Aura HD A good font setting for reading novels on a Kobo Aura HD?

[cybmole]

that's a lot to digest but I think all the answers are in there - thanks.

I will read it slowly, several times

where you say
With 3.2.0, the advanced settings combined two of the sliders into one. which two are now combined ?

i.e. if I go from 3.1.1. to 3.2.0 what difference will I see ?

PS I think you are wrong about the advanced sliders being stored globally though. if I go into one book that is set to Georgia and push advanced - font size all the way to the right ( making it unreadable ) & save; then I open a 2nd book which was also previously set to Georgia, that 2nd book's appearance is unaffected, and when I open the advanced screen, that books slider is still in the middle

update - I've moved up to 3.2.0

having one less slider to understand was too good an offer to pass on

I see they combined weight with sharpness

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by cybmole

that's a lot to digest but I think all the answers are in there - thanks.

I will read it slowly, several times

where you say
With 3.2.0, the advanced settings combined two of the sliders into one. which two are now combined ?

i.e. if I go from 3.1.1. to 3.2.0 what difference will I see ?

In 3.2.0, they combined the weight and sharpness slider into one.

PS I think you are wrong about the advanced sliders being stored globally though. if I go into one book that is set to Georgia and push advanced - font size all the way to the right ( making it unreadable ) & save; then I open a 2nd book which was also previously set to Georgia, that 2nd book's appearance is unaffected, and when I open the advanced screen, that books slider is still in the middle

That isn't what I am seeing with 3.2.0. If I change the advanced settings, they change for all books that have use the same font. Plus, I have looked before and the is only one values saved per font anywhere in the database and config file.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by davidfor

In 3.2.0, they combined the weight and sharpness slider into one.


That isn't what I am seeing with 3.2.0. If I change the advanced settings, they change for all books that have use the same font. Plus, I have looked before and the is only one values saved per font anywhere in the database and config file.

So maybe the saved per book settings override any tweaks to advanced settings made later+outside of that book. thus returning to a previous book that has its own saved settings gives the behaviour that I reported, but returning to a previous book that does not have it's own saved settings gives the behaviour that you see ? or maybe 3.1. was different to 3.2.0 in that respect. as I am no 3.2.0 now I guess I need to re-test

I don't think I can face any more slider juggling today, but I will revisit it when I feel up to it & see if I can lay out a reproducible sequence

[jackie_w]

@cybmole,

Re: the font weight & sharpness settings . My observations are the same as David's. The only place they are stored is in the .conf config file (as computer-readable values not human-readable) and they are values assigned to a font-family not to a book. The font-family is a per-book setting (in content_settings) but the weight/sharpness is always read from the config file. From fw 3.2 there is only a weight slider in Advanced settings but both weight and sharpness values are written to the config file if you move the slider. e.g. from my .conf file

[Reading]
readingFontSharpness\Arno%20Pro="@Variant(\0\0\0\x87=L\xcc\xcd)"
readingFontWeight\Arno%20Pro=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87>\xb3\x33\x33)

The standard fw only enables the Advanced button for (most of) its built-in fonts. The Kobo Patcher, should you ever succumb, enables it for all fonts, including those sideloaded into /fonts. This is one of my favourite Kobo features. I've never used the sharpness slider so the combining of weight & sharpness into a single slider didn't bother me.

Hmm, maybe i was too quick to dismiss mantano- what does it off that the Kobo, Kindle apps dont have ?

These are only personal opinions, of course:

• internal css is honoured better than any other epub app I've tried
• text-to-speech works for every book I own. I use this a lot, to continue 'reading' when physical circumstances wouldn't otherwise allow it.
• good control over line spacing & page margins. My only android device is a phone, albeit a big phone, so reducing excess whitespace matters.
• enough other customisation to be useful without being confusing
• can use my own sideloaded weightier fonts (OK, so I'm a bit of a font control freak )
• allows me to define where my books are stored thereby reducing superfluous scanning, and it doesn't duplicate each book into its own private area
• uses ADE page numbering so I can find my place when I swap back to e-reader
• doesn't require me to log in to access sideloaded books (i.e. all of them)
• good free 3rd-party dictionary support via Colordict
• can create homescreen widget(s) to currently reading book(s) for instant access
• last but not least - although it does have its own pretty reasonable library management system - it also works very well with Calibre Companion which has even better library management. So CC used for book transfer, browsing for next book, Mantano used for the actual reading - or listening

Despite the above I do like to keep a selection of other reading apps on my device because things change. There are frequent updates to many of them (some good, some bad) and I like to keep my options open.

[cybmole]

thanks - I have no issues now with font weight/sharpness. Still a tad confused with how the 2 font size sliders ( basic & advanced) interact -

lets say I open a book, set font to georgia & then twiddle both the font size sliders - both basic one & the one on the advanced tab: do they then pool results & generate one combined font size value which is then stored per-book.

that's also for the mantano overview. I guess it unlikely that amazon will ever allow it to be sold via their app store though so no there is legal way to get the paid version onto a Kindle faire that I can see. I checked mantano site & got the usual go buy from google or from apple and amazon don't allow that

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by cybmole

thanks - I have no issues now with font weight/sharpness. Still a tad confused with how the 2 font size sliders ( basic & advanced) interact -

lets say I open a book, set font to georgia & then twiddle both the font size sliders - both basic one & the one on the advanced tab: do they then pool results & generate one combined font size value which is then stored per-book.

I can't say I've seen this commented on before. I had always assumed that having the two font-size sliders was merely a convenience thing so that you didn't have to keep hopping between Advanced and basic to adjust size when looking at the text sample on the Advanced screen. I thought you got the same result from whichever slider you last slid. Others may know better.

Originally Posted by cybmole

that's also for the mantano overview. I guess it unlikely that amazon will ever allow it to be sold via their app store though so no there is legal way to get the paid version onto a Kindle faire that I can see. I checked mantano site & got the usual go buy from google or from apple and amazon don't allow that

I hadn't realised it wasn't purchasable from Amazon. I thought the fact it appears with its price if you do a search meant you could just buy it. Just shows how much I know.

I must admit I never considered buying any 'protected-Android' device because I wanted to have the largest choice possible from Google Play. I find Android (and phones in general) confusing enough without adding artificial restrictions to complicate matters. I'm still waiting for a tablet tempting enough to hurl my credit card at it. Maybe this year's models ...

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I hadn't realised it wasn't purchasable from Amazon. I thought the fact it appears with its price if you do a search meant you could just buy it. Just shows how much I know.

you can buy Mantano from amazon for delivery to a non-amazon tablet, ( you can put the shop-at-amazon-app-store application onto any android tablet ) but amazon flag it as not suitable for their own tablets and block sales/downloads to those. But it is simpler & maybe also cheaper to shop at the google app store if you have a non-amazon device.

I also bought a cheap Kobo arc tablet so I have been solving how to send/read/do various things with the "wrong" tablet. - like amazon books to kobo, epubs to Kindle... Amazon do a Kindle for android app, similar to the Kindle for PC app.

I remembered that I'd bought 2 humble bundles of multiple format DRM free ebooks a while back & was able to get those onto both devices. Humble bundle has an option to email them to Kindle which worked well.

[TechniSol]

Gads, I can't believe I waded through all the above only to simply reduce it to: "If you don't like the look of the font in the ebook you're reading, simply go and set it to the settings you do like!" I find that infinitely simpler to store away in MY database...

All that said, my way of handling the issue would be to store all font related settings to each book('s database record) if they are adjusted for that book, or implement the last setting made on the device for this reading session if no changes to font settings for the ebook have already been made. That way you automatically start an ebook with your last preferred font settings if no prior settings have been made for this ebook. It seems likely that most readers having adjusted the device would prefer to stick with those settings if practical.

I suppose one more level might be inserted to start the ebook at whatever embedded font settings might exist and then allow the user to override them simply by selecting an override to last used settings on the reader, and then if they are modified from that store them in the db for that ebook...

If it doesn't work that way now , I'd prefer it to do so.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

All that said, my way of handling the issue would be to store all font related settings to each book('s database record) if they are adjusted for that book, or implement the last setting made on the device for this reading session if no changes to font settings for the ebook have already been made. That way you automatically start an ebook with your last preferred font settings if no prior settings have been made for this ebook. It seems likely that most readers having adjusted the device would prefer to stick with those settings if practical.

isn't that exactly what it already does - did you actually read the thread ???

[TechniSol]

Heaven help me I did read the whole thread, except for those portions where I fell asleep. It did happen a lot.

I think it does work mostly that way, but after all that noise I'm not sure. I'm reminded of "The Mouse That Roared", and I don't mean pdurrant! ;-)

If I recall, I think the missing element is that if fonts are embedded you have to remove them instead of it just allowing you to override them. I also think the margin settings should be absolute, not just add to whatever margins, etc, are specified therefore the built-in settings become the minimums rather then being overridden. Further, it'd really make my day if they'd let us control the header, footer, widow and orphan settings directly on the reader, and the option to select whether a too long paragraph is pushed to the next page. As well as what info is displayed on each page at top and bottom.

[cybmole]

most of what you want can be automated using calibre- preferences, extra css to convert & tweak each book before loading it to aura. that can strip margins, font-families, widows orphans...

what gave me most trouble was removing all the line height settings so that line spacing slider worded, but the folk on sigil forum came up with a universal regex formula that I run manually on each new-for-reading book

the long paragraph issue is annoying in some books but there's a reader config file hack for that.

[TechniSol]

I don't want to have to massage every eBook through Calibre or edit it in Sigil to get the overrides that any intelligently written renderer should provide. I'm the fricken user, I paid for the privilege, I should not be required to become an eBook renovation expert for the time it takes to code a settings page or dialog and insert the appropriate tests and switches into the code. What are we paying for if not convenience and options? This is hardly brain surgery on the code end unless it is the most convoluted piece of dreck ever coded. Even so, it should be possible.

Some company, I hope it could be Kobo, will eventually realize that giving the user options is a HUGE selling point. I thought they knew that when they offered the font related options that they do, but apparently they are not interested in further buttressing their position.

[cybmole]

playing devil's advocate here:

There's little or no money to be made from selling better e-reader hardware. hence Sony's decision to quit, and Nook's continued dithering, leaving only Kobo & Amazon as real players. The Aura HD was/is a trial run / limited edition & the best selling devices are probably the lower sec ones with far fewer options.

Kobo's profits come from selling you e-books from their own book stores; so as long & those display reasonably well, why should they care about your poor-side-loaded experience. ( we know they don't, actually, because of the kepub vs epub, missing reader stats etc debates )

So unless the reader community develop & maintain some open source custom firmware, ( and the device makers don't want that so they make their devices hard to root - you aint going to get what you want. )

also, we'll soon be intro the usual circle of blame-> its the authors/publishers fault for poor CSS, no it's the reenderer's fault, no it's the lack of proper standards... take your pick.

then there's the argument that if the author only wants his/her book displayed in , say, Charis, should that be enforceable, or should your end-user choices have precedence ?

I read a lot of library loans & many of those have locked fonts and/or line space settings

PS - much as I like hi-spec gadgets, there was a lot to be said in favour of my old Sony T2- just open the box, charge it, choose small , medium or large font - off you go.... no stressed out search for how/why all the extra bells & whistles do & don't do what you'd expect . ( & no forced sign up to store, no forced install desktop software or you can't continue, no forced: here's a firmware upgrade whether you want it or not...