Kobo Firmware 2.6.1

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

The simple solution is when the device is powered off, it displays just a blank screen. The only readers that ever get to the power-off state are my extra 5 Sony 350s, since I only use 1 or 2 at the most, and that's how they function which is very nice to know the difference between sleep or full off.

As I said, other people who always use power off but still want the book cover screen might not like that option.

I actually don't care at all. About any of this. I just was pointing out other perspectives.

[Ripplinger]

My preferred method is of course to give us a choice, both for how to display sleep and off.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by mr_nihilism

You're telling me that space wastage has actually increased? Well that just totally makes perfect sense.

Not quite right. The space has decreased from 2.5.2. The space at the top of the screen has varied in almost every firmware revision. At one point for the Touch, the text was so close to the physical top of screen that people complained it was too close. That was corrected in the next firmware revision. For now, if I bring up the menu, the top bar covers the first two lines of text.

Perhaps if they brought back the vignette and quote during loading...

Anyhow, a quick comparison between a Glo and an Aura using David Weber's House of Steel The Honorverse Companion, chapter "Jayne's Intelligence Review, Letter from the Editor", shows I am getting 6 extra lines per page and each line has more characters on it on an Aura compared to a Glo. For instance, on a Glo, the second paragraph on the page starts with "Due to the issues noted above as well as the" while the Aura has "Due to the issues noted above as well as the constraints"

On the Aura, the first paragraph takes 10 lines, on the Glo it takes 12 lines though the last line only has "combatants" on it. The font size on both is set to the smallest size I find comfortable for long term reading though I think the Aura is about very slightly smaller (around 5% going by a quick measurement).

A quick thanks for Baen for not using DRM so I could edit the stylesheet to get the margins and font size I prefer without feeling somewhat of guilt for removing the DRM from the ebook.

Regards,
David

[Halvah]

I had held off updating my Kobo Glo since v2.40 but decided that since the page title issue had apparently been resolved in v2.61 it was time to take the plunge. Updated via Kobo Desktop and ended up with v2.52. What's with that?

[PeterT]

Like all Kobo releases, it's staggered. No guarantee at all that for the first few days you will get the newest release.

If you absolutely HAVE to have it, check out the thread in the developers forum here where the links to all firmwares are posted.

[mr_nihilism]

Thanks for the info, DNSB. I am entirely glad to know I was wrong. I look forward to the update arriving.

[buffaloseven]

Update was available for me. First update since the 1.3 days that I haven't had to pin hole reset, so that's good. Overall everything is working well and I really like the new home screen.

On thing though: I can no longer find how to switch the bottom bar between clear and solid. Has that feature been removed or am I just blind?

[jackastor]

I was wondering if anyone else thought the home screen was ill designed by being way to small for the kobo glo? And that there seems to be a large amount of unused space at the bottom?
Also did anyone else notice that there was no controls for a solid light banner to clear light banner?


Edit : I noticed that the home screen seems to shrink on occasion when leaving a read to return to the home page, then goes back to a larger size later. Not sure why this is the case. This is why I was saying it was small and ill designed with a waste of space. Now I am of the opinion its a bug!


regards



Jack

[RZetlin]

The 2.6.1 update for the Glo has not been the best for comics.

With 2.5 I was able to get comics to display full screen under the kepub format.

Now with the 2.6.1 the top and bottom margins take up the comic space. The top margins displays the book name while the bottom display the current chapter. In the end comics appear smaller and unreadable on the screen.

Comics are still displayed full screen under the cbr/cbz format.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by teija

Stupid question here, but has anyone updated their Mini yet? Sounds like most of the changes will not affect Kobo Mini users (except the title removal at the top of the page).

The Mini and Touch retain the carousel interface. I haven't tried to remove the sync tile on the Glo to see how many book tiles I can have but going by the size of the current tiles, I'd guess around 8 tiles instead of the 11 tiles the Aura shows (these are for books only with no bookmark and all other tiles dismissed). The difference between the 1080x1440 display of the Aura, the 758x1024 display of the Glo and the 600x800 display of the Touch and Mini would make it harder to use the tiled interface on the smaller display resolutions.

What I find rather odd is that the size of the tiles varies depending on the aspect ratio of the cover image. A 450x684 cover image has a larger tile than a 510x680 cover image. It appears that a 3x4 aspect ration gets the smallest tile (a 3x2 aspect ratio gets the same size tile but with only half the thumbnail filled, the rest is white) while a 3x5 aspect ratio gets a taller thumbnail and tile.

Regards,
David

[Danger]

Well after testing this firmware out I am actually somewhat impressed. Which considering my past experience with the firmware releases says a lot as I wasn't expecting much.

Please note all impressions are from a sideloaded firmware update

Pros:

- epub book title is GONE when reading a book. Personally while I didn't like this and didn't want it they really should have put an option in the reading settings to turn in on or off rather than just removing it.

- I actually like the new home screen, I think it is much better than the carousel. The "Reading" & "Store" headings are gone finally. Wishlist has been moved to bookstore menu and while I haven't explored this menu much I could come to like it if they could fix some things in the desktop app like deleting previews deletes the book from your wishlist... dumb dumb dumb. Again make it an option, "Do you wish to delete this from your wishlist as well?"

- initially didn't like the sleep mode full screen bookcover when sleeping after seeing a screenshot of it. Having experienced it for myself I still don't like it however what I don't like is that it is so big. What I think would improve it is to keep the width of the box the about same, move % read to appear either after Sleeping or just below it and reduce the height of the box, see spoiler for what I am thinking here:

Spoiler:

Instead of:
______________________
.....Sleeping .....................|
.......................................|
.......................................|
.......................................|
.....% read.......................|
______________________|

You have:
________________________
.....Sleeping ............% read |
_______________________ |

Cons:

- Top page margin is now bigger than it previously was, would rather this was set back to where it was pre-book title.

- Windows/orphans still exist, would be nice to see this fixed before epubs become obsolete.

- Page turns much slower, more prone to double page turns because touches to turn pages didn't seem to register.

- don't really like the new wifi icon, just not what I would think of as representing wifi

- The search bar on the home screen just seems out of place, perhaps a 4th option on the bottom of the screen that just says "Search" which brings up a search window rather than having a whole bar across the top of the screen.

- Don't need to see a finished book on the home screen.

[ciscopixie]

Originally Posted by Liesse

Thank you Kobo!

Thank you for another timely firmware release. I love regular updates, but understand it can be difficult to squash bugs and incorporate feedback, so frustrating some.

Thank you for starting a thread here about the new firmware. It's grand to see that.

Thank you for listening to us about the book title at the top of the page.
It is great to think that you listen to feedback and really care about the user experience.
Now, how about utilising that amazing SERIES data you have stored with the ebooks on my device and giving us a SERIES sort (within shelves please!) option? Pretty please?

That would be totally wicked! But I'd love it if the tiles were more.. intuitive.. for example if I'm reading a series and finish a book, show me the one I just finished on one tile and the next one in the series on a tile below it. That way I don't have to use the search bar

PS: is the search bar normal in this update? What I mean to say is that if I click the bar, it wants to search via either bookstore or library.. shouldn't it search automatically in both? or is such a function in the Aura?

[speakingtohe]

I updated to 2.52 accidentally so I sideloaded the 2.61 to my Mini.

Seems slightly more stable touch input. And the page movement bar seems a bit less random and finicky, but might be my imagination.

I don't care about the extra line, apppears more balanced, although I was fine with the 2,5 way.

I was kind of hoping for the reappearance of the back arrow, but as it doesn't quite work right on the Aura IMO it was too much to expect

Helen

Helen

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by RZetlin

The 2.6.1 update for the Glo has not been the best for comics.

With 2.5 I was able to get comics to display full screen under the kepub format.

Now with the 2.6.1 the top and bottom margins take up the comic space. The top margins displays the book name while the bottom display the current chapter. In the end comics appear smaller and unreadable on the screen.

Comics are still displayed full screen under the cbr/cbz format.

Are you sure you were using kepub and not epub? With 2.5.0 and 2.5.1, kepub gave me the top and bottom menu bars. Even using images alone on the page, I seem to remember that I still got the top and bottom menu bars when I zoomed the image. At least with epub while I couldn't zoom the image, the bottom menu bar was the one that took up space.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Danger

Well after testing this firmware out I am actually somewhat impressed. Which considering my past experience with the firmware releases says a lot as I wasn't expecting much.

... much text deleted ...

Cons:

- Top page margin is now bigger than it previously was, would rather this was set back to where it was pre-book title.

- Windows/orphans still exist, would be nice to see this fixed before epubs become obsolete.

- Page turns much slower, more prone to double page turns because touches to turn pages didn't seem to register.

- don't really like the new wifi icon, just not what I would think of as representing wifi

- The search bar on the home screen just seems out of place, perhaps a 4th option on the bottom of the screen that just says "Search" which brings up a search window rather than having a whole bar across the top of the screen.

- Don't need to see a finished book on the home screen.

Widows and orphans are part of the css specification. Default value is 3. Unless an ebook overrides that value, it should stay at 3.

Limited testing but I haven't noticed any slowness in page turns on my Aura. Nor have I noticed any double page turns to this point.

The WiFi icon looks like the WiFi icon on several other devices I own so can't say that it is unexpected.

Removing the search bar and having it pop up with the settings menu or from an icon on the top bar would give more screen area for tiles -- especially good for the Glo.

Quite often I refer back to a finished book when reading a series so a + for me to have them remain on the home screen. Long press and dismiss will get rid of them or simply opening more books.

Regards,
David