Book cover as screensaver in Kindle Touch?

[victor_2203]

Hello.
It would be possible to make through some script that the cover of the book you are reading appears resized (800x600) as the screensaver on the Kindle Touch?

[mewmartigan]

Folks have wondered this since the K2 days and I don't think anything has come along yet.

On a sidenote, I buy quite a few books from Amazon, mostly sci-fi/fantasy. All the books covers are plain....no artwork, just name and author on a "shade of grey" background. I'm sure this is the publishers work and not Amazon but it would make my screensaver pretty boring anyway.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by mewmartigan

All the books covers are plain....no artwork, just name and author on a "shade of grey" background. .

This is a generic book cover that publishers use if there is no specific cover for the book in question (or perhaps if they're too lazy to find one).

In these cases, I usually download the cover of the paper version of the book, either from Amazon or the publisher's website, and then use Calibre to add it to the book's file.

But of course that doesn't solve the screensaver issue.

[Duiker]

The Kobo does just that, so it's definitely a possibility. Maybe someone from Amazon should get in touch with the Kobo developers and ask them how?

[mr ploppy]

I don't think it's a case of not being possible, just that nobody has bothered to write a script to automate it.

If you wanted a kludge you could save the cover image as your only screensaver, then it will display each time you switch off. But you would need to change the screensaver each time you start a new book. If you keep the same filename (eg cover.png) you won't need to restart the Kindle each time.

So all it would really take to automate it would be to extract the cover image when the book is opened, and save that as cover.png in the screensaver directory.

[Mike L]

Personally, I think the best idea is not to have a screen saver at all. The Kindle would go to sleep as it does at present, but would continue to show whatever page you were last viewing.

And why not? It's not as if the so-called screen saver actually "saves the screen" in any way.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Personally, I think the best idea is not to have a screen saver at all. The Kindle would go to sleep as it does at present, but would continue to show whatever page you were last viewing.

And why not? It's not as if the so-called screen saver actually "saves the screen" in any way.

That would be confusing, don't you think? As you say, the only real purpose of the so-called "screen saver" is to give you a visual indication of whether the Kindle is on or asleep. Without that, you wouldn't know .

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would be confusing, don't you think?

Harry, under my plan, the "Slide to wake" message would still be present. Perhaps it might be made more prominent. Or perhaps the page being displayed would be made a bit dimmer to indicate that the device was asleep. But the basic principle would remain.

OK, so if that idea won't work, how about this: A blank screen for the screen saver. Would that be too outlandish, do you think?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Harry, under my plan, the "Slide to wake" message would still be present. Perhaps it might be made more prominent. Or perhaps the page being displayed would be made a bit dimmer to indicate that the device was asleep. But the basic principle would remain.

OK, so if that idea won't work, how about this: A blank screen for the screen saver. Would that be too outlandish, do you think?

That would be easy enough to do, just use a blank png. Or hold the off button down a bit longer.

[yifanlu]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Harry, under my plan, the "Slide to wake" message would still be present. Perhaps it might be made more prominent. Or perhaps the page being displayed would be made a bit dimmer to indicate that the device was asleep. But the basic principle would remain.

OK, so if that idea won't work, how about this: A blank screen for the screen saver. Would that be too outlandish, do you think?

If you have a touch, I got the solution: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=165576

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

That would be easy enough to do, just use a blank png. Or hold the off button down a bit longer.

Add it to where?

Originally Posted by yifanlu

If you have a touch, I got the solution: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=165576

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I still have my original Kindle 2.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Add it to where?

If you have the screensavers hack installed there is a directory on your Kindle called screensavers. You will need to restart the Kindle each time you add or remove images, unless you keep the same filenames. Without the hack you're just stuck with the dead people.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

If you have the screensavers hack installed there is a directory on your Kindle called screensavers. You will need to restart the Kindle each time you add or remove images, unless you keep the same filenames. Without the hack you're just stuck with the dead people.

Thanks for the info. But I can't see many Kindle owners wanting to take that route. It would be much better if the option was built into the product.

[ll Legion ll]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

If you have the screensavers hack installed there is a directory on your Kindle called screensavers. You will need to restart the Kindle each time you add or remove images, unless you keep the same filenames. Without the hack you're just stuck with the dead people.

Actually, using yifanlu's latest screensaver app, you don't have to restart everytime. Just grab the applicable book cover from \system\thumbnails and copy it into the \screensavers directory

'course, this only applies to the KT and it sounds like you are using the K3...