Accessing Wikipedia with Kobo Wi-Fi (How-To)

[ltr]

Yeah, fair enough. I have to say e-mail would be kinda useful.

ltr

[zoran]

Originally Posted by JP36

As 'just a reader' it seems to be very good, SD card is big plus IMO over the Kindle along with others, but for nearly the same money other products do the same thing, and offer more, to me this doesn't 'make sense'.

I guess manufacturers simply loose money on the reader itself. They
earn on books they sell. Extra features would be of no value to them.
This is a circle that leads to better devices every year. Or to the per-
fect and expensive device. Which one would you get?

[Cyberman tM]

Why do I always find these threads when they are long dead? Well, better late than never.

At least on my device, there is no folder .kobo/kobo/ anymore - now it's .kobo/Borders Desktop/
And a file called "Borders Desktop eReader.conf" which replaces the kobo.conf .

It still works, though, just tried mobile.wikipedia.org .

All you need to replace is the WebstoreURL, like this:
WebstoreURL=http://mobile.wikipedia.org/?

then use the shop button and select "home" .

There's also settings for Poker and Blackjack, but I think these are only used when you start them the first time, if at all.

[edit]Damnation, it's not working anymore. I KNOW it worked yesterday.

[foldor]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Why do I always find these threads when they are long dead? Well, better late than never.

At least on my device, there is no folder .kobo/kobo/ anymore - now it's .kobo/Borders Desktop/
And a file called "Borders Desktop eReader.conf" which replaces the kobo.conf .

It still works, though, just tried mobile.wikipedia.org .

All you need to replace is the WebstoreURL, like this:
WebstoreURL=http://mobile.wikipedia.org/?

then use the shop button and select "home" .

There's also settings for Poker and Blackjack, but I think these are only used when you start them the first time, if at all.

[edit]Damnation, it's not working anymore. I KNOW it worked yesterday.

Hey, I'm glad to see someone finds a use for this

As for the fact that it's not working anymore? I'm pretty sure if you resync your library with the Kobo software then it overwrites your configuration file. So you will need to change the URL again. One possible way to prevent this from happening is to mark it as read-only, but I'm not sure the implications for syncing.

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by foldor

As for the fact that it's not working anymore? I'm pretty sure if you resync your library with the Kobo software then it overwrites your configuration file. So you will need to change the URL again. One possible way to prevent this from happening is to mark it as read-only, but I'm not sure the implications for syncing.

I think I edited the wrong line or not enough of them. Replacing all seems to work fine, but it should suffice to change just one.

[orange!]

Originally Posted by ltr

...Why would anyone want the internet in black and white is beyond me. The Kobo is a book reader.

Really? You're never reading and come across a word or phrase, or a place name or a person's name, and think, "gee, I'd like to know a little more about that"? That happens to me pretty often, depending on what I'm reading. For example, in the book I'm reading now, I'd love to be able to lookup up some of the place names and get some historical context about the Napoleanic wars without putting down my reader!

My K3 supports wikipedia, but the process of selecting the interesting text is so klunky. So I bought a Nook STR and really dig the touch screen and how easy it is to select a word to do dictionary lookup, but access to wikipedia isn't integrated (e.g. after you select a word, I want one of the menu options to be "wikipedia ". But it ain't there. ).

My question here was going to be "would I be happier with a Kobo Touch" in this regard, but based on the comments in this thread, I take it that the answer is no, at least for now. I get the impression that Kobo development is pretty responsive, though. So now my question is "does anyone know if wikipedia support is on Kobo development radar?".

I still have 10 days left to return my STR, which I'd probably do if the Kobo is a better choice in the long run.

Thanks for any comments you have about my dilemma.

[robko]

Originally Posted by orange!

So now my question is "does anyone know if wikipedia support is on Kobo development radar?".

I'll go out on a limb and say it's not. Kobo development is definitely responsive, but they are a wwwweeeeeeeeee bit smaller than the big guys (like Amazon) and I'm guessing this doesn't rank very high on the list. KT is an awesome reader, but it's not likely going to do what you want better than what you currently have.

[moffattm]

Hmmm, I think a Wikipedia option could be a definite possibility. The Kobo would have to let you select some text (already allows this for kepub books), select a "Wikipedia" option somewhere, then open the browser (already got a browser built in) to wikipedia.org and pass in the selected text to search on. Most of this functionality is already in the Kobo, I don't think it would take too much effort to get this working and it would be an awesome function!

[dmacmart]

Actually this works in the Kobo iPad/iPhone app! When you bring up the dictionary, you also have links for Google and Wikipedia for the same word. Not beyond the realm of hope that it may come to the eReader yet.