[Device Plugin] Kobo Touch Extended Driver

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I've been approached to do the same thing in the main driver. And they supplied code, some of which you would recognize Generally, I'm not a fan of doing this sort of thing as I fix my books before putting them on the device. But, I'm considering this.

Suppose I can expect a test request eh

[davidfor]

But you are such a good guinea pig beta tester

[jgoguen]

Well since you're thinking of it, I'll just go take a break and play Final Fantasy 6

[buffaloseven]

I figured it would be nice to do as the book is sent to the device as the problem seems most significant on Kobo devices. Leaving the originals intact would be nice.

I've opened a "bug" about it over on Github for you.

[taming]

Joel, is it possible to remove "new" tiles from the home screen. I hate it when I add four new books and they displace books I am reading. I manually dismiss them now--after all, the same books show up on the library tile.

[jgoguen]

I have no idea, I'm not sure how that's decided. I seem to recall that it's based on some timestamp in the database row. If so, it may be problematic since I can only update those values after the book is already added (same issue as updating series and shelf information) and then I need to figure out how to distinguish between "new books are added that need to be removed from the home screen" and "nothing new was added so do nothing". It would be an interesting problem for sure if I can just figure out how the device decides what books to show on the home screen

[PeterT]

I think the problem is that until the books are processed by the device, they will not be added to the home screen, and they don't get processed until the device is unplugged!

Now I *do* think there is an option in David's utility plugin to remove icons from the home screen, but that would need you to plug back in after sending material to the device.

[taming]

Joel, maybe there could be a way to turn off a tile type...forever..so that kind of tile never appears on the home screen. (not like I am demanding)

[davidfor]

@taming: The answer is not really. The tile is created from an entry in the Activity table. This is updated by the device when it processes the books, or you do some action based on the book.

My utilities plugin has an option to dismiss types of tiles. It dismisses all the tiles of that type. There is one type missing from the list. This is the "RecentBooks" tile. Any book by itself on the home screen is a "RecentBook" tile. The text under it depends on the reading status of the book. Newly added books will have an unread status and shown as "New" in the tile.

To dismiss these means checking the Activity table for the "RecentBooks" status and then the "content" table for the book. It might be possible to do something with the Data column, but I haven't spent much time decoding that.

The only way to really achieve what you want is to add a database trigger. This would set the enabled flag for the Activity row to false whenever the row was added or changed. Doing this for all of the tiles of a particular type is easy. The more selective case you want, is a little harder. I haven't looked at this because the new book tiles don't bug me.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I think the problem is that until the books are processed by the device, they will not be added to the home screen, and they don't get processed until the device is unplugged!

Now I *do* think there is an option in David's utility plugin to remove icons from the home screen, but that would need you to plug back in after sending material to the device.

In the same way you need to do this for adding series info.

[jgoguen]

Originally Posted by taming

Joel, maybe there could be a way to turn off a tile type...forever..so that kind of tile never appears on the home screen. (not like I am demanding)

It doesn't look like there's much I could do. The best I could hope for would be to mark all RecentBook entries as disabled, then scan the content table and re-enable any RecentBook entries that are in progress. Of course, assuming that actually works (David refers to the RecentRead event, which I don't have despite having read books and being in progress on a book) this still may not quite be what you want if you have multiple books in progress (depending on if I can get the ordering of timestamps right, and hoping it doesn't break anything...). And if you only have one book, your home screen will have a lot of wasted space.

In investigating this, I do see some interesting uses for database triggers. But they're all better used in David's Utilities plugin to force certain tile types to stay disabled if there's interest in adding that sort of functionality.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

It doesn't look like there's much I could do. The best I could hope for would be to mark all RecentBook entries as disabled, then scan the content table and re-enable any RecentBook entries that are in progress. Of course, assuming that actually works (David refers to the RecentRead event, which I don't have despite having read books and being in progress on a book) this still may not quite be what you want if you have multiple books in progress (depending on if I can get the ordering of timestamps right, and hoping it doesn't break anything...). And if you only have one book, your home screen will have a lot of wasted space.

Sorry, I type what I was thinking the second time rather than the actual value.

In investigating this, I do see some interesting uses for database triggers. But they're all better used in David's Utilities plugin to force certain tile types to stay disabled if there's interest in adding that sort of functionality.

I dropped a lot of books on my Glo last night, and the RecentBook entries for the new books all have the Data column set to "X'00000000'" Or at least that is how it shows using the SQLite browser I use. Unfortunately, when I opened a book, this value didn't change. It seems to only change when you add a bookmark or annotation. I'll have to do some experiments to see if the trigger can use the contents table as well.

As we are talking about the database trigger, I might as well show what I currently use:

CREATE TRIGGER Activity_DismissTiles
after insert on Activity 
for each row 
when ( new.Type IN ('RelatedItems', 'Sync' ))
begin
	update Activity
	set Enabled	= 'false'
	where rowid = new.rowid;
end

That automatically dismisses the Sync and Related Items tiles. An update trigger isn't needed as the firmware does a delete and insert rather than an update.

Actually, it wouldn't be hard to construct and create the trigger from a dialog. Maybe a new feature for the Utilities plugin. Assuming the Product Manager approves.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Actually, it wouldn't be hard to construct and create the trigger from a dialog. Maybe a new feature for the Utilities plugin. Assuming the Product Manager approves.

I'd like to see a development plan listing possible risks, a test plan, realistic time plan, and draft documentation.

[davidfor]

So, not only do you want me to write fiction, it has to be a comedy as well!

[PeterT]

Looks like a bad performance review....