Glo Glo HD - coming from Touch, some questions

djmitchella · 06-14-2015, 11:30 PM

Firstly, the improvement in speed is very noticeable, and the light is also a big help, of course, but there's some things that I'm wondering about:

1. The light -- if I turn the light all the way off to save battery because I'm reading during the day, then turn the device on in the dark, is there any reliable way to turn the light on again? The best I've found is to stab around top left of the screen where there's usually a book, and from there I can slide on the left-hand-edge to get the light on, but that's a bit fiddly.

2. The old library view used to have a slider at the bottom to let you scroll through all the pages quickly; I can't see that in the new one (firmware 3.15), or even 'prev' and 'next' arrows -- do I have to do a lot of swipes to navigate?

3. Is there any way to do 'view list of authors' and browse that way? I know I can sort by author, but what I want is a list of all the authors at once so I can select from that list. It feels like I should be able to do this with collections and appropriate metadata stuff in Calibre, but I couldn't get it to work, I can only get series information across that way.

4. Is there a way to zoom when reading an epub? Some of them have maps and things, and it would be nice to zoom in. I can pinch-to-zoom on PDFs, but not on epubs?

PeterT · 06-14-2015, 11:45 PM

Tap on the "Page x of y" at the top of the screen and enter a number

robko · 06-15-2015, 08:40 AM

Really the battery drain from the light is very minimal so you're probably better off to just leave it on during the day rather than trying to turn it on in the dark. It's not like a phone or tablet where increasing light levels eat battery. And generally leaving it on (even in bright areas) improves the contrast.

Larken · 06-17-2015, 10:48 AM

I tend to be a reader who is anal about battery consumption, which is why I don't read on my phone or tablet. So I can understand wanting to keep your back light off unless it's really needed. Myself, I'm almost always in a book. Rarely am I on the home screen. If you are in a book and find yourself suddenly in the dark, you can slide your finger up the left side of the screen and the back light should come on. You can adjust it by sliding up and down the left side. This doesn't seem to work from the home or library screen.

rashkae · 06-17-2015, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djmitchella

4. Is there a way to zoom when reading an epub? Some of them have maps and things, and it would be nice to zoom in. I can pinch-to-zoom on PDFs, but not on epubs?

In Epubs, no, the Adobe RMDK epub reader is very limited in that regard... Kepubs, yes, with a few caveats.

To benefit from Kobo's own reader software and the ehancements it offers, install the Kobo Touch extended driver plugin in Calibre (assuming you are using Calibre to load books to your Kobo.) That will convert epubs to Kepub format when sending books to the Kobo. Among the other changes, you can then zoom and pan images.. (Double tap on an image to zoom on it., pinch zoom also works, as well as a zoom on the bottom menu.

In addition to Zoom, the ACCESS reader also dithers colour gradients much more finely, so the screen looks like you have full greyscale, rather than just the 16 shades.

Unfortunately, when using the Kobo ACCESS Kepub reader, there is an extra page header, and trying to remove the header/footer exposes a few bugs to work around, so you loose some screen real estate. Regardless, with the better zoom and image rendering, I've even been covnerting my few loaded cbr files to kepub for reading on the Kobo.

djmitchella · 06-19-2015, 07:52 AM

thanks for all the answers! I'll give these things a try.

djmitchella · 06-19-2015, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rashkae

In Epubs, no, the Adobe RMDK epub reader is very limited in that regard... Kepubs, yes, with a few caveats.

To benefit from Kobo's own reader software and the ehancements it offers, install the Kobo Touch extended driver plugin in Calibre (assuming you are using Calibre to load books to your Kobo.) That will convert epubs to Kepub format when sending books to the Kobo. Among the other changes, you can then zoom and pan images.. (Double tap on an image to zoom on it., pinch zoom also works, as well as a zoom on the bottom menu.

In addition to Zoom, the ACCESS reader also dithers colour gradients much more finely, so the screen looks like you have full greyscale, rather than just the 16 shades.

Unfortunately, when using the Kobo ACCESS Kepub reader, there is an extra page header, and trying to remove the header/footer exposes a few bugs to work around, so you loose some screen real estate. Regardless, with the better zoom and image rendering, I've even been covnerting my few loaded cbr files to kepub for reading on the Kobo.

I tried this, and clearly I'm missing something here. I'm using Calibre, and I have the Touch driver installed, but both with books transferred that way and with books transferred with the original Kobo software, I don't get pinch-to-zoom or double-click-to-zoom on images. (and I don't see any extra header / zoom on the bottom menu).

Is there something else I have to do to enable this reader? There are files in the .kobo/kepub folder, but I don't see any different behaviour when reading those, and all the other epubs I've transferred have stayed as plain old .epub.

davidfor · 06-19-2015, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djmitchella

I tried this, and clearly I'm missing something here. I'm using Calibre, and I have the Touch driver installed, but both with books transferred that way and with books transferred with the original Kobo software, I don't get pinch-to-zoom or double-click-to-zoom on images. (and I don't see any extra header / zoom on the bottom menu).

Is there something else I have to do to enable this reader? There are files in the .kobo/kepub folder, but I don't see any different behaviour when reading those, and all the other epubs I've transferred have stayed as plain old .epub.

If you want to read books as kepubs, then you either have to convert to kepub in calibre and send the kepub, or use the KoboTouchExtended driver to send the books to the device. This does the conversion on the fly and doesn't keep a copy of it in the calibre library.

Pinch-to-zoom isn't supported on the Glo HD.

djmitchella · 06-20-2015, 02:58 AM

Okay, I have it all working, thanks! (1: I didn't read carefully enough to notice the difference between the plain Touch and the TouchExtended drivers, and 2:I somehow had a plain epub as well as a kobo epub on there even for the books I transferred with the kobo app). Now I have the UI with zooming on images etc, which is definitely useful at times.

(pinch-to-zoom works for PDFs, but nothing else; it would be handy if it worked for CBR/CBZ but the higher resolution of the HD means it's now my close-up vision that's the limiting factor for reading them..)

thanks again!

06-14-2015, 11:30 PM	#1
djmitchella Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2015 Device: kobo glo hd	Glo HD - coming from Touch, some questions Firstly, the improvement in speed is very noticeable, and the light is also a big help, of course, but there's some things that I'm wondering about: 1. The light -- if I turn the light all the way off to save battery because I'm reading during the day, then turn the device on in the dark, is there any reliable way to turn the light on again? The best I've found is to stab around top left of the screen where there's usually a book, and from there I can slide on the left-hand-edge to get the light on, but that's a bit fiddly. 2. The old library view used to have a slider at the bottom to let you scroll through all the pages quickly; I can't see that in the new one (firmware 3.15), or even 'prev' and 'next' arrows -- do I have to do a lot of swipes to navigate? 3. Is there any way to do 'view list of authors' and browse that way? I know I can sort by author, but what I want is a list of all the authors at once so I can select from that list. It feels like I should be able to do this with collections and appropriate metadata stuff in Calibre, but I couldn't get it to work, I can only get series information across that way. 4. Is there a way to zoom when reading an epub? Some of them have maps and things, and it would be nice to zoom in. I can pinch-to-zoom on PDFs, but not on epubs?

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06-14-2015, 11:45 PM	#2
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 13,528 Karma: 78910202 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	Tap on the "Page x of y" at the top of the screen and enter a number

06-15-2015, 08:40 AM	#3
robko Wizard Posts: 2,454 Karma: 5469320 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Kobo	Really the battery drain from the light is very minimal so you're probably better off to just leave it on during the day rather than trying to turn it on in the dark. It's not like a phone or tablet where increasing light levels eat battery. And generally leaving it on (even in bright areas) improves the contrast.

06-17-2015, 10:48 AM	#4
Larken Where's the backlight?? Posts: 52 Karma: 2089116 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Indianapolis, IN Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and Kobo Glo HD	I tend to be a reader who is anal about battery consumption, which is why I don't read on my phone or tablet. So I can understand wanting to keep your back light off unless it's really needed. Myself, I'm almost always in a book. Rarely am I on the home screen. If you are in a book and find yourself suddenly in the dark, you can slide your finger up the left side of the screen and the back light should come on. You can adjust it by sliding up and down the left side. This doesn't seem to work from the home or library screen.

06-19-2015, 07:52 AM	#6
djmitchella Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2015 Device: kobo glo hd	thanks for all the answers! I'll give these things a try.

06-20-2015, 02:58 AM	#9
djmitchella Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2015 Device: kobo glo hd	Okay, I have it all working, thanks! (1: I didn't read carefully enough to notice the difference between the plain Touch and the TouchExtended drivers, and 2:I somehow had a plain epub as well as a kobo epub on there even for the books I transferred with the kobo app). Now I have the UI with zooming on images etc, which is definitely useful at times. (pinch-to-zoom works for PDFs, but nothing else; it would be handy if it worked for CBR/CBZ but the higher resolution of the HD means it's now my close-up vision that's the limiting factor for reading them..) thanks again!

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