Kobo future firmware feature request thread

[kellson]

Originally Posted by MechR

Here's my current wishlist, mostly related to PDF/image viewing:

• Hide or autohide the title-and-page bar. This should make 100% landscape-view appreciably more readable.
• At 125%, auto-center each page horizontally.
• Custom zoom %. Auto-center anything less than 125%.
• Accept multi-clicks on the D-pad and skip the intermediate steps (at least within one page).
• Alternatively, custom scroll distance. I'd like to jump farther.
• Custom sleep/off images
• Sort by folder/directory.

I want the "auto-centre" and custom zoom % either~

And faster page turn speed~~~

Thanks for the hard work Kobo Team~

[MrsJoseph]

I want to be able to download the latest firmware without it bricking my Kobo and requiring a hard re-set (that still doesn't allow me to have the lastest firmware!!!!)

[fyoung]

I have to agree with taming in re: to the dictionary. It would be nice to have the dictionary available when reading sideloaded books. Also would be useful to have a less cumbersome way to sort through the library - via author, tags, key word etc.

[thepossum]

Just to chime in, two essential tweaks are needed for future updates on my original Kobo:

1- page turning speed. I've been playing with the Cool-er firmware, so I happen to KNOW that the hardware is plenty fast enough to get this one fixed. There is a lag between pressing the next page button and anything visible happening on the screen, a lag which is non-existent when running the Cool-er firmware.

2- library update speed. My guess is that the update process is slogging through each and every file looking for changes, rather than just looking through the directory structure looking for filesystem changes.

And there is one feature available on the Wifi model I'm slightly jealous of, that you can buy books over the internet directly on the Kobo device. Would similar functionality be possible on the original model over Bluetooth? It is fairly simple to set up Internet sharing over Bluetooth on most computers.

[Andreiuta]

The good folks from Kobo said on Twitter that they are looking into organizing data by tags and other metadata. They didn't give any time-line for this implementation, but they seemed rather receptive to suggestions.

(I don't know whether the person who answers on Twitter has any weight in the product development matters, but I thought it was worth a try.)

[MechR]

Almost forgot: Search function! Technically that should be one of the main advantages of digital text over paper.

And for my long shot: web browsing

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by moffattm

It already displays images, just need to create a folder in the root directory called Documents and then load up your images in there and they will show up in the Documents section of the Kobo.

Well yes it will but only one at a time and they are mixed in with your PDF files. You can select one and it will display it but you can't go to the next image. Having it move from image to image would be a nice improvement. Even better let it support CBZ files which are nothing more that a set of images collected in a zip file. It already has image file support and already has zip file support ePUB.

Dale

[DaleDe]

I would like them to trim the extra margins off the left and right side for ePUB (and PDF if they can do it). The ePUB would be easy. They could even make it a preference item if they wish so the user could set what they want. My Literati is only 480 pixels wide and the wide margins really cut into the number of words that appear on a line.

Dale

[MechR]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Even better let it support CBZ files which are nothing more that a set of images collected in a zip file.

1.9 supports CBZ, according to this post and this post. Dunno if it zooms/rotates though. I'm itching to try it out, but I'm stuck waiting for the firmware to propagate through Borders. Tempted to try getting the vanilla Kobo firmware, but I'm hesitant since there's no easy way to switch back if I change my mind.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by MechR

1.9 supports CBZ, according to this post and this post. Dunno if it zooms/rotates though. I'm itching to try it out, but I'm stuck waiting for the firmware to propagate through Borders. Tempted to try getting the vanilla Kobo firmware, but I'm hesitant since there's no easy way to switch back if I change my mind.

Thanks I will give it a try. I downloaded the Kobo stuff on my Literati and it seems ok even though I have a different screen size.

[MechR]

Unfortunately 1.9 cannot zoom/rotate images, apparently. And now I have a new feature request.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by MechR

Unfortunately 1.9 cannot zoom/rotate images, apparently. And now I have a new feature request.

I really like the cbz support as a simple image viewer like a digital frame. You are right that it won't rotate images but that is ok for me, simple to turn the device. It does orient the images and scales them for best fit on the screen. For real comic books or manga converting to a pdf that can be zoomed and rotated is likely a better choice at this point.

Dale

[amo]

Fix the "Books" settings so it remembers what I want the list sorted by! I always set it to "Sort by Author", but it defaults back to "Sort by Title" as soon as it's powered down.

Other than that, 1.9 has everything I want in it.

[Asawi]

I have now played a little (very little) with a Kobo and I admittedly know very little about the device, but three things struck me right away:

1. Page turn speed. Not horrible, but a speedup would be appreciated!
2. Annoying bottom bar. Loose it or give option to what info to have there. One option should be just page/of and NO TEXT!!
3. It seems margins are added to books. If the book already has margins total margin can be very large. In Kobo books there is an aoption to force left. If that is the same as cutting margins I would like to see that function in sideloaded books as well.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Asawi

I have now played a little (very little) with a Kobo and I admittedly know very little about the device, but three things struck me right away:

1. Page turn speed. Not horrible, but a speedup would be appreciated!
2. Annoying bottom bar. Loose it or give option to what info to have there. One option should be just page/of and NO TEXT!!
3. It seems margins are added to books. If the book already has margins total margin can be very large. In Kobo books there is an option to force left. If that is the same as cutting margins I would like to see that function in sideloaded books as well.

Force left means to left justify instead of full justification. Unfortunately it is not the same as cutting the margins and should be a user option. Some people like full justification although the primitive method used can sometimes leave large gaps in a line of text.

I too would like to see cutting the margins down. Could be a user option I suppose but it is ridiculous to give up all this real estate on the screen with unused area. The screen size is small already and shouldn't be wasted. Which, of course, includes wasted space at the bottom. On my Literati there is a huge amount of space wasted between the bottom of the text and the bar itself, easily a full extra line could be included without even getting close to the bar but an option to remove the bar itself would also be nice, so long as it could be turned on momentarily when the user wanted to see it. Although I would like to see the battery gauge added to the bar. It is easy to forget about it and having to leave the book to check is not nice.

Dale