What happened to Landscape setting on Oasis?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Is your Oasis registered? The "Personalize Your Kindle" menu appeared after I registered mine.

Nope.

I thought it would come pre-registered (it's a loaner review unit) but apparently not.

I never connected it to Wifi, so it is technically unregistered.

Edit: And Thanks!

[HarryT]

That would certainly explain it! A lot of the menu items on the Kindle only appear when it's registered. Sorry, it didn't occur to me that your device might not be registered.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would certainly explain it! A lot of the menu items on the Kindle only appear when it's registered. Sorry, it didn't occur to me that your device might not be registered.

Me, neither!

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The row of dots indicating the length of a book disappeared a long time ago in firmware 5.7. Amazon have indicated, though, that it will be back again in a future firmware release because many people have asked for it.

I hope they keep the percentage counter too. I find that much more useful! (I know this makes me a heretic and lower than the lowest beast.)

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by NullNix

I hope they keep the percentage counter too. I find that much more useful! (I know this makes me a heretic and lower than the lowest beast.)

That makes two of us. Is that enough heretics to start a religion?

Still, % is also not great, I'm no heretic about that opinion. I assume (having checked a few of my books) it is computed something very much like this:

(currentLocation/totalLocations)*100, rounded to nearest whole number

But to make sense of the % you would also need to know total number of locations (not to mention knowing what a location is), which is what the dots attempted to convey, but fail to do so (because it is not a linear scale, and seems to be a 'dynamic' scale at that, seems to depend on the biggest book you happen to have on the device). Moreover, the dots don't work so well on Grid View, because they must obscure some significant portion of the precious cover images, even as the dot scale gets even cruder.

So I would propose displaying the 'missing piece of data' by mapping Reading Progress Preference to something like the following (with List View):

"Book A: 74%, 72 pages remaining" (if RPP=Page in book)
-or-
"Book A: 74%, 45m remaining" (if RPP=Time left in chapter or in book)
-or-
"Book A: 74% of 3667 locations" (if RPP=Location in book)
-or-
"Book A: 74%" (if RPP=None)

For both List and Grid view, have the '⋮' button that brings up the book options display this same reading progress text in the heading under Title/Author.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by tomsem

-or-
"Book A: 74%" (if RPP=None)

-or-
"Book A" (if RP==none)

It bugs the hell out of me to see the stupid % when I set it to not show within the book.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

-or-
"Book A" (if RP==none)

It bugs the hell out of me to see the stupid % when I set it to not show within the book.

Yes, that does seem inconsistent.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by tomsem

But to make sense of the % you would also need to know total number of locations (not to mention knowing what a location is), which is what the dots attempted to convey, but fail to do so (because it is not a linear scale, and seems to be a 'dynamic' scale at that, seems to depend on the biggest book you happen to have on the device). Moreover, the dots don't work so well on Grid View, because they must obscure some significant portion of the precious cover images, even as the dot scale gets even cruder.

Agreed: your suggestions seem extremely sensible, and are the only real equivalent to the "how thick is the hunk of book that's left" which the dots poorly conveyed and the percentage only conveys if you already know whether this is a Kindle Single or War and Peace. (If you started reading it, you probably *do* already know, but with the dots you didn't have to look it up the way you do now!)

[emellaich]

A little off topic but,

I don't like novellas or short stories so I tend to stay away from books less than 200 pages. One pet peeve of mine is when authors pad the page count on short books by adding multiple "sneak peeks" at the end. I have seen books where 75% is the end of the book and the rest is filler.

[Yolina]

I have a couple of ideas for the dots and % thing but because it's all actually quite sensible, I can't see Amazon implementing either

1) add an option to have a choice of dots, %, or nothing displayed; or
2) if a book hasn't been started, show the dots to give people a feel of how big a book is - you know like when you look at a pbook - but switch to display % once a book has been started

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Yolina

I have a couple of ideas for the dots and % thing but because it's all actually quite sensible, I can't see Amazon implementing either

1) add an option to have a choice of dots, %, or nothing displayed; or
2) if a book hasn't been started, show the dots to give people a feel of how big a book is - you know like when you look at a pbook - but switch to display % once a book has been started

2a) unless you are only on page 1 or 2, meaning that you opened the book by accident, or opened it but decided it wasn't what you were in the mood for. Then I would still like the dots (or equivalent) to show me how big the whole book it, for the next time when I am scanning through and looking for a short/long read. (Rather than when I'm already in a series, and I know what book I want next, regardless of how long it is.)

[newkindlefun]

Originally Posted by emellaich

A little off topic but,

I don't like novellas or short stories so I tend to stay away from books less than 200 pages. One pet peeve of mine is when authors pad the page count on short books by adding multiple "sneak peeks" at the end. I have seen books where 75% is the end of the book and the rest is filler.

I'd bet my left ovary that most of those are Kindle Unlimited authors. More pages = more money. If they can pad it out, it's good for them.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by newkindlefun

I'd bet my left ovary that most of those are Kindle Unlimited authors. More pages = more money. If they can pad it out, it's good for them.

Publishers, including the big 5, have been adding padding like that long before KU was a thing, but yes it does seem to be prolific among some KU authors.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by emellaich

A little off topic but,

I don't like novellas or short stories so I tend to stay away from books less than 200 pages. One pet peeve of mine is when authors pad the page count on short books by adding multiple "sneak peeks" at the end. I have seen books where 75% is the end of the book and the rest is filler.

Oh God I hate that. Here I am at the fag end of a book, oh looky there's 20 pages to go that's nice to know I guess there's quite a few loose ends the author needs to tie up I can enjoy reading for half an hour more, then BOOM the story ends within the next couple of pages. Ends the entire reading experience on an anti-climactic note.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Oh God I hate that. Here I am at the fag end of a book, oh looky there's 20 pages to go that's nice to know I guess there's quite a few loose ends the author needs to tie up I can enjoy reading for half an hour more, then BOOM the story ends within the next couple of pages. Ends the entire reading experience on an anti-climactic note.

Even worse is "buy my next book to see what happens".
I don't mind a teaser like what will the protagonist get into next but at least resolve something.
The worst one had to be when not only did the author not resolve anything but threw in a second problem at the end.
The author had heard leave your book on a cliffhanger so the reader will have to buy the next one.