Koreader running on Kobos (all of them, hopefully!)

[giorgio130]

Hi everyone! Nice to see the thread is flourishing and the interest is higher and higher.
I'd like to share a little thought. When I started to port Koreader (back then it was still called KindlePdfViewer, or KPV) I just tried to put toghether something that "simply worked" on my Glo: lots of hacks in the code, that very easily could break compatibility with kindle and made the code less readable and efficient. Then I thought that maybe that was just the first step, if I could add something to Koreader, why keep it for myself? Or even more, why keeping it for Kobo users? That way I could thank appropriately the original developers, by giving back something useful for them. So I started to clean up the code, and propose it for merging in the upstream project. It was much easier than expected.
This is to say I feel a little unconfortable with patches and mods that add functionality but are simply distributed as a zip or rar file. Sure, those are great, the authors could have kept them for themselves and this way, everyone benefits from them, but only on kobos.
I've merged some little changes from cgm999 into main koreader and I'm planning to go on with this work, but still I'm a little unconfortable with that as well, I feel like I'm stealing someone else's work. Moreover, if those become more frequent (and I'd love that), the amount of work would become impossible to manage.
So, all of you modders, once you feel your addition is stable and useful, don't stop at the "hack" step, but make it part of official koreader by presenting it on github:
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues
It will give you proper credit, ensure that your work won't get duplicated by someone else and survive in later releases without patching every time, and it will give something back to the great original developers of KPV and Koreader.

[Ken Maltby]

Hmm... You are uncomfortable about using mods that are based on the code that you brought to us? None of this development would have been possible without the work you and Sergey brought to the game. All of this starts with your port. I can't picture any of those who have provided mods, hacks, or tweaks raising any objection to you codifying and incorporating their efforts into a stable consistent whole or providing the result to the wider Koreader community.

As to the use of the zipped packages to automate and simplify the installation and use of the Koreader, and now Sergey's launcher and apps, think of it as an alternative method of installation that takes nothing away from the standard process. It just provides a way for those who might not need or want the skill set to follow the normal installation and customization steps, to enjoy the benefits of your Koreader port. It may become a popular way to go, but it won't be the only way.

There is a certain satisfaction to knowing that others will appreciate the coolness of some new trick you have wrung out of some unsuspecting code. Of this, I am sure you are aware. These efforts will continue as much for the gratification they provide as for any other reason. The pace may ebb and flow, and this last couple of weeks has been remarkable, but there is still plenty of potential Eureka! left in this effort.

Now if one of you could just make the touchscreen easier.

Luck;
Ken

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by paola

yes, I took the plunge tonight, and your 1 step hack made my life really easy! I will now install the dictionaries, but in the meantime, do I get it right that in order to exit the programme I have to reboot? The [X] in the top right corner seems unresponsive.

I thought it was just my not finding the right spot, but I have the same problem with the -[X]- in the corner. I'm beginning to think the link, if any, between the text size and the size of the touchscreen active area is not what we originally thought. Or were led to believe.

Luck;
Ken

[PeterT]

I think the point is that multiple people making posts here with the mods they have made leads to a lot of confusion.

What he is asking for is for each of those who make mods to take the extra steps and do it correctly via a source control tool, github,

This way it is far far easier to manage the mods and changes and ensure that they get correctly merged together and maintained.

[Ken Maltby]

And confusion is the mother of invention!

Most of the collected mods and tweaks effort here could be viewed as an intermediate step on the way to Github. Giorgio may have, probably rightly, seen the likelihood that most here would nominate him for the job of getting the best or most appropriate to the Koreader project at Github, of the efforts here into Github. I doubt that it will be as bad as Giorgio fears, for several reasons. 1. I doubt the pace of the last few weeks will last very long. 2. The consolidation of the efforts of many here have already been made. 3. The effort here is directed at the Kobo devices, and not everything discovered or implemented will have much application to the Kindle based project at Github.

Still any developers/modders who can, probably should present their accomplishments to Github, just be sure and remember us here, as well.

Luck;
Ken

[PeterT]

Yes but by ensuring the changes made by this community are rolled back into the main development repository it becomes far FAR easier for all developers to stay current on a single code base.

[giorgio130]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Hmm... You are uncomfortable about using mods that are based on the code that you brought to us?

That's not what I meant. I feel unconfortable to create pull requests for new features on github using code I didn't write. Moreover, that code is indeed being consolidated but in many cases it is not very clean. Before merging it needs to be cleaned up and rewritten in some places. That's why it is taking me so long to add light support or suspend.

[paola]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

I thought it was just my not finding the right spot, but I have the same problem with the -[X]- in the corner. I'm beginning to think the link, if any, between the text size and the size of the touchscreen active area is not what we originally thought. Or were led to believe.

Luck;
Ken

ok, so it should work, but it does not, at least for some - I am on a Mini.

@Marksimus: The additional problem I have is that I have a hard time rebooting: the device goes to sleep no problem, but also after repeated tries it will eventually reboot. Finally, don't know whether the launcher or the koreader cause the problem, but my database was completely messed up after installation, and I had to rebuild it.

Secondly, the dictionary seems to work only for pdf files.

Finally, the launcher does not launch.


@giorgio: I hope your request and the "1 step hack" are not incompatible, as they make the life of people like me much easier, and as Ken said would enable many more people to enjoy the many benefits of koreader.

[Markismus]

Originally Posted by paola

yes, I took the plunge tonight, and your 1 step hack made my life really easy! I will now install the dictionaries, but in the meantime, do I get it right that in order to exit the programme I have to reboot? The [X] in the top right corner seems unresponsive.

My experience is that the -[X]- is utterly unresponsive in the original setting and reasonably responsive (tap several times) using the larger font. However,...
..cgm999 uses as loop (while-do-done) to start koreader. So if you exit koreader via the -[X]- it automatically restarts! Using the -[X]- now brings you back to the starting location of koreader. (While in giorgio's koreader of post #1 his scripts tells your Kobo to reboot after exiting koreader.)

So where is the reboot button? cgm999 placed it inside the document-reader, not in filemanager! Start a document, tap on the bottom for the lower menu, use the tab for portrait/landscape and there the buttons are:

• landscape/portrait
• reboot
• w_on (wireless_on)
• w_off (wireless_off)
• M_toggle (Toggle between original and adjusted settings.)
• inv / normal (screen inversion)

[Markismus]

Originally Posted by paola

@Marksimus: The additional problem I have is that I have a hard time rebooting: the device goes to sleep no problem, but also after repeated tries it will eventually reboot.

Does my previous post answer your question?

Originally Posted by paola

Finally, don't know whether the launcher or the koreader cause the problem, but my database was completely messed up after installation, and I had to rebuild it.

I have no experience of or explanation for this.

Originally Posted by paola

Secondly, the dictionary seems to work only for pdf files.

That it does and then not always too brilliantly.

• I find myself switching to reflow so the OCR kicks in and the dictionary works again in pdf.
• It also seems to work better in portrait than in landscape.
• Sometimes it only selects a letter instead of a word.
• Sometimes it selects a group of words or a line and sometimes it then continues on to highlighting mode.

I suppose this is what is meant on Github when they state that the dictionary is in development and only supported for english!

Originally Posted by paola

Finally, the launcher does not launch.

Restarting the Kobo probably helps. The pictures (laucher.png and koreader.png) should be accessible in your kobo library before you install the 1-step-hack. If you do it at the same time you can see (at least in the Aura) automatic launches of laucher and koreader due to the fact that koreader adds them to the home screen. If you do it later...probably you'll have to restart.

[hawhill]

I've not yet made real experiences since I've just started with hacking on the Kobo Mini, but will try KOReader on that device soon (I'm member of its development team, so it's a kind of liability of mine :-) ).

That said, I have an idea why hitting that dreaded "X" is so hard: When testing the touch screen of the Mini I've found that it's practically impossible to generate touch events for all coordinates on the display borders. It was up to 80 pixels each where no recognition actually took place. That might be simply due to the technology used (IR touch screen). Probably, we need to move that exit button a bit.

[Markismus]

@hawhill How would I check such touch events on an Aura?
Problems are not limited to the screen extremes, though. I still find it quite a task to open the right book or move through directories.

[paola]

@Marksimus, thanks for your answers - i eventually did find cgm99 reboot, so not ideal (i'd rather go back to the Kobo home screen), but it definitely works.

The launcher did not start because it was not there After logout to rebuild the database, everything was wiped out, so I had to reinstall (easy with your 1 step hack ), and all is well now. Also, I had both Calibre and the kobo desktop running, and I've noticed that sometimes unplugging from one does not unplug from the other, so the database may have been messed up by that and not by the hacks.

Adding fonts works, so all in all I am happy that I can now read my pdf and djvu books.

Thank you to all you guys, really, this is great stuff!

[hawhill]

Originally Posted by Markismus

@hawhill How would I check such touch events on an Aura?
Problems are not limited to the screen extremes, though. I still find it quite a task to open the right book or move through directories.

A bit OT here, but I used "evtest" on the command line. "evtest /dev/input/1", IIRC.

But if it isn't limited to these, there's probably more involved. A long lasting project of mine is to rewrite the input part a bit, but that might still take a while.

[giorgio130]

Originally Posted by paola

@giorgio: I hope your request and the "1 step hack" are not incompatible, as they make the life of people like me much easier, and as Ken said would enable many more people to enjoy the many benefits of koreader.

I'd say if everything went into main Koreader, it would simplify things actually! Even my original attachment at post #1 is intended as "1 step hack", it's just adding all the things that didn't make it yet in mainline that is getting things more complex.

@hawhill since the mini went so cheap, I was really hoping that someone of the original development team would get one great news!