Kobo future firmware feature request thread

[BryanK]

Originally Posted by John F

Isn't this thread for the first two Kobos (and NOT for the touch, mini, or Glo)?

Why yes, it is But I guess if they don't even rate tags then we can't be surprised when the thread gets hijacked.

BTW, what ever happened to those updates that were supposed to go into beta testing a while back?
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=153644

[rashkae]

<Wrong thread, sorry>

[irow]

forget new features, just fix all teh damn bugs in the current kobo glo instead adding more half-assed crap to the reader that might not even work properly.

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Seems to be a lot of wasted space at the bottom of the screen, more than is needed for a simple page number, especialy if you use a small font, I have nook simple touch and the text goes anlmost to the bottom of the screen on it and it still had a page number at the bottom also.

John.

[BrainDead]

I would like dictionaries and translations in additional languages, for example Polish, Czech and some other Eastern European languages.

[ksiflhjla8]

Simple, no PDF reflow necessary:
- PDF Continuous Mode, go down one screen height when zoomed in
- PDF flip page while zoomed in

- Use full screen, hide status bar

[EldRick]

Here's one that should be in the firmware. The issue is the huge amount of wasted white space at the bottom of many pages, which is caused by stupid defaults for widow and orphan prevention.

Apparently (according to davidfor) the defaults for widow and orphan prevention are 3 and 3 (lines, I presume), which keeps the Kobo from breaking paragraphs across pages, but wastes a huge amount of display space and causes a lot of unnecessary page-turns. These default values may be appropriate for a magazine of a book, but are simply not appropriate on an e-reader, where screen space needs to be conserved, not wasted

If the defaults for both of these values were 0, perceived performance would be much better, and the annoyance factor would be greatly reduced.

Changing both values to 0 seems to work well on epubs - for the first time, text uses all the normally-wasted white space at the bottom of the screen, and goes all the way down to the menu-bar. You get several more lines/page on the average, and fewer page turns.

BIG thanks to textchimp for this one!

[textchimp]

Originally Posted by EldRick

Here's one that should be in the firmware. The issue is the huge amount of wasted white space at the bottom of many pages, which is caused by stupid defaults for widow and orphan prevention.

Apparently (according to davidfor) the defaults for widow and orphan prevention are 3 and 3 (lines, I presume), which keeps the Kobo from breaking paragraphs across pages, but wastes a huge amount of display space and causes a lot of unnecessary page-turns. These default values may be appropriate for a magazine of a book, but are simply not appropriate on an e-reader, where screen space needs to be conserved, not wasted

If the defaults for both of these values were 0, perceived performance would be much better, and the annoyance factor would be greatly reduced.

Changing both values to 0 seems to work well on epubs - for the first time, text uses all the normally-wasted white space at the bottom of the screen, and goes all the way down to the menu-bar. You get several more lines/page on the average, and fewer page turns.

BIG thanks to textchimp for this one!

Actually, it looks like there are two problems here. The first is the issue with the default settings for widows & orphans, which seems like it can be improved by setting them both to 0 in the CSS conversion settings in Calibre or similar.

The other problem is to do with the huge amount of space that's wasted due to a layout bug, where a paragraph ends in the middle of the page, and the next does not start until the next page. This seems to happen when the next paragraph (the one that begins on the next page) is itself longer than a page. I read somewhere on this website that this is a problem with the Adobe Digital Editions software on the Kobo that renders the page layout. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be affected by changing the widows/orphans settings, and it's an embarrassingly huge bug for such a popular & high-profile ereader. Maybe Kobo could let us know when they're planning on fixing this?

Also, how about that option for fullscreen mode, i.e. no space reserved at the bottom of the screen for page numbers or the menubar? That's 10% of the screen space wasted for every page...

[yack33]

The font size can be changed books but the font remains unchanged and menus too small.

In general, if you change the font size is that the smaller sizes are illegible to the reader, it must therefore also applies to the menus to some extent if they are illegible for this player

For my mother, I have to put a font size of 66% on the slider and it unreadable menus and page being bottom of the screen.
This is a certain gene and must call made ​​to another person to read the current page or on the menu.

Is there an advanced menu that I have not seen this feature or should it wait for the next software release of IL KOBO

version of my kobo glo 2.1.5 (r43939, 10/12/12)

[tshering]

Adjustable font size for menus and dictionary screens is of greatest importance for weak-eyed Kobo users. Please do not ignore the needs of this group.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by tshering

Adjustable font size for menus and dictionary screens is of greatest importance for weak-eyed Kobo users. Please do not ignore the needs of this group.

Hear hear.

[TechniSol]

If adjustable font sizes for the interface are impractical because of design & layout concerns, then a mode where the text can be selectively enlarged like a magnifier mode probably wouldn't be the worst compromise...

I imagine that being able to enlarge the interface text would also entail having to code all the touch screen hotspots as relatively sized fields if they aren't already, which could be a lot of work.

The above said, I'm not getting younger(had to get glasses to pass the eye test for my license renewal this year -nearsighted a bit at 47, but still...) so I'd like to see adjustable interface text sizing as well, or at least the option to switch the device to a custom mode with an emphasis on LARGE font sized interface for someday in my case. It might be simpler to code an alternate large sized interface rather than a fully relative one depending on how things are already done. At least that way they could maintain control of how the device looks to others rather than taking a chance of letting people select sizing that might make the device interface look downright awful.

[Lynx-lynx]

I read non-fiction books, a lot - and on the Glo I can't access the notes which are usually in superscript adjacent to the text that it relates to.

There are several reasons why I can't access the notes:

- when I touch or lightly depress the superscript then depending on where they appear on the page I am likely to bring up the menu choice bar, or

- turn the page either forward or back

The superscript note has a line under it - which should indicate that by depressing the character it would take you to the part of the book where the Notes are - in fact nothing happens except to engage the sub menu or page bar.

So Kobo - you need to address this issue - it's pretty basic and one that other ereader makers seem to do without problems.

Of course, once you are in the Notes section then you should be able to re-touch the Note number and be returned to the page you were on.

It goes without saying zoom should also be a standard feature and be able to be accessed via a pinch method on the screen or the menus.

I don't just mean a Kepub - I mean it should work for all books that have been downloaded onto the Glo.

That's my 2 cents worth .... pretty darn basic and I would have thought that these sorts of things would have been addressed eons ago. Mmmmmm .....

[Liriel]

please reset the lower bar to that from version 2.2.1 and lower.
kill the percent monitor and make the button Library come back.

its a horror that can not go back to the shelves and must go through the start screen.
please return the libary button or set a option to change it.


and make the firmware faster at 2.3.2 ist slower as beforeand not only a little bit.

im back on 2.2.1 because its faster and the libary button in the lower bar are back.

[justywusty]

I actually love the new % and quick stats! Please don't get rid of them!!!

Originally Posted by Liriel

please reset the lower bar to that from version 2.2.1 and lower.
kill the percent monitor and make the button Library come back.

its a horror that can not go back to the shelves and must go through the start screen.
please return the libary button or set a option to change it.


and make the firmware faster at 2.3.2 ist slower as beforeand not only a little bit.

im back on 2.2.1 because its faster and the libary button in the lower bar are back.