Touch Some specific questions for Touch owners

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Hoods7070

I don't hate, but certainly don't like, the totally irrelevant recommendations - Danielle Steele??!!? - taking up one third of my Home screen. I resent having things like that thrust upon me on any device I've paid for. It IS advertising, however Kobo want to sell it, and it should be optional. I'd have liked the choice of paying a little more to have nothing but my own shortlisted books showing.

You don't have to pay. Click on "Recommended for you". Change it to "Shortlist" in the dropdown. Voila.

[keepsake]

It's annoying, and that's exactly why I ended up reverting to 1.9.14. It's the cleanest version by far and I love the old menu. The pages don't really turn slower either.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Hoods7070

Sometimes I have to give the screen quite a hefty thump, at others my finger is barely hovering over it when 2-3 pages fly by. When the screen is in a "thump me" frame of mind it's somewhat annoying to have such an obtrusive delay between page turns. (Pity there's no calibration. I have calibration on all my other resistive touch devices, enabling me to set touch to a very light tap.) Every device has its own feel, and they all take getting used to.

The Kobo Touch has an infrared touch screen, not a resistive one. So giving it a hefty thump will not help at all.

It might depend on where you touch (lower right and left corners seem to be unresponsive with .17) and also on how you touch - but not on how hefty you thump it, but how well you break the light barrier, so to speak.

[filmo]

version 16 of software seemed to work better with a slower touch. Before and after 16 a faster touch worked ok. A few days of using the device you adapt your touch to something that works best for you.

Hard touch doesn't improve response but slows down your touch and excessive hard touch can damage screen. Don't have to actually touch screen just get close enough for it to respond as a touch.

[Woodstonian]

I was reading a book today in bright sunlight for the first time. I found that my usual taps failed more frequently than I am used to. It failed about every 10 taps vs 30 or more normally. The KT also froze once, which I've never experienced before in the 1 month that I've had it. I'm using .17 firmware. Does this behaviour seem familiar to anyone else?

[filmo]

Sun light and sometimes other lights can dgrade IR touch response which you can easily improve by change angle of kobo to problem causing light. Also holding kobo with screen down while brushing off sand and other stuff will solve touch problems.

[John F]

Originally Posted by filmo

... Also holding kobo with screen down while brushing off sand and other stuff will solve touch problems.

I wish.

[Hoods7070]

Interesting points. I am given to exaggeration - when I said "thump" the screen, I actually meant swipe for a page turn as opposed to the gentle tap usually required, and occasionally the screen seems to freeze up altogether. I was initially half equating the lack of response to the screen refresh being set to 6, but quickly saw with some experimentation that wasn't the case. From the previous several posts this unresponsive "moment" (or period!) would appear to be a Kobo glitch, and at least now I have some hints to try to prevent or improve the behaviour, so thanks. Maybe I will try using another tap-zone setup.

[eddie19]

Yes I have noticed the reduced touch action when reading in strong sunlight. Can cause erratic page turning and frozen screens. Although these also occur when reading indoors. I am using 1.9.17 firmware.

Another point. I have recently been editing an epub book which had a lot of typographical mistakes. I used the Kobo highlighting to identify the errors for later editing (editing using Sigil on a laptop), but many of the highlights were out of sequence! Even though they were all recorded in sequence. Anyone come across that one?

I like the Kobo, but I think the development team need to work a bit more on the reading experience, and less on the advertising and social group interaction - like Facebook.

[murg]

Originally Posted by eddie19

but many of the highlights were out of sequence! Even though they were all recorded in sequence. Anyone come across that one?

Yes, I have seen this particular symptom.

[Hoods7070]

Yes I have noticed the reduced touch action when reading in strong sunlight. Can cause erratic page turning and frozen screens. Although these also occur when reading indoors. I am using 1.9.17 firmware.

I have at least two, sometimes more, freezes in say 50-100 pages. The only thing that seems to reset things is turning on and off. I must say it's really, really irritating having to lose the thread of what you're reading like that. Other than the freezes, no complaints.

I pre-edit my books, usually, using a combination of Sigil and Serif PagePlus.

[LuvReadin]

Originally Posted by eddie19

Another point. I have recently been editing an epub book which had a lot of typographical mistakes. I used the Kobo highlighting to identify the errors for later editing (editing using Sigil on a laptop), but many of the highlights were out of sequence! Even though they were all recorded in sequence. Anyone come across that one?

Happens with the Sony too. I suspect it's down to the document rather than the reader. A similar thing happens when marking up PDFs in Acrobat on a computer - the corrections will appear in the correct places, but if a list of the corrections is printed out, it won't necessarily reflect the order in which the corrections appear on the page.

[eddie19]

I don't know whether the Kobo Development team read these threads. I hope they do and take note of some of the problems experienced by users. I think many of the problems are related to the operating system.

Frozen screen just should not happen. If an error occurs then the system should reset gracefully and NOT freeze.

Page turning should work every time. The system should detect a touch, check the type of touch, check again to make sure (I assume a clock speed of at least 1MHz, should be higher with modern ICs, and therefore checking the touch action several times should not be a problem) and then take an action. I find that sometimes nothing happens, sometimes it jumps forward two pages, sometimes goes back a page. These sort of things should not happen.

Another thing I only used 1.9.16 for a short time before downloading 1.9.17. Didn't notice a great deal of difference, but did notice the top and bottom margins changed. The top margin is now only about 2-3mm while the bottom margin is 12mm. Could these be evened out in the next version of firmware.

Why can't the page numbers at the bottom of the page correspond to the pages in the Kobo reader rather than the pages in the original printed version. The Kobo 'page' is roughly half that of the printed page, and so there are twice as many 'reader' pages. The Calibre reader shows the actual reader pages so it can be done.

I look forward to the next version of the firmware resolving these and other problems listed in this forum.

[robko]

Originally Posted by eddie19

Why can't the page numbers at the bottom of the page correspond to the pages in the Kobo reader rather than the pages in the original printed version. The Kobo 'page' is roughly half that of the printed page, and so there are twice as many 'reader' pages. The Calibre reader shows the actual reader pages so it can be done.

If you're reading a Kobo k-epub it does show the number of actual "screens" worth of book left in the chapter. If you're reading a sideloaded e-pub it is showing the number of "adobe pages" (for lack of a better term) in the book. It is a set number of characters that adobe uses to define a page and since it is likely using adobe code to display it whether it has DRM or not, I don't know if it would be possible for them to do anything differently. It would take some extra horsepower to do it that the Kobo Touch might not have. It's not possible to get same page numbers as the hardcopy book on the Kobo and virtually any other reader (unless you have a scanned pdf copy).

[Wald07]

I had trouble with the touch screen too. I moisten my finger with a huff of hot air, and it works much better. Give it a try! I also keep the touch screen pretty clean with a micro fiber cloth. Seems to help.