IF you could design the user interface for the next Kobo Firmware

[vandafc]

1 WHAT FEATURES WOULD YOU ADD?
- a rating at the end of a book (1-5 stars)
- a connection to my Twitter account to publish my rating (like Goodreads did)
- a publish on Twitter functionality (Okay, I'm not a Facebook adict ;-)
- a sort of books by date added

[haydnfan]

I would like the ability to toggle between screen turns per chapter and per book. The current style is per chapter, which I like for long novels but not for short novels.

Before people say sideload epubs, I never liked the faux Adobe page numbers. It has neither the precision of location #s, the reference-ability of real page numbers, nor the intuitiveness of screen turns. Adobe page numbers are garbage.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by theonna

My Calibre has 3 Kobo plugins installed- Kobo, Kobo touch, Kobo extended.
I could have loaded extended one, I am not sure if I did, or it just came with it. But that all goes to the same thing- I had to use third party software to manage my library on Aura, there is this forum, thank you! , but it is not like everything is spelled out in one message. Calibre has very many features and options, and it is not always exactly clear what each does. I admit, I am not yet professional user of Calibre.

Theonna,

You definitely added the kobo extended one. And that is why people are saying you are using something "unsupported". It converts epubs to kepubs. Kobo of course doesn't support this and so although the creator tries to fix problems, some of your issues may very well be caused by this plugin, so why not try the plugin which just sideloads supported epubs?

My advice would be to try disabling that extended plugin (and restart calibre), and then use the normal kobo plugin called "kobo touch"...put whatever settings you like in that plugin. Send a few books to your device. Disconnect your device and let the books be processed. Check out that things are as you like them (remember that if you want series information to appear you have to do another connect and disconnect from calibre for this to show). Then send the rest of your books.

Once you have done this, you should be able to make changes to your metadata in calibre and have that updated without deleting or resending your books again.
I have a feeling that this may not be true for one aspect: covers...if you want to change the cover, you might have to resend the book....but then you can do this on the individual basis and don't need to send 1.8k books again.

I may be wrong, but from your posts it seems you keep deleting and resending books, if so, why? You can change shelves, change metadata, etc etc without doing this, so I am not sure why you would be doing this more than once.

[dmacmart]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

Books removed from the main library when you put them in a shelf

What about adding a default shelf for "unshelved books"? The library would still contain all books.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by dmacmart

What about adding a default shelf for "unshelved books"? The library would still contain all books.

I'd like this option.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

Before people say sideload epubs, I never liked the faux Adobe page numbers. It has neither the precision of location #s, the reference-ability of real page numbers, nor the intuitiveness of screen turns. Adobe page numbers are garbage.

Actually, I find Adobe page numbers fairly useful. Using the same ebook, the page numbers are the same on any ereader regardless of the font size, screen size, margins, line spacing, etc. If I tell a friend of mine that I saw the reference on page 297 in chapter 11 of the IBM NAS redbook, it takes him very little time to find the reference despite my reading the ebook on a Kobo and him reading it on an Iconia tablet, the displayed page number is the same for the same distance into the text.

Screen turns? You'd better have the same ereader using the same font, font size, renderer, margin and line height settings, etc.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

Theonna,

You definitely added the kobo extended one. And that is why people are saying you are using something "unsupported". It converts epubs to kepubs. Kobo of course doesn't support this and so although the creator tries to fix problems, some of your issues may very well be caused by this plugin, so why not try the plugin which just sideloads supported epubs?

My advice would be to try disabling that extended plugin (and restart calibre), and then use the normal kobo plugin called "kobo touch"...put whatever settings you like in that plugin. Send a few books to your device. Disconnect your device and let the books be processed. Check out that things are as you like them (remember that if you want series information to appear you have to do another connect and disconnect from calibre for this to show). Then send the rest of your books.

He may not have a choice in using the extended plugin. He does mention using several languages that are not supported by Kobo and may need the epub3 functionality of the ACCESS renderer to display them properly. This is very noticeable in the table of contents where an epub book will display blanks while a .kepub.epub book will display text using a different font if the default font does not contain the needed glyphs.

Regards,
David

[Ken Maltby]

"IF you could design the user interface for the next Kobo Firmware"

I must have missed the fine print where it said "But you can't suggest anything
that contradicts Kobo's design philosophy."

It says "If you could design the user interface", now if the "you" being referenced
were Theonna or myself a file browser that functions as well as those we are used
to from our other ereading devices, would be a major part of the changes we would
make. I would ask why some of you think such a suggestion would be out of bounds
for this thread?

There is also the potential source of confusion in the meaning of the term "Kobo
Firmware". Is this intended to mean only for official Kobo Firmware releases or are
we talking about preferences for the firmware for the Kobo devices? No matter who
should develop and release it? Are we supposed to restrict our comments to those
things that Kobo would accept and/or approve of?

I am not holding out much hope that Kobo will be the ones to provide the kind of
"User Interface" or firmware in general, that I feel would be able to take advantage
of the potential of this very good hardware.

Don't ask - then complain about the answers you get. Now a discussion about
what you think of the answers might be of some value, but suggesting that there is
a problem providing an answer that Kobo would never approve of, is going too far
IMHO.

Luck;
Ken

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by DNSB

He may not have a choice in using the extended plugin. He does mention using several languages that are not supported by Kobo and may need the epub3 functionality of the ACCESS renderer to display them properly. This is very noticeable in the table of contents where an epub book will display blanks while a .kepub.epub book will display text using a different font if the default font does not contain the needed glyphs.

Regards,
David

I see.

I thought it was limited to R to L languages or vertical script that needed epub3...I've done fairly well with the languages/scripts I use without even having to add my own fonts (ryumin and gothic seem to work well...even if they are not everyone's taste). But it helps that Japanese is supported, as that is a tricky language that otherwise would probably cause me no end of problems. In my case if I had to use the extended plugin for that reason, I would limit it to the books which need it, especially if I was having so many problems like Theonna.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

"IF you could design the user interface for the next Kobo Firmware"

I must have missed the fine print where it said "But you can't suggest anything
that contradicts Kobo's design philosophy."

It says "If you could design the user interface", now if the "you" being referenced
were Theonna or myself a file browser that functions as well as those we are used
to from our other ereading devices, would be a major part of the changes we would
make. I would ask why some of you think such a suggestion would be out of bounds
for this thread?

There is also the potential source of confusion in the meaning of the term "Kobo
Firmware". Is this intended to mean only for official Kobo Firmware releases or are
we talking about preferences for the firmware for the Kobo devices? No matter who
should develop and release it? Are we supposed to restrict our comments to those
things that Kobo would accept and/or approve of?

I am not holding out much hope that Kobo will be the ones to provide the kind of
"User Interface" or firmware in general, that I feel would be able to take advantage
of the potential of this very good hardware.

Don't ask - then complain about the answers you get. Now a discussion about
what you think of the answers might be of some value, but suggesting that there is
a problem providing an answer that Kobo would never approve of, is going too far
IMHO.

Luck;
Ken

Some of the people commenting against file browser were
a) commenting about the likelihood so that people wishing this wouldn't get their hopes up...I think since people say "kobo looks at this forum and therefore your hopes may come into fruition"...warning that kobo might follow some suggestions but following that suggestion is not likely, I think is valid.
b) some people were saying the tone of some posts were a bit harsh or demanding...I also think this valid.

But sure, if the topic is "how would you design" or the like, theorise as much as you please. I hope no one is wishing for people to stop that in this thread. Could be wrong though
I certainly enjoy reading about what others would implement!

[TechniSol]

Jack,

I'm sure they sleep the processor most of the time and depend on interrupts from the physical switches and the Neonode IR hardware to wake it as well as timer interrupts to maintain the clock unless there is a RTC in the hardware. Let's face it, the vast majority of the time the processor has nothing to do but wait for the user to flip a page, so why leave it powered up? They could run it full out and still be very frugal on battery as long as they sleep as soon as possible for every task, though it might conserve power to wake, see what the bother is and then scale the processor speed to match if they can do it internally -probably a lot of bother, but maybe worth it if they must deal with slower devices like updating the display?

As for the rest, if they let the desktop do all the database work, etc, you'd be stuck tethered to it on vacation, etc. if the ereader required a reset, or they'd need to store all that info on their servers and you'd still be at the mercy of finding a wifi connection. Leave that alone. It's not unreasonable to expect the ereader to need time to process a library. It'd be nice if it had a very simple browser so you could tell it just process this directory, and\or sub directories, for now, or first. But, unless you require the library of congress it shouldn't take too long to process a whole card -it'd be nice if they let you start looking as they process the rest... Again, this is a programming style thing. These are things they could possibly improve on. Humans are very adaptable on time scales, and we do not like to wait. As we become used to dealing with faster machines, we become less tolerant of delays.

I'll stick with a platform independent solution for library management/conversion rather than a proprietary solution, thank you. I would not wish to invest time in conversion, editing, etc. only to lose it if I chose another brand of reader. Calibre is notches better than the rest, allows for features one could not get in a commercial product, and is far less likely to be the cause of any problem than the hardware it attempts to serve. Nuff said!

Frankly, I'm amazed that Kobo can't or won't sync my page numbers for side-loaded books since they have all the info in databases at either end on their reader or reader software on my other devices... There would be no need to exchange any data beyond current page number between their two databases and a reference number to the title or an encrypted or hashed title... As long as they never decrypted the data on their servers regarding title there would be zero privacy issues. Even less if they asked you if you wanted to sync individual titles.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

"IF you could design the user interface for the next Kobo Firmware"

It says "If you could design the user interface", now if the "you" being referenced were Theonna or myself a file browser that functions as well as those we are used to from our other ereading devices, would be a major part of the changes we would make. I would ask why some of you think such a suggestion would be out of bounds for this thread?

Perhaps, a bit of diplomacy might be in order? Suggesting changes in the user interface is one thing. Perhaps if theonna had suggested that Kobo should add a file browser feature and stopped there. Instead he carried on to suggest that using a file browser and getting rid of the database entirely would be the single best improvement Kobo could make -- after all, searching through 1800 files for metadata every time is going to be much faster than doing it once and storing the results in a database. There is also the complaints that Kobo does not support languages that he wants to use --"adds ability to search within the books written on different languages(chinese, hindy, cyrillic)- go for it, but only after enabling a file browser."

As to why I feel his credibility is on the low side, look at into his complaints about copying ebooks to his Kobo where he went from 50 minutes to process ebooks, 30 minutes to copy them to his Kobo and 40 minutes for the Kobo to process the new content to 81 minutes to process the ebooks, 7 minutes to copy to his Kobo and 21 minutes for his Kobo to process. Evidently the time required to use the KoboTouchExtended plugin, which he had to have deliberately chosen to use, to convert his epub ebooks to .kepub before copying them to his Kobo is a Kobo issue and not a computer, Calibre or user issue. Not to mention that while he attempted to copy 2450 books, that only 1845 arrived at the Kobo seemed to missed his notice.

And PLEASE do all of us a favour and stop using hard line breaks in your messages.

Regards,
David

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by guma

Reading through user opinions here shows that it is not possible to please everybody at the same time unless there are options to adapt the book display to each individual's liking.

I agree that you can't please everyone.

I will say again that the demands for options (and there are a lot of them) are particularly virulent in the Kobo forum.

Other less eccentric ereaders (maybe I mean more robust or reliable?) don't generate the same aura of discontent AFAIK. Most people seem to think they are fine, they have a solid core of fans who think they can do no wrong, and those that don't like them just don't use them, But then the other readers seem to work as advertised and don't go changing things around on a seemingly random basis (again AFAIK)

And I am sure that there are those who have nightmares of Kobo getting everything perfect and two days later pushing firmware revision 2.xx back on us all

Helen

[Ken Maltby]

OK, as this is "Mobileread" Forums, I guess I should give more consideration to those who are reading on smaller screens, and not format my lines in a manner you of tiny screens may have difficulties with. This approach doesn't help with any tendency I might have for run-on sentences.

Luck;
Ken

[Terisa de morgan]

I guess my suggestions are quite tamed but:

• 2 dates: Added and Read
• 2 options for home screen: last added, last read
• 2 more sorts: series and number of pages (not KB)
• Header configurable: with/without title, with/without clock
• footer configurable: no footer, pages, screens
• Ability to see total number of pages (or screens in the book)
• Multilevel support for index
• Rodolex for shelves/books instead of slide (or plus slide)
• Automatic "series shelves" and autor "shelves", controlling minimum number of books
• Add tag information and pages to book details
• Ability to choose dictionary or translator for each language