Quote:
Originally Posted by jackastor
Not disagreeing with you there. However most of the issues that people have had with the device is due to the use of 3rd party programs that are the end all to end all of all things to do. They cause a lot of the issues that most of you have. The funny thing is those that do not use 3rd party Programs see to have far less issues then those that do. That said if Kobo would get off their proverbial asses they might just learn a few things from those 3rd party programs and if they were smart they might consider buying them up or at least licensing them for use.
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Jack,
Of course the utilities plugin is dangerous. It directly updates the database on the device, so if I made a mistake in the code or something else happens (loss of power, USB cable pulled, etc) there will be problems. The same applies to the Kobo desktop application. Of course, you get official support for that.
As to the risk, I was very careful to state that when I released the plugin. I even used red for the heading
Maybe I should have put all that text in read. Or maybe it isn't clear enough. I'm always willing to take suggestions to improve my work. But I do reserve the right to not use it. And of course, nobody is being forced to use it either the calibre driver or the utilities plugin.
The warning also states how the code was developed. I examine the device, make a change using the device and see if I can reproduce that. i.e. Reverse engineer the function. I've been doing that for over a year now. Initially, it was just curiosity. I saw the database and wanted to know how it worked. It's a failing of mine: I see a relational database and investigate it. In all that time, I haven't broken the database except when I forgot to eject the reader properly. And a few occasions where I deliberately broke it to see what happened.
As to official support from Kobo, you are right, it doesn't have their official approval. But, Kobo definitely know who I am, know what I am doing and have definitely seen discussion on both the plugin and driver. They have also answered my occasional questions for the driver. None of this is official support. I don't expect it and I am not going to ask for it. But, they have also never asked me not to do something. That might suggest they are giving implicit approval, but I do not take it that way.
If Kobo ever do ask me not to do something, I'm not sure what I would do. If they asked me to pull the utilities plugin, I don't think I would. But, if they asked for a particular function to be pulled or not added, I will consider it. And there are things I won't do. Or at least won't release. I pulled some code out of the utilities plugin just before the release. I did this because I couldn't prove it achieved the affect that I was after and because I considered it was stretching the friendship with Kobo a bit much.
I also have to ask, what happened? We exchange a few PMs this week about getting the utilities plugin configured properly. Then I find your posts about how dangerous it is. I find that very contradictory. If you feel that way, why did you go to all that trouble? Yes, warning people that the plugin is dangerous is fine, but your posts seem to be going a lot further than that.
And just to be clear to everyone:
The Kobo Utilities plugin is dangerous. It makes changes to the database on the device that might be wrong. This is NOT supported by Kobo. Any use of the plugin carries risk. While I have done the best I can to minimise the risk, there is still some. if you cannot accept that there is some, please do not use it. If you do have a problem, you may need to restore the database backup. Or log out on the device to create a new database. At worst, you would need to do a factory reset.
David