Aura HD Last read books in launcher?

[flips01]

Much has been said/written about the new tile-based homepage/launcher.
I think it's OK, even if I get tired of dismissing some tiles every now and then.

But I was wondering: Shouldn't it show/keep my last read 2-3 books?
(I might have dismissed the books back when I added ~100 books, to clean the homepage.)
Now I only see a book I read 4 days ago, and none of the previous 4-6 books I've been reading/opening ...

Hm, wait ... if I sync with kobo, then my three last read books appears as tiles. It shouldn't be nescessary to sync with Kobo to get the Homepage updated.(!?) I plan on having wifi disabled most of the time to save battery ...
A workaround is creating a separate shelf for Currently reading, but that's not optimal, IMHO.

(Sorry if this is covered in the giant thread, I'm at least 20 pages behind there by now ...)

[taming]

If you click on library==>books, and your sort is recently read, chances are that your last read books will not be hard to find unless you have been adding lots of new books to the device.

It is interesting how differently people want things to be. I archive Kobo purchased books I have finished and delete my sideloaded books, unless there is a reason I still want them close at hand. In that case, they are usually on a shelf that makes them easy to locate, for example: book club or work.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by flips01

But I was wondering: Shouldn't it show/keep my last read 2-3 books?
(I might have dismissed the books back when I added ~100 books, to clean the homepage.)
Now I only see a book I read 4 days ago, and none of the previous 4-6 books I've been reading/opening ...

So after you dismissed the title, did you open those 4-6 books again? If so, they surely should be displayed on the home screen (by recreating the tiles). At least, that works that way on mine without any trouble.
I hope you'll solve that soon

[flips01]

Originally Posted by taming

If you click on library==>books, and your sort is recently read, chances are that your last read books will not be hard to find unless you have been adding lots of new books to the device.

Good point!

[flips01]

Originally Posted by samhy

So after you dismissed the title, did you open those 4-6 books again? If so, they surely should be displayed on the home screen (by recreating the tiles). At least, that works that way on mine without any trouble.
I hope you'll solve that soon

I sure did. I've been reading two different books and looking up stuff in three or four others, many times since I dismissed those "New book" tiles.
It all worked as you would expect as soon as I synced. No sync, no tiles of the last read books updated, it seems.
Maybe it was a glitch. I had to pinhole the device when I turned off wifi. So it's not completely stable.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by flips01

I sure did. I've been reading two different books and looking up stuff in three or four others, many times since I dismissed those "New book" tiles.
It all worked as you would expect as soon as I synced. No sync, no tiles of the last read books updated, it seems.
Maybe it was a glitch. I had to pinhole the device when I turned off wifi. So it's not completely stable.

Good Sorry for stating the obvious, but sometimes it's so obvious that it's dismissed too quickly

[flips01]

Originally Posted by samhy

Good Sorry for stating the obvious, but sometimes it's so obvious that it's dismissed too quickly

Seems to be very connected to syncing. I connected the device to my laptop and Kobo Desktop, and it synced. After that, the last read tile is the book I quickly opened on my desktop. And opening other books locally on the Aura won't update any tile ... Weird ...

(Not that it's the end of the world or anything.)

[flips01]

If I open a book I got from Kobo's store/my account, the last read tiles are updated right away. If I open other kePubs, the tiles are unchanged until next sync with Kobo ...

[davidfor]

What happens if you open something else? Say, a standard epub, a shelf or a game. Do the tiles get updated straight away?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by flips01

If I open a book I got from Kobo's store/my account, the last read tiles are updated right away. If I open other kePubs, the tiles are unchanged until next sync with Kobo ...

My home page seems pretty random. The library thing works and the shelf opening works, but different shelves all of the time.

The shelf thing is easy to explain in that I browse different shelves frequently when deciding what to read even if I have to hit the shelf button and go for coffee

I read 4-10 books per week and sometimes (more than once a week) open a shelf/book and decide that is not what I am in the mood for, but often I will dismiss a shelf and a shelf I have never read from pops up or one I read a book from over a month ago pops up.

These shelves are not totally random as I believe I have at least actually opened them, but they aren't last in firstout or based on date accessed although frequently accessed seem to mostly be the case. The shelf I access the most comes back the most, but it also dissapears the most.
So I think Kobo keeps a list of shelves/icons, but I have no idea how they chose the one to replace the one you dismiss. Perhaps they attempt to sort them alphabetically and end up with random results.

Helen

[davidfor]

I have been looking at the tiles and how they work. Partly for curiosity and partly because I found a couple of problems with the calibre driver interaction. Plus the Sync tile peeves me. Here is how I see it working.

There is a table called "Activity". This records what you have done recently. The table has the following columns:

• "Type" is the type of tile. The common ones are "RecentBook", "Shelf", "Extras" and "RelatedItems". There are some single types such as "Sync" and "Library".
• "Id" holds which of the types the row refers to. For "RecentBook" it is the id of the book, for "Shelf" it is the shelf name and "Extras" it is the name of the extra so, "sudoku" or "browser". The single type rows such as "Sync" and "Library" either have blank id or a generic id of some sort.
• "Enabled" - This is either "true", will be displayed, or "false", won't be. Dismissing a tile toggles the value from "true" to "false". And yes, directly changing it in the database works.
• "Date" is the timestamp for when the activity was last done.
• "Action" is either 1 or 2. All the tiles with "1" seem to be system generated tiles: "Sync", "GlobalStats" and "RelatedItems" are some. I think they might get a higher priority for display.
• "Data" holds extra information for the tile. For a "RecentBook", it holds the how many bookmarks, and annotations the book has. For the new books tile, it is the list of ids for the added books

At its simplest, the home screen should be filled with your most recent activities that you have not dismissed. There are exceptions. The first tile is always a "RecentBook". If the "Sync" is enabled, it is always the second tile and can't be dismissed. And I think that tiles with Action=1 might be pushed up a little in the priority.

I do see some tiles that I wonder why are there. But, any time I connected and checked the database, it made sense from the timestamps. And as an experiment, I just took a copy of the database so I could look at it while using the device. Then I started dismissing tiles. The tiles that replaced them where the ones I expected based on their timestamps.

While doing the above, I realised no shelves where appearing as tiles. So, I opened a couple and no tile. Then opened one and opened a book from it. Still no tile. It looks like you have to "Manage" the shelf for it to appear. Though maybe it is a bug in the firmware I am running.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I have been looking at the tiles and how they work. Partly for curiosity and partly because I found a couple of problems with the calibre driver interaction. Plus the Sync tile peeves me. Here is how I see it working.

There is a table called "Activity". This records what you have done recently. The table has the following columns:

• "Type" is the type of tile. The common ones are "RecentBook", "Shelf", "Extras" and "RelatedItems". There are some single types such as "Sync" and "Library".
• "Id" holds which of the types the row refers to. For "RecentBook" it is the id of the book, for "Shelf" it is the shelf name and "Extras" it is the name of the extra so, "sudoku" or "browser". The single type rows such as "Sync" and "Library" either have blank id or a generic id of some sort.
• "Enabled" - This is either "true", will be displayed, or "false", won't be. Dismissing a tile toggles the value from "true" to "false". And yes, directly changing it in the database works.
• "Date" is the timestamp for when the activity was last done.
• "Action" is either 1 or 2. All the tiles with "1" seem to be system generated tiles: "Sync", "GlobalStats" and "RelatedItems" are some. I think they might get a higher priority for display.
• "Data" holds extra information for the tile. For a "RecentBook", it holds the how many bookmarks, and annotations the book has. For the new books tile, it is the list of ids for the added books

At its simplest, the home screen should be filled with your most recent activities that you have not dismissed. There are exceptions. The first tile is always a "RecentBook". If the "Sync" is enabled, it is always the second tile and can't be dismissed. And I think that tiles with Action=1 might be pushed up a little in the priority.

I do see some tiles that I wonder why are there. But, any time I connected and checked the database, it made sense from the timestamps. And as an experiment, I just took a copy of the database so I could look at it while using the device. Then I started dismissing tiles. The tiles that replaced them where the ones I expected based on their timestamps.

While doing the above, I realised no shelves where appearing as tiles. So, I opened a couple and no tile. Then opened one and opened a book from it. Still no tile. It looks like you have to "Manage" the shelf for it to appear. Though maybe it is a bug in the firmware I am running.

Interesting although I don't have the mental energy to check the database

What does 'manage shelves' involve? I don't AFAIK manage my shelves except to put books on or delete them with calibre. I get shelf tiles all the time although I rarely use them. The ones I have now are the 2 last used and one from a while back that I did open a book in but did not read. Since then I have opened books in 5 other shelves besides the ones showing according to the recently read sort on the books read in the books list. Possibly I dismissed one but I don't think so as I don't bother much with the home screen, I generally just use the shelves.

Helen

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Interesting although I don't have the mental energy to check the database

I can't resist a good database. And a bad one is even more fun

What does 'manage shelves' involve? I don't AFAIK manage my shelves except to put books on or delete them with calibre. I get shelf tiles all the time although I rarely use them. The ones I have now are the 2 last used and one from a while back that I did open a book in but did not read. Since then I have opened books in 5 other shelves besides the ones showing according to the recently read sort on the books read in the books list. Possibly I dismissed one but I don't think so as I don't bother much with the home screen, I generally just use the shelves.

I keep forgetting that I'm running beta firmware. Looks like Kobo changed "Edit" to "Manage" on the menu for the shelves. And there has been changes populating the home page.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

While doing the above, I realised no shelves where appearing as tiles. So, I opened a couple and no tile. Then opened one and opened a book from it. Still no tile. It looks like you have to "Manage" the shelf for it to appear. Though maybe it is a bug in the firmware I am running.

Shelf tiles do reliably appear on my Aura (std fw 2.5.2). I have to actually open a book from the shelf booklist page for it to appear. What I find a little strange is that the height of shelf tiles can vary, even though none of the displayed info has changed. It seems to vary depending what column they appear in and how many there are.