Thread: Firmware 3.12.0
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Old 12-05-2014, 04:45 AM   #11
davidfor
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Posts: 24,908
Karma: 47303748
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos
As people have noticed, firmware version 3.12.0 has been released. Kobo have said this will be sent to the Glo, Aura, Aura HD and Aura H2O,

Firstly: the comments and lists of changes below are based on the notes I took during the beta. Under no circumstances should it be considered an official list or complete. It is just my personal list and I tend to concentrate on the parts of the firmware that I use. I use a Glo and a Touch N905 for the testing.

This release is all about reviews. Kobo have added them to the shop in the last month. And now they are on the device. To be honest, having reviews in the shop is something they should have done a long time ago. Having them on the device makes sense.

The reviews are displayed as a separate tab on the details of any kepub from the shop and in the shop. You can read the reviews or write your own. This works OK, but typing is fairly clumsy. The field for the actual review is a bit small so it is hard to view the complete text as you type. Personally, I'll be using the web site if I want to review a book.

You can also simply rate the books. This will be counted as part of the rating in the shop. But, this comes at a loss. Ratings for all other book types has been removed. That means you can't rate your sideloaded books.

Kobo also said the Recommendations engine has been reworked. This includes three questions for new users to get an initial idea of what they like. I haven't seen this. I can't comment on the improvements to the recommendations, as they have been reasonable good for me for a long time. Unlike other people, I have found the recommendations to be reasonably good. There are always a few strange suggestions, but usually about half are books I would consider buying or already have in paper or from some other shop.

So, the change I know of are:
  • Reviews.
  • Recommendation engine has been reworked.
  • Rating removed for sideloaded books
  • Order of images in CBZ now respects the folders.
    This will only affect new CBZ's sideloaded. Any that are already on the device will need to be removed and sent to the device again.
  • Font Avenir Next has been fixed.It now displays bold, italics and bold italics correctly.
  • San-serif fallback font in ePubs now displays bold, italics and bold italics properly. I assume this is because it uses Avenir Next
  • "Table of Contents" has an underline in the navigation bar. This is to make it more obvious that it is a link.
  • "Books" link added to finishing page of kepubs

Bugs that have not been fixed:
  • Annotations - Have not fixed the problem with reopening epub on the main memory messing up the percent read and the chapter the book is in.
  • Fonts - Kobo Nickel, Ryumin and Gothic still have the same problems.
  • "Date added" sorting in a collection is still wrong.
  • SD card in Touch is not recognized after a restart.
  • Caching of covers is unchanged.

I have already made the change to calibre to support this firmware version. Unfortunately, there won't be a calibre release this week. There probably will be one in the middle of next week. But, as the only change needed was an update to the supported firmware and database versions, you can safely use the "Attempt to support newer firmware versions" option in the driver.
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