Dictionary lookups persisted somewhere?

[lordeagle]

Hey guys,

I'm still in the warm-up phase with Kobo. Back in the Kindle days I've built a primitive Flash-Card feed from my kindle dictionary lookup history:
https://github.com/ivy-rew/kindle-voca

To start with, one of my most loved features of the kindle was stored in it's sqlite db. Reading books in foreign language automatically created a history of the words that I have looked up in a dictionary ... so obviously I didn't know these words and should learn them somewhen

Now I've tried to built something the like based on my Kobo readings. As far as I see the .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite doesn't store my history lookups. All I can get from there are bookmarks:

sqlite3 KoboReader.sqlite "Select * FROM Bookmark"

I also saw that there is a '.kobo/BookReader.sqlite'. But it seem corrupt - at least I can't read it straight forwards with sqlite3. Maybe someone can tell why this doesn't work?

So finally, my real question. Is there any log on my dictionary lookups available? Or can one of the alternative readers provide that? Any hints are welcome that would help me to build flash-cards based on my reading experience.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lordeagle

I also saw that there is a '.kobo/BookReader.sqlite'. But it seem corrupt - at least I can't read it straight forwards with sqlite3. Maybe someone can tell why this doesn't work?

So finally, my real question. Is there any log on my dictionary lookups available? Or can one of the alternative readers provide that? Any hints are welcome that would help me to build flash-cards based on my reading experience.

You might want to check the /.kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf file. AFAIR, there are some search items saved there under the [General] header including a DictionaryRecentSearches= one.

The BookReader.sqlite is not corrupt but it is encrypted.

[lordeagle]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You might want to check the /.kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf file.

Cool tip. Yeah it gives at least a reference. However, watching the file via ssh while reading and looking up words - I don't see any updates. Maybe it has a strange lifecycle.

[admin@storm Kobo]# grep -A 1 "\[General\]" /mnt/onboard/.kobo/Kobo/Kobo\ eReader.conf 
[General]
DictionaryRecentSearches=imaginative, test

But anyway. It's a good starting point - but still far from the information that I had on Kindle. Hope there's something more available anywhere...

Originally Posted by DNSB

The BookReader.sqlite is not corrupt but it is encrypted.

any hints how to read it anyway?

[NiLuJe]

I'd take a look at the dreaded "Event" table, there might be one for lookups?

(Again, it's not live, it's updated in bursts according to arcane rules we don't really know about).

----

You really shouldn't care about the small encrypted DB, it's encrypted for a reason, and doesn't contain anything relevant to your interests, AFAIK (it's for Overdrive stuff mainly, right?)

[lordeagle]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

I'd take a look at the dreaded "Event" table, there might be one for lookups?

(Again, it's not live, it's updated in bursts according to arcane rules we don't really know about).

Yet I don't see any dict lookup data in there. Mainly just references to the file's/books I'm accessing

----

I think I've just found evidence on a dictionary history feature in KoReader: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/pull/3161

It's about time to install it and give it a try.

[jackie_w]

@lordeagle,

There's also a hidden beta feature you can try, called MyWords. You can enable it by adding

[FeatureSettings]
MyWords=true

to the Kobo config file. Possibly needs a reboot afterwards.

If the config already contains a [FeatureSettings] section you only need to add the second line.

ETA: When you look-up a word the dictionary popup has an extra button top-right 'Add to My Words', Then you can look at the words you've stored via More > Activity > My Words tab

These words are stored in your KoboReader.sqlite database in the WordList table

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lordeagle

any hints how to read it anyway?

Sorry but no.

[lordeagle]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

There's also a hidden beta feature you can try, called MyWords. You can enable it by adding

[FeatureSettings]
MyWords=true

Wow this was a hot tip. Here's how the feauture looks in action:




I think the button to actively add it to 'myWords' is even preferable to the Kindle variant, back there I had a lot of false positive cards just as I accidentally marked words from time to time. ... so I had to burry these flash-cards later on the mobile device.

To make it perfect it would be great to have a reference to the real text-position where the word occurred in the book. I really love to see a real quote, ... real context of my real reads when learning cards.
But eventually I can patch that with a search in the referenced book when I produce the feed for the cards. To start with, a simple fuzzy search should bring a similar feature.