Kobo future firmware feature request thread

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Reading the title information from the metadata in the epub file, modifying it and writing it back?

I think Jon meant that the DRM doesn't protect the metadata. Though I don't know if calibre will update and send a DRM protected book to the device properly.

But, for Rev Bob, the utilities plugin can be used to set the series info or set the title using a plugboard. This will work for any book on the device that matches a book in the calibre library.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I think Jon meant that the DRM doesn't protect the metadata. Though I don't know if calibre will update and send a DRM protected book to the device properly.

And I, for one, don't care to risk breaking a DRM-protected book to do the experiment,

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, for Rev Bob, the utilities plugin can be used to set the series info or set the title using a plugboard. This will work for any book on the device that matches a book in the calibre library.

That would be more of an option for me if I used calibre to interact with my device; I do not. I pretty much only use calibre for conversion and editing tasks, and rarely use its library.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

That would be more of an option for me if I used calibre to interact with my device; I do not. I pretty much only use calibre for conversion and editing tasks, and rarely use its library.

I had a vague memory of that which is why I didn't comment when you first posted.

p.s. Looking at your avatar, you really shouldn't wear a red shirt with that beard at this time of the year

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by davidfor

p.s. Looking at your avatar, you really shouldn't wear a red shirt with that beard at this time of the year

It does wonders to keep kids in line...

[pakoe]

When, tapping/pressing long on a word, no definition is found in the dictionary, in many cases a close match is displayed, but often the text "No definition found. Try another dictionary" is displayed. It would always help to display simply the nearest item (in alphabetical order) in the dictionary word list instead (if the closest match logic yields no result). If it isn't correct, it wouldn't hurt, but in many cases it IS correct. Please think of languages like Italian. The ending of a verb can be quite long (e.g. parlare -> parlerebbero) and confuses the closest match logic. You just can't look up such verb forms even of common Italian verbs, but displaying the nearest item in the dictionary would be the right thing in many cases. (Many conjugated verb forms are listed in some dictionaries, but many are not.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pakoe

When, tapping/pressing long on a word, no definition is found in the dictionary, the text "No definition found. Try another dictionary" is displayed. It would always help to display the nearest item in the dictionary word list instead.

Why? The nearest item could be totally incorrect. That would not work.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by pakoe

When, tapping/pressing long on a word, no definition is found in the dictionary, the text "No definition found. Try another dictionary" is displayed. It would always help to display the nearest item in the dictionary word list instead.

Actually this does work. However, I do not know how close the availabe word must be, and how exactly this closeness is defined. As a test I activated the German dictionary and long pressed "italien" in a French novel. The result was: Your search for "italien" did not match any words in the dictionary. The closest match was "Italienne." And then follows the German explanation.
Doing the same with "tarasconnaise" or "de" however results in "No definition found. Try another dictionary."

[fdant]

I purchased the kobo recently and I'm starting to regret to choose it over the kindle just because of the way that kobo manages notes/highlights.

I'm using the ereader to improve my english vocabulary, but when I highlight just one word there's no context in the annotations list and when I highlight a block of text I can't access the dictionary for the words of that block of text (this is so stupid that makes me question if it is a bug or not).

So I hope that kobo implements at least one of these features:
- display a few words that comes before and after the current highlight, that way we have context when we highlight just one word. This could be optional, like the list/notebook view.
- be able to access the dictionary for the words inside a highlighted block of text.

[Teom@n]

Originally Posted by Oldu

It would be great to have :

(1) The possibility to enlarge the size of the definitions in the dictionary
(1a) The prononciation of the words
(2) The possibility to use StarDict dictionaries
(3) The possibility to use Wiktionaries or wikipedia as an offline dictionary (with stardict ?)
(4) The possibility to have direct access to some definitions in internet (like linguee, webster website)
(5) Improve the possibility to highlight several words, which is very uncomfortable today

(FW : 3.11)

Dictionary is the most important thing for me. I am trying to improve my english and french but I can not add another dicts on myAura. Should it be impossible or hard? Why Kobo doesn't give support to us? Every Kobo users have to be a developer? Why companies don't give us our needs?

[tshering]

Originally Posted by Teom@n

Dictionary is the most important thing for me. I am trying to improve my english and french but I can not add another dicts on myAura. Should it be impossible or hard? Why Kobo doesn't give support to us? Every Kobo users have to be a developer? Why companies don't give us our needs?

You might be interested in this post, and also in this one.

[Teom@n]

Originally Posted by tshering

You might be interested in this post, and also in this one.

tshering

Thanks for your help. I created my own dicts by these topics. Just I have imagined kobo dict should be more powerful, flexible, etc. Why kobo doesn't add 3rd part dicts support on our devices? They could make better and richer FW but they don't.

[pakoe]

Originally Posted by fdant

when I highlight a block of text I can't access the dictionary for the words of that block of text (this is so stupid that makes me question if it is a bug or not)

You have tried to use two features at once: highlighting and dictionaries. Poor software doesn't like that and Kobo firmware is very poorly implemented. Anyway, here is a work-around: If you want to look up "stupid" in the dicitionary and "stupid" is inside a highlighted block of text, select not just "stupid" but include also the subsequent words into the selection so that the end of your selection is outside the highlighted block (this is the easy part and shouldn't be a problem). Now drag the circle at the end of your selection to the end of "stupid". It seems this must be done quickly without lingering and may need a bit of practice. Now the balloon dictionary should pop up.

[fdant]

Originally Posted by pakoe

You have tried to use two features at once: highlighting and dictionaries. Poor software doesn't like that and Kobo firmware is very poorly implemented. Anyway, here is a work-around: If you want to look up "stupid" in the dicitionary and "stupid" is inside a highlighted block of text, select not just "stupid" but include also the subsequent words into the selection so that the end of your selection is outside the highlighted block (this is the easy part and shouldn't be a problem). Now drag the circle at the end of your selection to the end of "stupid". It seems this must be done quickly without lingering and may need a bit of practice. Now the balloon dictionary should pop up.

Thank you, but those circles are so frustrating to use that I'll end up wasting more time rearranging selections than reading or learning. So for me the best solution (but far from ideal) is to highlight just the words that I want to learn and review them while I swipe back and forth through the pages, instead of using the annotations list.

[pakoe]

Originally Posted by fdant

the best solution (but far from ideal) is to highlight just the words that I want to learn

I use the following technique to learn words: I highlight whole sentences because of the context. From time to time I copy all the highlighted texts of all my books from the file \.kobo\KoboReader.sqlite into a text file, so I can review them on my computer at my ease and using any online dictionaries, then I delete all annotations from KoboReader.sqlite and delete all the files \Digital Editions\Annotations\*.annot. Please let me know if you are interested in the details. In fact I have just one three line script (could be a .bat-file for Windows) which creates the text file with all my annotations and deletes all annotations afterwards.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by pakoe

I use the following technique to learn words: I highlight whole sentences because of the context. From time to time I copy all the highlighted texts of all my books from the file \.kobo\KoboReader.sqlite into a text file, so I can review them on my computer at my ease and using any online dictionaries, then I delete all annotations from KoboReader.sqlite and delete all the files \Digital Editions\Annotations\*.annot. Please let me know if you are interested in the details. In fact I have just one three line script (could be a .bat-file for Windows) which creates the text file with all my annotations and deletes all annotations afterwards.

I'm very much interested in your method. Please do share. I've been recently looking for a way to streamline the vocabulary building process on Kobo myself.