[Device Plugin] Kobo Touch Extended Driver

[flips01]

Hi! I just upgraded to the latest Calibre and latest plugin. I also downloaded and renamed+Aesops fables to the plugin dir as the file to extract some js code from. (I guess there's a way to check if it worked.)

I skipped the hyphenation stuff, not sure if it's needed.

Then uploaded lots of epubs.
But I have two problems that I've noticed:
1. Weird spacing after commas, colons etc.
2. Lots of extra space in blockquote/code sections

1 and 2 might be closely related. The books I've checked cover CSS examples, which gets quite hard to read.
The books looks more normal if I download the ePub from Dropbox.
(Except that the font said to be monospace is not rendered as monospace. Applies to both the kepub and epub versions.)

I haven't digged into the epub contents. Sorry if I should have picked up/understood this by browsing/reading this thread -- I tried

[jgoguen]

The only way to check if the JS code copied is to open the resulting .kepub.epub file (it's just a ZIP file so you can just add '.zip' to the end) and look for a file named 'kobo.js' and open one of your content files (usually they're .html or .xhtml files) and search near the top of the file for 'kobo.js' inside a script tag.

For the hyphenation, it's only necessary if you want to hyphenate your books. There are known display issues with hyphenating KePub files though.

For the rest, wait for the next version (within the next few days if all goes well) and see if the spacing is fixed. There is a major fix that directly affects displayed spacing.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

I'd have to do some digging (or wait for davidfor to poke in here ) but I'm sure he said a while ago that if the book is already on the device he updates the size stored in the database to avoid problems.

That is correct. It drove me nuts for a while as for some reason I didn't think they would check the file size. Timestamps and metadata I checked, but not file size.

[eXistenZ]

Just to say thank you for your great work

[jgoguen]

You're welcome. I'm glad so many people (1144 downloads in the last 5 days!) are finding this useful.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

You're welcome. I'm glad so many people (1144 downloads in the last 5 days!) are finding this useful.

I love it, too! I side load 100% so your plugin is awesome!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Doesn't it also depend on where the book is located? I thought from what davidfor has found, if a book is re-uploaded to the main storage and it's size has changed, that is dropped from the database and not re-added, but on the SD card it is dropped and then re-added?


I was wrong

You weren't wrong. I cheated

[patrik]

Kobo Aura, 2.5.2, 1.3.3

(Thanks to Davidfor for helping me out with this!)


When KoboTouchExtended is converting an html-file during send to device to a kepub it seems to sometime exclude spaces.

html-file:

<span style="font-variant: normal"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><i><span style="font-weight: normal">all</span></i></font></font></span> <span style="font-variant: normal"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span style="font-style: normal"><span style="font-weight: normal">should

kepub:

all</span></span></span></i></span></span></span><span class="calibre2"/><span class="calibre2"><span class="calibre3"><span class="calibre4"><span class="calibre5"><span class="calibre6"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.12.2"><span class="koboSpan" id="kobo.12.3">should

The space between all and should is gone.


(Or it could be me doing something wrong I guess, I'm a newbie to Calibre. )

Big thanks for making the plugin! :-)

[jgoguen]

Please wait for the next version, which should be released this week. There's a major change to the parsing code that adds the Kobo spans which should address this.

[buffaloseven]

Great work, jgoguen! All books are transferring to my Glo now and the only book I've had any display problems with has been Metro 2033 by Dimitri Glukhovsky, which, to be honest, is a pretty...interestingly formatted english translation. Latest commits have fixed most of the problem with it, though. Look forward to the coming updates which seem like they should be close to squashing almost all the bugs!

[flips01]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

The only way to check if the JS code copied is to open the resulting .kepub.epub file (it's just a ZIP file so you can just add '.zip' to the end) and look for a file named 'kobo.js' and open one of your content files (usually they're .html or .xhtml files) and search near the top of the file for 'kobo.js' inside a script tag.

[...]

For the rest, wait for the next version (within the next few days if all goes well) and see if the spacing is fixed. There is a major fix that directly affects displayed spacing.

Ah, yes, when I realised that Finder failed to unzip the file, it became easier (just used the unzip command).
It seems my reference.kepub.epub has the kobo-android.js, and that is copied into the files as kobo.js ...

I have one file/book that locks up the device when I select the Table of Contents. Should I PM it so you can investigate?
(It works as ePub, but then i don't get some of the links to display in a popup as it does in kepub. It didn't lock up prior to the last upgrade og calibre and plugins. I had a pre kobo.js version before.)

Also interesting that the Kobo Desktop software crashes every time now after it upgraded ... (Not that I use it for anything now ...)

[jgoguen]

Originally Posted by flips01

Ah, yes, when I realised that Finder failed to unzip the file, it became easier (just used the unzip command).
It seems my reference.kepub.epub has the kobo-android.js, and that is copied into the files as kobo.js ...

Perfectly normal. I always force the name to kobo.js no matter what it is in the reference file.

Originally Posted by flips01

I have one file/book that locks up the device when I select the Table of Contents. Should I PM it so you can investigate?

Only if you're legally permitted to send the file to people. You can't attach files to a PM, so you would need to upload them to a service that allows public links (such as Dropbox, Copy.com, SpiderOak, Microsoft SkyDrive, etc.) and PM me the link.

Originally Posted by flips01

(It works as ePub, but then i don't get some of the links to display in a popup as it does in kepub. It didn't lock up prior to the last upgrade og calibre and plugins. I had a pre kobo.js version before.)

I've never investigated links in ePub files beyond links within a book. The lock-up could be due to the large file size, so can you re-test this after the next version is released? There was a major change that may affect this.

[Jaden]

I have a strange problem. Maybe someone has an idea what I can do.

I'm currently beta reading a book and sent it to the device as kepub, which worked quite well. I could take notes, add highlights, almost without bugs.

Today I got a corrected version and since I wanted to keep both, I renamed the other version, added a different cover, changed the metadata title and only kept the author (which should not be a problem).

Then I transfered it to my Aura and it got processed. I can open it, I can browse... but I can't set highlights, add notes or even add bookmarks. If I close the book and re-open it, I am back on the cover page. And I always get "0%" read.

It's the same on my Touch (though I didn't have the other book on the Touch). So it might have to do with the book itself, but I don't know what it could be.

But it works well as epub, so maybe it's the driver? I'm puzzled...

Any ideas anyone?

[Leonatus]

Originally Posted by Jaden

If I close the book and re-open it, I am back on the cover page. And I always get "0%" read.

It's the same on my Touch (though I didn't have the other book on the Touch). So it might have to do with the book itself, but I don't know what it could be.

That was exactly the problem that I had especially with two books. At last, I downloaded them again (in this case from Gutenberg) as HTML, worked them out again with Sigil and converted them again with Calibre. Then sent to device, and now it worked - at least what concerns the bookmarks (highligting etc. not tested yet). Now I have all my books as kepups. At some of them, there appeared error notices ("failed to parse ..."). In these cases, I converted the epubs to Mobi, then back to epub and sent to device. This worked with the exception of one book, where the error appeared again. Solution: view above!

Obvious that this procedure only overrides some problems, but when it works at last ...

My suspicion, in the problematic cases, is, that there could be some word tags hidden in the HTML, and when you're lucky, you get this cleared by doing the work again. But I'm no specialist.

[flips01]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

(...)
Only if you're legally permitted to send the file to people. You can't attach files to a PM, so you would need to upload them to a service that allows public links (such as Dropbox, Copy.com, SpiderOak, Microsoft SkyDrive, etc.) and PM me the link.
(...)
I've never investigated links in ePub files beyond links within a book. The lock-up could be due to the large file size, so can you re-test this after the next version is released? There was a major change that may affect this.

It's a large file. It locks up not when clicking the link, but when selecting the Table of content from the bottom menu (tap the book icon) and then the menu choice. The device is then not completely locked, but the Home "button"/icon doesn't work and the off button doesn't work ...
(The legality of sending it is probably questionable, as I would have to remove the DRM on the file, which I bought ...)

So, I'll wait for the update. No crisis. And thanks for the great job!
(Thanks to davidfor, Peter etc. too!)