8"><span class="calibre9">

Section breaks are: <p class="center">&mdash;&mdash;</p>
This makes them very visible, especially at the bottom and top of a page.

I generally only use <span> for things like smalling the font (small caps) or messing with the formatting.

This all keeps the html as simple as possible. And lets me use the adjustments on the devices to do a chunk of the format handling.

I also do the following to override formats: <p class="noindent FontSansSerif FontSize08">

Originally Posted by davidfor

That is interesting. Something different in the last few books? Maybe try the first one you read and see what happens.

Nope, I've been reading a series of books, all recently formatted. The first few didn't have this problem, the later ones do.

I am doing a lot of annotion in the books, though.