Glo Kobo Glo Firmware Requests

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

I would very much like an option to change the way paragraphs are separated in kobobooks (kepubs). I hate the way each paragraph starts after an empty line. It's just ridiculous. I know, internet is full of paragraphs separated with that style, and that's fine, and I might even like it like that on my computer screen. But I've never ever ever ever seen a fiction pocket book with such a ridiculous space wasting layout. It's especially frustrating with authors that write very short paragraphs (eg. one line; one sentence), or when there's lots of dialogue that often starts a new paragraph each time a different character says something.

I know, you can remove these empty lines with calibre, but sometimes I like to be able to read a book straight away after buying from kobo without having to go through the hassle of downloading the DRM epub, converting it and sideloading it.

This doesn't have anything to do with Kobo. It is a style chosen* by whoever created the book in the first place. At the most, Kobo is running a supplied book, probably the epub version, through a conversion utility to add the kepub specific things. None of these changes would affect the styles used in the book or the layout. And when I compare the kepub and epub, they always have the same styles. But, I have seen one or two kepubs that did what you want.

* I am being polite here. While I state "chosen" I actually assume "forgot to set" or "didn't know they could set".

[murg]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

I know, you can remove these empty lines with calibre, but sometimes I like to be able to read a book straight away after buying from kobo without having to go through the hassle of downloading the DRM epub, converting it and sideloading it.

But this also removes the intentional blank lines between paragraphs, the scene breaks.

[stewacide]

A white-on-black mode would be HUGELY welcome, especially given how bright the frontlight is at its lowest setting.

To see how it would look I modified an epub's stylesheet such that color=white and background-color=black and it looks great and works well. MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to look at in the dark.

In the meantime, does anyone have any idea how I could perhaps automate the creation of white-on-black versions of all my books in Calibre, such that the two versions could co-exist without problems and confusion?

Edit -- I can easily get Calibre to make a white-on-black version my converting with a bit of added css, but I can't figure out how to get Calibre to not then replace the old black-on-white epub; instead I want them to co-exist.

[beautifulsoup]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Less glitchy highlighting. It takes forever to do it accurately. Way worse than on my Kindle.

Yeah, highlighting on the Glo is frustrating and far too time-consuming.

Highlighting on the Kobo Touch doesn't seem *as* difficult.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by stewacide

I can easily get Calibre to make a white-on-black version my converting with a bit of added css, but I can't figure out how to get Calibre to not then replace the old black-on-white epub; instead I want them to co-exist.

I have not much experience with Calibre. I therefore can only guess. 1) rename the epub file, 2) rename the dc:title in the opf file, for instance by adding "(white on black)" 3) rename the cd:identifier in the opf file. I am not sure whether all three points are necessary.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by davidfor

This doesn't have anything to do with Kobo. It is a style chosen* by whoever created the book in the first place. At the most, Kobo is running a supplied book, probably the epub version, through a conversion utility to add the kepub specific things. None of these changes would affect the styles used in the book or the layout. And when I compare the kepub and epub, they always have the same styles. But, I have seen one or two kepubs that did what you want.

* I am being polite here. While I state "chosen" I actually assume "forgot to set" or "didn't know they could set".

That's what I first thought. But, if that's true, then how come the same kepub synced to my iPhone kobo app (ugh, yuck, never use, except for when horridly my Glo battery died unexpectedly) does show without huge fat double line breaks (just a slightly larger line height before each new paragraph), even has an indent for each new paragraph and allows me to switch off "kobo formatting" which completely gets rid of the slightly larger line height. The result even looks nice...

Originally Posted by murg

But this also removes the intentional blank lines between paragraphs, the scene breaks.

If scene breaks are properly tagged with a different tag than new paragraphs, that should be workably, no? Still, I'd still prefer no double line break in all instances if I'd have to choose all or nothing. I hate huge white lines all over the screen just because there's dialogue or the author writes short paragraphs.

[murg]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

If scene breaks are properly tagged with a different tag than new paragraphs, that should be workably, no? Still, I'd still prefer no double line break in all instances if I'd have to choose all or nothing. I hate huge white lines all over the screen just because there's dialogue or the author writes short paragraphs.

Some epubs use an empty paragraph to out the empty line between paragraphs. So a scene break is just three empty paragraphs in a row. Which calibre will gladly remove.

Some scene breaks use ***. These will be retained.

In many modern epubs, the scene breaks are handled through css.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by davidfor

This doesn't have anything to do with Kobo. It is a style chosen* by whoever created the book in the first place. At the most, Kobo is running a supplied book, probably the epub version, through a conversion utility to add the kepub specific things. None of these changes would affect the styles used in the book or the layout. And when I compare the kepub and epub, they always have the same styles. But, I have seen one or two kepubs that did what you want.

* I am being polite here. While I state "chosen" I actually assume "forgot to set" or "didn't know they could set".

Originally Posted by murg

But this also removes the intentional blank lines between paragraphs, the scene breaks.

Okay, I have living proof.

Erm, well, dead. Or not alive anyway. I'm reading (trying to read) David Baldacci's "Absolute Power" (just a few cents with the Christmas sale). The kepub version had double line breaks for new paragraphs. Ugly. I got fed up of the kepub and downloaded the epub, and decided to put in on my Glo without converting it to include my preferred settings. The epub version is actually perfectly layout-ed*. Nice indents with no double line breaks for each paragraphs, and lovely scene breaks with ***. New chapters have a page break (kepub didn't have that).

So, Kobo must be doing something ugly with making a kepub out of the epub. Please Kobo, don't do that, or at least give me the option to not show empty lines for no reason.



*Except for the orphans/widows. YUCK. Big fat empty spaces. (Oh and the TOC works but doesn't tell the device what the TOC actually is. So to use the TOC I have to go to the beginning of the book.)

[stethorn]

Had a kindle keyboard for the past 2 years, was sooo happy with it, but due to needing a lamp on and causing my 18 month old to stay awake decided to invest in the paperweight :-) Kindle, ended up taking it back as I was concerned about the screen quality (mine had 4 bright pixels).

Love my Kobo glo i changed it for, but .... its to bright and has a tendency to keep my 18 month old awake, end up having to turn it off :-(. Would be so nice if the light could go duller.

Keep up the good work :-)

[jackastor]

What I think would be a kick A S S feature for any of the kobo's would be for ALL new books to not show in the current Now Reading section but instead show up in a Newly Added Catagory regardless if they were pushed via SD card or Downloaded from the Web.

That I think hands down would be the most important feature to be added.

Regards

Jack

[judyz]

I will chime in for what it's worth..

1) I find page turns to not always be recognized. On ocasion I have to put my Kobo to sleep and wake it up to get it to recognize a page turn. Then on ocasion it will flip two pages instead of one. Obviously some tweaking to the touch software would help. I MISS MY BUTTONS.
2) The scroll bar for goto page is annoying. It is nowhere near as precise as you would need it to be. A simple goto page with numbers would be more effective.
3) Better battery meter configuration and a better job of notifying users when the device is reaching low power. I have on several ocassions picked my Kobo Glo up and headed out for the day only to discover that it doesn't have the charge I need to get through a day. I will start reading and in mid sentence it switches to the plug me in message without warning. In a perfect world my Kobo would tell me when it has passed the threshold of one days battery use so that I would know to plug it in the night before I go out.
4) The ability to personalize the main screen display of books. The last 5 books I added to the machine might not be the ones I am thinking of reading next. Perhaps being able to pick which shelf is displayed would be better.
5) Maybe I am in the minority here but I thought the reading badges were kind of cool. I am disappointed that there hasn't been more.
6) You have your users syncing to the internet with this device why not use it? Create a messages tab where you can send us blurbs about the Kobo community, upcoming books and features you are working on. At this point there isn't any point for me in synching since I do all my reading on the Kobo Glo.

These are strictly suggestions to improve the device. I am in love with my Kobo Glo! My previous Kobo has been recycled to a family member and I have talked a few others into Kobo purchases. We love the hardware and your commitment to constant improvement. Please keep it coming. My husband is the long hold out. He has a Sony PRS 950. He loves the larger screen but wishes he could get one with a Glo light. Any chance Kobo might make a bigger reader?

[marwebe]

I would like to add one thing: please, PLEASE either improve hyphenation, or add an option to control/deactivate it. In English it works borderline okay. It is not always grammatically correct, but I can live with it. However, when using foreign language e-books, it gets outright ridiculous. To name two examples: Even with fairly small font size, three-letter words are hyphenated (zum -> z-um). Chevron-style quotation marks are also hyphenated: »Wir gehen...« is hyphenated after the opening quotation mark: »-Wir gehen...«. I love my Kobo, but this is driving me nuts!!