Firmware 4.23.15505

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I'm fine with it since Uncle Robin reported it doesn't show up when you're actually reading.

I sometimes have insomnia. If I'm awake in the wee hours of the morning and decide to read for a little while until I can hopefully go back to sleep, I wouldn't want a clock right there at the top of the book reminding me of the time.

Like you, I don't like it when I'm actually reading. (On my Kindle Oasis, for example, I simply toggle it off to remove it from my reading screen.)

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I'm fine with it since Uncle Robin reported it doesn't show up when you're actually reading.

...I wouldn't want a clock right there at the top of the book reminding me of the time.

Yeah, I wouldn't want a persistent clock. That would feel like the opposite of being able to lose yourself in a good (or even mediocre) book.

[Elektron]

Aw. I really hate the new layout. Is there a way to disable updates?

[rashkae]

I like the tabs to switch between My Book and Home,, and I'm sure Discover for the people who use it, so that's great. I *love* the manage books interface.

As someone who has in the past struggled to help Elderly relatives with using an e-reader, once again making changes to the the interface in a regular update without *very* compelling reasons is... bad. But that's a industry wide problem and not specific to Kobo in any way.

Here's my biggest annoyance with the removal of the top left all in one menu. When I'm reading a book, I sometimes like to open the full page activity report. A few generations ago, that was tap to open controls, tap top left menu, Choose Activity. The only annoyance here is that Activity screen had no back button, so once there, you had to go Home or My Books and re-open your book.

Now, while reading, it's tap for controls, Tap for Back to Home (or Back to Books), Tap more for menu, then tap Activity. (going back to book is the same).

Since this is about the only time I notice the lack of menu in normal usage, it would probably work well to simply extend the in-book progress tab to include time read and whole book progress bar.

[davidfor]

As has been noticed, firmware version 4.23.15505 has been released. This should be going to all the devices since the Touch except for the Mini. The rollout will follow Kobo's usual pattern

The changes that I know of are:

• Redesign home page and lists:
  • Menu removed from top left.
  • Tabs added at bottom for "Home", "My Books", "Discover" and "More".
  • Clock displayed at the top left where the menu was.
  • The "More" tab has:
    • My Article (Pocket)
    • Activity
    • Beta Features (moved from Settings)
    • Settings
    • Help
• Lists now use scrollbar on the right side..
  • When dragging the "pill", "Page x of y" is displayed over the list.
• "View release notes" added to the Device information page of the Settings.
• Work done on translations. I don't know what was done, just that it was commented on in the beta list.
• Vertical swipe when reading opens the menu. This is not new, just something I noticed during the beta and can't remember anyone commenting on here.

I do not know of any other changes. If I find more, I will add them here.

calibre
For calibre, there are no changes except to bump the supported firmware version. I will be making this change ready for the next release. For those who do not want to update the calibre version, it is safe to use the "Attempt to support newer firmware" option in the drivers.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

There is now a "notifications" indicator, though I have no new notifications currently, I'm not sure what would go here other than maybe overdrive book loans which are about to expire, or new firmware waiting (I doubt this last one though). This indicator is an outline of a bell, I don't know what it'd look like if I had a notification for the previously stated reason.

The notification icon will be there if the device is logged into OverDrive. As others have commented, it has been in the firmware for at least two firmware releases. The use I know of is to show if there are holds now available. And I think it gets an exclamation mark in it.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The notification icon will be there if the device is logged into OverDrive. As others have commented, it has been in the firmware for at least two firmware releases. The use I know of is to show if there are holds now available. And I think it gets an exclamation mark in it.

This tracks with why I haven’t paid it enough mind. I can’t recall the last book I had to wait for, having two major library systems to pick from has its perks.

[rashkae]

Not displaying the page number on large lists, (like My books) will make it much harder to return to where you were, in those cases where you jump around. Even though the scroll bar can be used in lieu of typing the page number, you'll have to guess what 'page' were at. I would have probably appreciated the scroll bar more if the display was actually able to scroll, instead of being just paginated anyway.

[LucyOne]

Could someone post a few screenshots of the changes to make it easier for the undecided? Would be much appreciated.

[djazz]

Here are some screenshots of the new firmware on my Kobo Glo HD. I think it looks good, only thing I'm missing is page numbers when content is paginated (My Books, Authors, Series, Collections...)

Also the browser is in a popup, which makes it smaller :/

I don't notice anything different in the reading view, where most time is spent anyways

[mathil]

Originally Posted by djazz

Here are some screenshots of the new firmware on my Kobo Glo HD. I think it looks good, only thing I'm missing is page numbers when content is paginated (My Books, Authors, Series, Collections...)

I don't notice anything different in the reading view, where most time is spent anyways

I also updated my Glo HD (since it's not my main reader) and I too haven't noticed any differences in the reading screen - the clock only comes up in the right-hand side of the screen next to the battery indicator whenever the menu is brought up, the same as in the previous firmware if I'm not mistaken.

It is true that the page number isn't shown directly at the bottom of the screen in the Books/Author/etc. tabs but if you put your finger on the scroll bar and, well, scroll, a tab will come up showing [current page / total page number].

Personal opinion: Clock - good, Menu - don't like it. It just... doesn't look good. I can see how it would be easier to press/access the home/my books tabs from the bottom but does it have to look like that? It also takes up an awful lot of space and makes the Books/Authors etc. pages look very crowded IMO.

[djazz]

Originally Posted by mathil

It is true that the page number isn't shown directly at the bottom of the screen in the Books/Author/etc. tabs but if you put your finger on the scroll bar and, well, scroll, a tab will come up showing [current page / total page number].

oooh, I didn't know you could actually scroll like that that's neat, and it shows the number of pages while scrolling, not completely lost after all.

[Cyfranek]

My Kobo Forma with new firmware can't connect to any wi-fi: "Unable to join... Please try again".

[Update: it works fine after reboot]

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rashkae

I like the tabs to switch between My Book and Home,, and I'm sure Discover for the people who use it, so that's great. I *love* the manage books interface.

As someone who has in the past struggled to help Elderly relatives with using an e-reader, once again making changes to the the interface in a regular update without *very* compelling reasons is... bad. But that's a industry wide problem and not specific to Kobo in any way.

Here's my biggest annoyance with the removal of the top left all in one menu. When I'm reading a book, I sometimes like to open the full page activity report. A few generations ago, that was tap to open controls, tap top left menu, Choose Activity. The only annoyance here is that Activity screen had no back button, so once there, you had to go Home or My Books and re-open your book.

Now, while reading, it's tap for controls, Tap for Back to Home (or Back to Books), Tap more for menu, then tap Activity. (going back to book is the same).

Since this is about the only time I notice the lack of menu in normal usage, it would probably work well to simply extend the in-book progress tab to include time read and whole book progress bar.

Maybe NickelMenu can help with the Activity problem.

[jsessions]

I've updated my backup reader (Glo) as I run that reader without any patches. I haven't really seen anything I like about the new layout, I liked the old top-left menu and while tabbed menu may save a finger tap now and then it's not worth sacrificing part of the screen display for IMHO. I also preferred MiniClock to the new clock as it's persistent across activities and is configurable.