[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I don't know, plenty of reasons; I dislike software deciding for me what I want to do.

I find that a very funny statement. How can the software not decide for you what you want to do? The only way would be for it to read you mind. Or have an infinite number of options that you reconfigure each time you use it. Yes, I'm being a bit absurd, but that is the only way I can react to your statement.

Maybe the book is not a real book, but some test file and you don't want to artificially increase the number of finished books. Maybe it is a reference book and you just happen to be on the last page (think of a recipe book and you are reading the last recipe). Maybe you are just checking that the formatting is OK and all pages are there, before actually reading the book. Maybe you are using someone else's reader (with permission, of course) and don't want to mess with their database.

As I just commented in another post, we forget that the point of these devices is to read books. Kobo and the other ereader developers are supporting that function. To my mind, loading a book to check the formatting is a relatively unusual activity. It might not be for people in this forum, but for the normal user, they wouldn't understand what you were worrying about. And personally, I've never needed to finish the book to do that,

Assuming you know it is the last page, which also requires to check and think every time to want to turn the page (wait, is this the last page? maybe...). Personally, I'd prefer a dialog: "This is the last page of the book. Do you want to mark the book as finished and return to the home page?" Give Yes/No options and a "Do not ask again" checkmark.

If you are reading fiction, how often is it that you don't know you are on the last page? It's usually obvious from the context. And a hell of a lot of books have those two magic words there that we so often don't want to see. And most of them have some sort of back-matter that means if you do go past the last page of the story, you don't actually go past the end of the book.

Maybe it is different for text or reference books. I don't read them on my ereaders as those I see are mainly PDF and I read them on the computer. But, I can't think of one that didn't have something that made if obvious I was at the end of the book.

Yes, I think I'd like the old one better too. My point is that turning the last page does not only cause the book to be closed and a return to the home screen (this would be just a minor inconvenience, you can reopen the book with a single tap), but it also makes some other changes, at least one of them is irreversible.

Again, this is a matter of opinion of what the correct behaviour is. Personally, I've finished the book, so I want it recorded. On the occasions that I don't want that to happen, I just don't finish the book.