Using external keyboard with KOReader's Text Editor

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by kaspar

Wow! I'm sorry I didn't notice! Thank you for your work on all of this. It has really gotten me interested in what can be done from here.

Over the past three days I've spent about 15 hours of attention cross compiling Abiword 2.8.6 (old GTK 2 version), and just got it to launch!!! Keyboard works if launched from Kaul, but not from kterm (text typed ends up in kterm instead of Abiword). I can hardly believe it. There was so much trial and error. Now I need to fix dialog windows (titles) and so many other things. I will share this when I get it working better.

Here's a picture!

[mergen3107]

It say font is “Times New Roman”, but typed text is definitely not it more like Bookerly

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by mergen3107

It say font is “Times New Roman”, but typed text is definitely not it more like Bookerly

Good catch. Times New Roman is the default font for Abiword. I think it says that at the top when I open a file or create a new one, but font selection is definitely working. It's using the system fonts just like a normal Linux distribution would. Does Times New Roman even exist on the Kindle Scribe? It could be calling a font that isn't there.

[mergen3107]

Err, I don’t think so because it is licensed by Microsoft? I’ll double check.
So it doesn’t have a fallback mechanism? Like you know when you type a glyph that this font doesn’t have it replaces the font to the ones which has it. Or just the UI doesn’t update

[mergen3107]

Err, it isn’t so straightforward with the license.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/an...n-font-license

One thing I know for sure is that Kindles don’t come with Times New Roman bundled

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by mergen3107

Err, I don’t think so because it is licensed by Microsoft? I’ll double check.
So it doesn’t have a fallback mechanism? Like you know when you type a glyph that this font doesn’t have it replaces the font to the ones which has it. Or just the UI doesn’t update

Right now when the application is launched it says Times New Roman, but it does default to some system font so typing can begin right away without setup. I didn't do that on purpose, so it's an Abiword fallback. Eventually I'll look at the code and change the default font that Abiword calls to one that is present on all Kindles.

When I open Abiword on my Fedora PC install, it's also Times New Roman.

Also, the more I use it in portrait mode, the more I like it. It's like typing on an interactive piece of paper.

Edit: All I need to do is deploy it with a modified normal.awt (Abiword's default template) to be Bookerly instead of Times New Roman.

[kbarni]

Originally Posted by kaspar

Here's a picture!

That's really neat!

Note that Kindle's GTK2 implementation lacks the standard icons (like open, save, print...), that's why the toolbar buttons are invisible.
Unfortunately you'll have to rewrite the buttons with custom icons.

Some advice: use the material icons collection to get custom icons. Then, convert them to header files using gdk-pixbuf-csource. Then, replace the toolbar buttons to custom buttons using the icons you created.
Use AI to automate this task, it should be able to handle it.

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by kbarni

That's really neat!

Note that Kindle's GTK2 implementation lacks the standard icons (like open, save, print...), that's why the toolbar buttons are invisible.
Unfortunately you'll have to rewrite the buttons with custom icons.

Some advice: use the material icons collection to get custom icons. Then, convert them to header files using gdk-pixbuf-csource. Then, replace the toolbar buttons to custom buttons using the icons you created.
Use AI to automate this task, it should be able to handle it.

I'm really far down the rabbit hole with this. Here's a screenshot from two days ago since I don't have my Scribe with me. I have icons working (albeit they're tiny), but that's fine with me. They work with the stylus. I have since gotten spell check and copy/paste working. Need to fix a few more bugs.

One bug is interesting, you'll see in the screenshot. (I figured out how to take screenshots). The Shift + C for example. Kterm doesn't have that problem, so WordGrinder doesn't either. I'm investigating it. For now I hit caps lock for a single letter to do a capital C.

I wrote a three page document in testing, and I can see real work getting done with this.

Also, I think it should run on other Kindle models. I have an Oasis but I actually use that for reading so it isn't jailbroken. I'll release an alpha of this soon.

[mergen3107]

Woah this legit looks good on the Scribe!

[kaspar]

Today I fixed a really tricky bug that crashed Abiword when a new document was saved for the first time (it did save successfully, but it crashed after).

Another thing I did was something I always planned/wanted, I mapped the F12 key to manually refresh the display using eips -f ''

That's a feature on my Pomera DM30 that I use a lot. It's lovely to have it on the Scribe. This is now much more capable than the Pomera.

So I just need to fix the Shift + certain capital letters problem that causes Kindle system functions to happen instead of printing a capital C in Abiword for example. I already looked at the kterm code to see how it's handled.

Then I will clean everything up and write a deploy script and make a new thread for this project. And an Alpha release.

[kbarni]

Oh, you just have to ask I have a solution for the Shift+C bug.

I think it's a leftover from the old keyboard Kindle models, where Shift was used as a modifier key, so Shift-C was mapped to Copy, Shift-F to find...Anyway, Lab126 borked the GTK-IM library and deleted the fallback solutions.

The solution is to get the events directly from the system, bypassing the GTK-IM library.

See this commit that solves the issue for the GTK version of Textadept.

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by kbarni

Oh, you just have to ask I have a solution for the Shift+C bug.

I think it's a leftover from the old keyboard Kindle models, where Shift was used as a modifier key, so Shift-C was mapped to Copy, Shift-F to find...Anyway, Lab126 borked the GTK-IM library and deleted the fallback solutions.

The solution is to get the events directly from the system, bypassing the GTK-IM library.

See this commit that solves the issue for the GTK version of Textadept.

I got it! Thanks!

[kaspar]

Okay, here is Alpha 0.1. This was designed for the Kindle Scribe, but feel free to try it on a Oasis or anything with an armhf software version and Bluetooth. Let me know if it works on other devices. This is Abiword version 2.8.6, which is a 15 year old release. I used it because it uses the same old GTK version as the Kindle.

For writing, I think this first release is quite stable. Do be sure to save your work often just in case, either with CTRL + S or File, Save.

Abiword for Kindle Scribe Alpha 0.1

Features:

- Write real documents on the Kindle
- Native armhf port
- Import/Export .rtf, .doc.
- Spell check
- Word count
- Copy/Paste
- Make tables
- Refresh the display on demand with the F12 key
- Probably more things that I'm forgetting
- Get documents off of your Kindle via USB from the abidocs folder, or add documents to edit.

Known bugs:

- Export to PDF results in a gibberish document. I will fix it.
- I haven't tested any documents that contain images. I suspect it will break.
- Please report bugs.

Install:

You will need a jailbroken Kindle that supports Bluetooth running an armhf software version (I am on 5.18.3). You will need Kaul and Kindle HID Passthrough, and probably kterm.

Extract and bring the installabiword folder into your Kaul extensions folder, run Abiword Installer, wait for it to finish. Then go back to Kaul where you will see Abiword. Connect a Bluetooth keyboard before using...

First launch takes 30+ seconds looking like it isn't doing anything before launching, so be patient. It launches quickly after first launch.

Notes:

Right now there are literally 1800+ GTK icon files, but they are only about 5mb. That's what takes the installer so long. I need to root out which icons are actually needed. It's only using a handful of them, the rest are embedded.

Everything is contained in the extracted /mnt/us/kindle_abiword folder, except for documents. Documents will save into the created /mnt/us/abidocs folder.

Feel free to report bugs. I will do a proper post later and probably make a github with the source.

Be sure to try out the F12 display refresh on demand. I left the default font size at 12, but personally I find 18+ more comfortable to work with.

You will notice that the words flicker while you type. I think this is for the best, as it produces the best readability once you stop typing. I think you will get used to it, as I have.

I’m a big fan of Abiword. I’ve been using it for more than twenty years. It’s one of the first things I install on Linux. I like its purist word processor functionality without the modern bloat.

Thanks to the Abiword team, zampierilucas, kbarni, bfabiszewski, the Koreader team, and Kindle Modding Wiki.

[mergen3107]

Do you wanna collaborate with Kindle Modding Community with Kindle Package Manager? It can be installed with “;kpm install abiword”, for example.

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by mergen3107

Do you wanna collaborate with Kindle Modding Community with Kindle Package Manager? It can be installed with “;kpm install abiword”, for example.

Sure! Once it gets out of alpha. I do think this first version is very usable. I've written many pages and it has never crashed on me in the middle of typing.