[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cybmole

1.2 is the most popular fixed line space i.e.that it the one I remove most!. but I much prefer a larger value. I'd had a few library book where I wondered " why does this layout look so good"? & getting under the bonnet I found that it was because a higher line spacing value was forced. You could dismiss that as a cheap publisher trick to up the page count, but I liked it! I think I then googled the topic & discovered that readablity tests suggested something in the 1.3 - 1.5 range. I'd be interested in reading more on that if you have good links,

For me, it's that 1.2 is a comfortable reading setting, ascenders and descenders have a gap between them -- I find ebooks where they touch to be very annoying to read and ebooks where the setting is too high to be wasting screen space. I've seen the same 1.3 to 1.5 recommendation with one site quoting readability studies for websites showing that 1.48 is the best ratio.

Originally Posted by cybmole

So on my aura HD, I set my own, subjectively, with the sliders, having made sure that there's nothing left in the book CSS to prevent that.

Whereas I set the value in the CSS which lets me play with the slider in .kepub ebooks without messing up my much more common .epub ebooks.

Originally Posted by cybmole

And with the android app I was very happy with what it chose for me, until this week!.It used very similar layout logic to the native Kindle fire reader which I was comparing it to.

I seldom use the Kobo (or other ereading apps) on my Android or iOS devices. My Aura HD is the goto device for my entertainment reading. My work related ebooks are mainly PDF format network tech manuals and tend to have those lovely diagrams that are screaming for a large screen where my laptop or iPad Air are the goto devices -- at least until I can find a tablet with an A3 size screen that weighs about what the iPad Air does.

Originally Posted by cybmole

Because I have that wider setting, I no longer have any extra paragraph spacing, I started out in e-reading, way back, with adding 0.3 to my kindle books, then talked myself down to 0,.1 & now to 0. So I don't care for the "kobo styling" approach of adding space back in.

In contrast, I go for adding a fixed padding of 0.2em between paragraphs. The nice thing with ebooks for those who are willing to do some fiddling is that ability to change the formatting. My major criteria is to get as many lines on a page as I can without compromising readability.

Originally Posted by cybmole

bu the moral(s) here are
1. and decent reader app should allow the user to set their own layout preferences

2. updates should not drastically change the reading experience, especially when that cannot be tweaked away and when there is no roll back to previous version option

Anyway moon + reader pro is looking good, I never did hear back from developer as to how to get my paid for play store version onto the kindle so I had to do it via the less ethical route after all. I googled & set up the colordict dictionary feature - simple on a google tablet - a pain on Kindle as the relevant bits were not in their app store, but I found what I needed eventually.
I recommend a study of its UI to the Kobo app designers, it shows you can have a lots of margin, line space... control + LOTS of fonts, configurable gestures and control bars, background colour themes, TTS..... { and most of that is even in the free version! ).

Apparently the inclusion of TTS is why it ( and other hi-spec epub readers) are not sold in Amazon store. Amazon have some contractual exclusivity thing going to protect audible, so nothing that offer TTS is allowed into their app store

Hmmm... I tried Moon+ on my Nexus. I did not like that way it disregarded quite a bit of styling. Images with svg wrappers were not displayed properly, centerd chapter numbers were not centered, etc. I found that I preferred DLReader which at least made the attempt to correctly render the pages though Moon+ had the much nicer UI.

Your point 1 is not really arguable. Big Brother does not know better. As for point 2, I would agree with you but I realize that what I consider a major change may not be someone else's idea of a major change. The ability to roll back a firmware update is one of my pluses for the Kobo eInk ereaders especially given Kobo's inability to supply anything that even resembles a proper changelog.

One issue with TTS is that the publisher is supposed to able to choose whether or not to allow TTS and quite a few ereader apps totally disregard that setting. Personally, I can't see why I should not be able to have my ebook read to me though most of the TTS I've tried is not very listenable compared to a human reader. They've gotten a lot better over the decades but not quite there yet.

Regards,
David