JBPatch

[orpheus2011]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Some of the custom fonts I use do something similar. They display a lot smaller than the fonts that came with PW. I adjusted the sizes in JBPatch to include some larger values.

Try to find the size that works for you by using every possible size: e.g. try out first sizes 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 - then change it to cover the next 8 sizes, until you got all the way to 37. Each time the framework needs restarted for the new sizes to be active.

Thanks for this. I tried playing quite a bit with file sizes, restarting the framework along the way, but it didn't yield any result. The largest font size in which the text is displayed is way above the one I have set in the JBPatch preferences window.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by orpheus2011

I thought so too, but I then tried with fonts such as Times New Roman, which work flawlessly when applied to Latin text and then fall short on the Arabic/Persian script.

It is your fonts fault. If you used Times New Roman straight out of Windows, then it would not have any arabic characters in it. The PW would than most likely fall back to a default / backup font. In Win7 at least, when you click on a font it will show in the bottom what characters it is intended for. My Times New Roman says designed for: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew. The only fonts I see on my Win7 that have arabic characters are: Andalus Regular, Arabic Typesetting Regular, Arial, Sakkal Majalla, Simplified Arabic, Simplified Arabic Fixed Regular, Traditional Arabic.

Maybe try one of those. I would be happy to test any, but it is impossible to find a mobi or azw3 that is in arabic and text only. Can't even find a quran - if you got one in english and arabic alternated that is text only, I'd be happy to get that (if it is free of course).

[orpheus2011]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

It is your fonts fault. If you used Times New Roman straight out of Windows, then it would not have any arabic characters in it. The PW would than most likely fall back to a default / backup font. In Win7 at least, when you click on a font it will show in the bottom what characters it is intended for. My Times New Roman says designed for: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew. The only fonts I see on my Win7 that have arabic characters are: Andalus Regular, Arabic Typesetting Regular, Arial, Sakkal Majalla, Simplified Arabic, Simplified Arabic Fixed Regular, Traditional Arabic.

Maybe try one of those. I would be happy to test any, but it is impossible to find a mobi or azw3 that is in arabic and text only. Can't even find a quran - if you got one in english and arabic alternated that is text only, I'd be happy to get that (if it is free of course).

Thanks for this. I will try those fonts. I have OSX and my Times New Roman fully supports Arabic script. The characters are all displayed correctly in Times New Roman, the sizes are wrong. I have attached an azw3 I have created out of open-available text on the web. These were created with Calibre. Please remove the .zip extension.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by orpheus2011

Thanks for this. I will try those fonts. I have OSX and my Times New Roman fully supports Arabic script. The characters are all displayed correctly in Times New Roman, the sizes are wrong. I have attached an azw3 I have created out of open-available text on the web. These were created with Calibre. Please remove the .zip extension.

Thank you. First things first (and a big disappointment maybe). The file looks great in each and every font I tried. Compared to the english part of it every size I tried (I only tried the ones that are standard - without custom sizes or options out of JBPatch) they look about the same size. Some fonts change the arabic font of the text. If I use any of the 6 normal fonts of the PW however, then it defaults to the embedded font that is attached. Or my guess would be that it defaults to the default font that is installed on the PW - and assuming that the font you attached to the azw3 is simply lacking arabic characters. The first 2 images (pubsmall and publarge) are screenshots of the smallest size and the 2nd largest by default PW settings with the publisher font enabled (the one that is embedded). For comparison I attached a few more with different fonts - all on the same 2nd largest size) You can see, that on some the arabic font is displayed different. For simplicity I just going to name the picture after the font I used.

Very intersting things:
- Arial (the only one that says is designed for arabic, shows the exact same font that the embedded one does)
- Times New Roman - has no arabic as expected - defaults to standard arabic - this is the windows font though, not the one out of macos
- arabic typesetting shows very beautifully - but renders slow - not sure though if it is easier to read or not it is too bad that that font only comes in reguar - no italic or bold
- both tahoma and tektron pro show different style (that looks similar to the english) even though they are not supposed to support arabic

I really can't see what your problem is, all appears to be fine on my PW.

[DuckieTigger]

Oh, orpheus2011, forgot to ask the dumbest question of them all - what firmware are you using? I am on 5.3.1 - that MIGHT make a difference if you still use 5.2.0 or 5.3.0.

[orpheus2011]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Thank you. First things first (and a big disappointment maybe). The file looks great in each and every font I tried. Compared to the english part of it every size I tried (I only tried the ones that are standard - without custom sizes or options out of JBPatch) they look about the same size. Some fonts change the arabic font of the text. If I use any of the 6 normal fonts of the PW however, then it defaults to the embedded font that is attached. Or my guess would be that it defaults to the default font that is installed on the PW - and assuming that the font you attached to the azw3 is simply lacking arabic characters. The first 2 images (pubsmall and publarge) are screenshots of the smallest size and the 2nd largest by default PW settings with the publisher font enabled (the one that is embedded). For comparison I attached a few more with different fonts - all on the same 2nd largest size) You can see, that on some the arabic font is displayed different. For simplicity I just going to name the picture after the font I used.

Very intersting things:
- Arial (the only one that says is designed for arabic, shows the exact same font that the embedded one does)
- Times New Roman - has no arabic as expected - defaults to standard arabic - this is the windows font though, not the one out of macos
- arabic typesetting shows very beautifully - but renders slow - not sure though if it is easier to read or not it is too bad that that font only comes in reguar - no italic or bold
- both tahoma and tektron pro show different style (that looks similar to the english) even though they are not supposed to support arabic

I really can't see what your problem is, all appears to be fine on my PW.

Many thanks for taking the time to do all these tests. Much appreciated. I am using all the latest firmware (5.3.1) and software versions. I get similar results, but basically am unable to get beyond 2 file sizes - the very small and very large ones. I will test further with the fonts you have used and let you know. The embedded font (B Lotus) is not being shown and is a fully Arabic/Persian compliant one. None of these screenshots shows the default font, which if I am not wrong is code2000, which has an entirely different typeface. As in my case, the font rendering is correct .

[ixtab]

Happy new year!

Here's a gift for all those Paperwhite owners who have been waiting for it: the patch to change the reader margins.

This is a standalone patch again. Simply download the attached file and copy it to the opt/jbpatch directory on the Paperwhite, then restart the Kindle framework - the fastest way is to use the "System" tab of the JBPatch UI.

Note that there are quite a few settings that you can tweak, and it's up to you to find the configuration that you like. Just remember that you have to restart the framework before you see the effect of changed settings, and also remember to read and understand the documentation before complaining that it doesn't work - it does work if you do it correctly. Finally, you can use the files from this post to verify the effect of tweaked settings for PDF documents - you can ignore much of the instructions there (they refer to an outdated version of JBPatch). Simply look at the files with the default settings, and with smaller margins, and you should see a clear difference.


ixtab

EDIT: Attachment removed. This patch is bundled with JBPatch 3.1.0.

[ixtab]

So, this is really just a minor question concerning the default settings of the hyphenation patch.

Should the default (minimal) "first syllable length" and "last syllable length" settings be left at 3 characters, or reduced to 2 characters? For most of the languages that I know, allowing two-character first syllables seems to make sense ("un-", "in-", "im-" prefixes), not sure about suffixes though (I tend to think that allowing for 2 characters also makes more sense for suffixes in most languages, but as said I'm not sure).

Keep in mind that these default settings are language-agnostic - so, what works in most (but possibly not all) languages should be the default. And of course, the setting can be changed according to individual preference anytime - I'm just asking what would be sensible defaults.

Thanks for your input!

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ixtab

Happy new year!

Here's a gift for all those Paperwhite owners who have been waiting for it: the patch to change the reader margins.

This is a standalone patch again. Simply download the attached file and copy it to the opt/jbpatch directory on the Paperwhite, then restart the Kindle framework - the fastest way is to use the "System" tab of the JBPatch UI.

Note that there are quite a few settings that you can tweak, and it's up to you to find the configuration that you like. Just remember that you have to restart the framework before you see the effect of changed settings, and also remember to read and understand the documentation before complaining that it doesn't work - it does work if you do it correctly. Finally, you can use the files from this post to verify the effect of tweaked settings for PDF documents - you can ignore much of the instructions there (they refer to an outdated version of JBPatch). Simply look at the files with the default settings, and with smaller margins, and you should see a clear difference.


ixtab

Awesome works great. The simple framework restart out of JBPatch system tab did not want to work for me. I put the jar file on the PW, and did the framework restart out of JBPatch. After my PW would crash every time I open a book and hit the aA menu. I disabled USE_ALT_FONTS, restarted framework again from JBPatch, and crash again. I used a restart from menu-settings, menu-restart and then it worked for me. It still had USE_ALT_FONTS disabled and no problems. I enabled it again and it still worked.

So it is possible that it was merely user-error, or that in some cases the framework restart does not work for every one.

The PW forgets to apply the margin when you open a book up. Even if it was closed with the changed margins. Every time I open a book, I have to open the aA menu, change the margin to a different setting, and back to where I want it for it to show correctly. Is that by design like that?

I like the smaller margins (my magic number is 15).

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ixtab

So, this is really just a minor question concerning the default settings of the hyphenation patch.

Should the default (minimal) "first syllable length" and "last syllable length" settings be left at 3 characters, or reduced to 2 characters? For most of the languages that I know, allowing two-character first syllables seems to make sense ("un-", "in-", "im-" prefixes), not sure about suffixes though (I tend to think that allowing for 2 characters also makes more sense for suffixes in most languages, but as said I'm not sure).

Keep in mind that these default settings are language-agnostic - so, what works in most (but possibly not all) languages should be the default. And of course, the setting can be changed according to individual preference anytime - I'm just asking what would be sensible defaults.

Thanks for your input!

Since it is based on rules and not on a dictionary it should be fine either way. The worst that can happen if leaving it at 3 is that it hyphenate less than it could. That, I think, would happen if the word is too long, and it might find a spot to cut it later. JBPatch is a tool to customize - and it should be up to each individual which setting is the right one. So I vote for leave it at 3.

Question about the inside of the hyphenation: does it simply cut the word and add a "-" or does it change the word when needed? Can't think of an example right now, but in German sometimes "...CK..." changes into "...K - K ..." if you hyphenate (unless the changed the grammar in the last decade).

[morrow]

I changed the margin for fewest line to 180, restart framwork, the book looked the same, I switched to normal, few, and to fewest, still look the same. Any idea what I did wrong?

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I like the smaller margins (my magic number is 15).

15? I set the Fewest Words Per Line Margin (non-PDF) from default of 150 to 215. Am I doing it wrong?

[veezh]

I also vote to leave the default at 3 for both.

Although English has a lot of two-letter prefixes, it's considered bad form to hyphenate a word leaving fewer than three letters (either the first or last in a word) on a line (according to the Oxford Guide to Style at any rate). IIRC a similar three-letter style rule also applies in Dutch and French.

Thank you so much again, ixtab! And happy new year!

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Awesome works great. The simple framework restart out of JBPatch system tab did not want to work for me. I put the jar file on the PW, and did the framework restart out of JBPatch. After my PW would crash every time I open a book and hit the aA menu. I disabled USE_ALT_FONTS, restarted framework again from JBPatch, and crash again. I used a restart from menu-settings, menu-restart and then it worked for me. It still had USE_ALT_FONTS disabled and no problems. I enabled it again and it still worked.

So it is possible that it was merely user-error, or that in some cases the framework restart does not work for every one.

Arrgh.... yes, the Paperwhite really is a picky bitch. I just managed to crash it by doing I-don't-know what, and only a reboot helped. So it may well be some unanticipated side effect of the changed margins, or the changed fonts.

The problem is that by now, it's almost impossible to understand what is happening on that device, and how individual "features" interact with others. They really did a great (attention, sarcasm!) job with the obfuscation.

The PW forgets to apply the margin when you open a book up. Even if it was closed with the changed margins. Every time I open a book, I have to open the aA menu, change the margin to a different setting, and back to where I want it for it to show correctly. Is that by design like that?

Yep, you're correct. And no, this wasn't intended - the settings were supposed to be preserved (and they are on the Touch). Seems to be yet another new "feature" of the Paperwhite. I'll try and look into it to see how it can be fixed.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Question about the inside of the hyphenation: does it simply cut the word and add a "-" or does it change the word when needed? Can't think of an example right now, but in German sometimes "...CK..." changes into "...K - K ..." if you hyphenate (unless the changed the grammar in the last decade).

As far as I understand (and honestly, I do not really understand the format of the hyphenation rules files, I merely use them), it only "cuts" words, without doing any language-specific replacements like "Zucker -> Zuk-ker".