Firmware 3.15 discussion thread

[cramoisi]

Originally Posted by anacreon

As a matter of fact, I read sideloaded kepubs exclusively: I don't like the look of epubs on kobo - and contrary to so many people on this forum, I like to have header and footer, plus a decent margin. When reading poetry, if necessary I use smaller fonts.
And I never buy kobo's kepubs directly, since getting burnt: I download epubs to my PC, even when buying from kobo, import them into calibre, clean them with sigil and calibre and add adequate metadata before downloading to the devices.

Same as i do, with sideloaded kepubs. But i don't clean them. Perhaps it's the point. If you have the time, can you explain how you process them ?

[howyoudoin]

I don't think cleaning kePubs makes a difference in speed. I have compared the same book on my Kobo in both original ePub format and a simple calibre-converted kePub format, and the kePub always runs smoother. It's just the way the rendering engines are on the Kobo.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cramoisi

Same as i do, with sideloaded kepubs. But i don't clean them. Perhaps it's the point. If you have the time, can you explain how you process them ?

Not sure if his workflow is the same as mine but after downloading the epub, I will take a look at it in ADE. If the layout is acceptable, I leave it alone. This is actually becoming quite common as the publishers (for the most part) have learned how to produce a decent looking ebook. Otherwise, I import the epub into Calibre and then use Sigil to edit the epub to correct the layout. You can also use Calibre's built-in editor but I'm used to Sigil so sticking with it for now. If the epub is DRMed, the same procedure except for removing DRM.

[GeoffR]

Everyone seems to be having different experiences with this firmware, but is it working well for me on my Glo now that I've disabled the LeanAndMean feature setting.

The ability to tap twice while reading to refresh the screen is very useful to me. I like to set the pages between refresh to a high value (30-40 pages) which works very well most of the time, but every now and then there is an image or bold text that causes extra ghosting, so it is nice to be able to quickly refresh the screen manually in those special cases.

The improvements to the epub hyphenation and the return of the sticky footer menus makes reading epubs in full-screen mode just about my perfect reading experience. The only thing I can think of that could make it better would be the return of the separate weight and sharpness sliders on the advanced font menu.

I know there are still some issues in other parts of the firmware, but as long as the core function of reading epubs continues to work this well then I am very happy.

[Thor]

Thank you for mentioning the "double tap to refresh"-feature. It was new for me and I find it also very usable.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by Thor

Thank you for mentioning the "double tap to refresh"-feature. It was new for me and I find it also very usable.

Same here, thank you GeoffR

[serwei]

Generally snappier, but on a very large CBR file (348MB/1470pp) it lagged really badly. I had to wait about 10-30 seconds for a page turn. Luckily I have the option to rezip the file.

Pinch zoom is great for PDFs.

Was looking for some "lean and mean" conf settings to disable but couldn't find the reference again, strangely.

[Patricius]

I've found something annoying on my H2O: now selecting any word would make all other words on the screen become kind of grayed out and blurry, which strongly deters me from looking up word definitions.

If there is no workarounds for this, I'll consider switch back to 3.13.1 despite the improvements about pinching and performance.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by Patricius

I've found something annoying on my H2O: now selecting any word would make all other words on the screen become kind of grayed out and blurry, which strongly deters me from looking up word definitions.

If there is no workarounds for this, I'll consider switch back to 3.13.1 despite the improvements about pinching and performance.

Tap twice on the screen and it performs a refresh.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by Patricius

I've found something annoying on my H2O: now selecting any word would make all other words on the screen become kind of grayed out and blurry, which strongly deters me from looking up word definitions.

If there is no workarounds for this, I'll consider switch back to 3.13.1 despite the improvements about pinching and performance.

I can confirm this. Double tapping to refresh doesn't help as much, since the text does not become as dark as it was previously.

Very annoying, and a deal breaker. I'm going to look up on a way to go back to 3.13.1. There is nothing about this 3.15 update that can be considered an update for me.

[NiLuJe]

@Patricius / @howyoudoin:

Ouch. Indeed, it does a bitonal refresh on word selection, but on *the full screen* (instead of only for the underline & potentially the handles, which would seem more sensible; and we get another confirmation that the top 11 pixels are behind the bezel on the H2O ^^) >_<".
I forgot to check this last time, but switching LeanAndMean off *might* help with that, since that's the same pattern of refreshes I've been seeing with menu highlights.

┌─(ROOT@(none):pts/0)────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────(/)─┐
└─(0.50:44%:14:33:100%:#)── strace -fitv -e trace=ioctl -p $(pidof nickel)                                                                                                                                                                                   ──(Sat, May 02)─┘
Process 516 attached with 14 threads
[pid   516] 14:33:51 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=11, left=0, width=1080, height=1429}, waveform_mode=NTX_WFM_MODE_A2, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=605, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=EPDC_FLAG_FORCE_MONOCHROME, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:33:51 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {605}) = 962
[pid   516] 14:33:51 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=11, left=0, width=1080, height=1429}, waveform_mode=NTX_WFM_MODE_A2, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=606, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=EPDC_FLAG_FORCE_MONOCHROME, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:33:51 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {606}) = 981
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=24, left=26, width=1028, height=398}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=607, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=614, left=580, width=297, height=81}, waveform_mode=NTX_WFM_MODE_A2, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=608, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=EPDC_FLAG_FORCE_MONOCHROME, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=705, left=700, width=281, height=130}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=609, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {608}) = 961
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {609}) = 972
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=307, left=70, width=178, height=70}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=610, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:33:53 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=307, left=70, width=178, height=70}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=611, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid  3165] 14:34:02 [????????] +++ exited with 0 +++
[pid   516] 14:34:11 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=24, left=26, width=1028, height=398}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=612, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:11 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=11, left=0, width=1080, height=1429}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=613, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {613}) = 940
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=614, left=616, width=1, height=11}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=614, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=614, left=842, width=1, height=11}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=615, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=625, left=580, width=71, height=70}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=616, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=625, left=806, width=71, height=70}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=617, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_SEND_UPDATE, {update_region={top=705, left=700, width=281, height=130}, waveform_mode=WAVEFORM_MODE_AUTO, update_mode=UPDATE_MODE_PARTIAL, update_marker=618, temp=TEMP_USE_AMBIENT, flags=0, alt_buffer_data={virt_addr=(nil), phys_addr=0, width=0, height=0, alt_update_region={top=0, left=0, width=0, height=0}}}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:12 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {617}) = 938
[pid   516] 14:34:13 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {618}) = 997
[pid   516] 14:34:13 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {615}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:13 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {616}) = 0
[pid   516] 14:34:13 [2f1b21bc] ioctl(3, MXCFB_WAIT_FOR_UPDATE_COMPLETE, {614}) = 0

The original intent was probably to make highlighting stuff snappier...
Incidentally, this is also how Kindles behave, except, well, they do so in a much better fashion, both because waveform handling & eink drivers are just plain better there, but also because the window manager is far more intricate, and behaves much more smartly regarding damage handling (in this instance, it'll almost always force a black-flash to recover when closing the dictionary/highlight popups).

[Although, granted, that's not perfect either, but we've hit the same kind of issues on KOReader with highlights & large popup handling: hard to find a good tradeoff between snappy and not murdering text rendering ]

<rant>
I had to take out my PW2 to check, and it made me sad to see how much snappier it is in comparison ;'( [granted, there's also a large CPU gap to take into account there, iMX5 vs. iMX6].

Wish Kobo would stop putting out weird hybrid devices, like the Aura, with its Pearl screen & reagl waveform handling, or the H2O & Glo HD, with their Carta screen *without* reagl waveform handling ;'(.
</rant>

[howyoudoin]

Thanks for the explanation, NiLuJe.

Another major annoyance I've noticed is the automatic refresh of the first page of a new chapter. The automatic refresh makes the page less dark. It was fine the first time the device drew the page - why refresh it unnecessarily?!?! I wish the device were a human so I could smack it on it's head when it does this.

[NiLuJe]

@howyoudoin: Is that with fancy chapter headings only or not?

Because I'm not seeing this in the current book I'm reading which has relatively tame headings; but there might be a special behavior for stuff with images forcing a black flash? (again, that'll sound familiar to Kindle owners ).

EDIT: checking on kEpubs, the ePub reader might behave differently.
EDIT²: Nope, same deal.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@howyoudoin: Is that with fancy chapter headings only or not?

Because I'm not seeing this in the current book I'm reading which has relatively tame headings; but there might be a special behavior for stuff with images forcing a black flash? (again, that'll sound familiar to Kindle owners ).

EDIT: checking on kEpubs, the ePub reader might behave differently.
EDIT²: Nope, same deal.

It's with plain headings - capitals, bolded and centered, no images. Calibre generated kePub. I don't have any ePubs on the device. My reading settings are set to display full screen and refresh every 1 page; I feel that might be relevant.

[NiLuJe]

@howyoudoin: Well, if it's set to refresh every page, it'll indeed refresh every page, and that includes chapter breaks, or am I missing something? ^^