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

[ABAPKobo]

Hello,
Has anyone successfully run koreader on the original N905? I've tried a number of times over the past couple of years, but I always end up with some weird screen tearing and any touch just bringing up the copy/paste/cut/delete menu. After that it is unresponsive but can still be suspended normally. I vaguely remember a log error having something to do with ntx_hwconfig, but I can't find much info about it.

EDIT: It seems it's not actually unresponsive, just that it requires very fast tapping as in the bug here: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/630 . It's still not really usable but at least it's a specific issue.

[dudly]

Hi I'm new to Kobo and koreader...

I've installed KB start menu 8, everything seems fine, but should the pinch to zoom etc i.e

Page: Diagonal pinch
PageWidth: Horizontal pinch
PageHeight: Vertical pinch
Content: Diagonal zoom
ContentWidth: Horizontal zoom
ContentHeight: Vertical zoom

as documented on the koreader homepage, work out of the box so to speak on the aura hd ?

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by dudly

Hi I'm new to Kobo and koreader...

I've installed KB start menu 8, everything seems fine, but should the pinch to zoom etc i.e

Page: Diagonal pinch
PageWidth: Horizontal pinch
PageHeight: Vertical pinch
Content: Diagonal zoom
ContentWidth: Horizontal zoom
ContentHeight: Vertical zoom

as documented on the koreader homepage, work out of the box so to speak on the aura hd ?

As far as I know, that is only available on the 6" Aura which uses a different touch technology.

Luck;
Ken

[Thasaidon]

Hi

I have an original Kobo Touch and have just started looking at Koreader and have a couple of questions. They may be asking the obvious but I have asked similar questions before and got unexpected answers.

If I install Koreader on my Kobo Touch will I be able to use it to read ePubs in Landscape mode?

If I am reading an ePub in landscape mode how are the touches for turning pages affected?

Thanks

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Hi

I have an original Kobo Touch and have just started looking at Koreader and have a couple of questions. They may be asking the obvious but I have asked similar questions before and got unexpected answers.

If I install Koreader on my Kobo Touch will I be able to use it to read ePubs in Landscape mode?

If I am reading an ePub in landscape mode how are the touches for turning pages affected?

Thanks

Sure, it works fine on my Aura HD, don't see why it wouldn't work the same on the older Touch. It is one of the more basic features. I seem to remember that there was once an issue about landscape mode for PDFs, quite a long time ago.

Some of the Touchs have a set of coordinates inverted but there is an easy correction for that and KOReader has an added function for Touchs, to recalibrate the touchscreen.

The landscape touches/gestures seem the same as the profile ones.

One thing I notice is that there is no Landscape mode for the File Manager, though. Given the length of some titles that might be a useful feature.

Luck;
Ken

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Sure, it works fine on my Aura HD, don't see why it wouldn't work the same on the older Touch. It is one of the more basic features. I seem to remember that there was once an issue about landscape mode for PDFs, quite a long time ago.

Some of the Touchs have a set of coordinates inverted but there is an easy correction for that and KOReader has an added function for Touchs, to recalibrate the touchscreen.

The landscape touches/gestures seem the same as the profile ones.
Ken

Thanks for that Ken.

I will give Koreader a try in the near future when I have finished the task I am engaged in.

Is your name in any way connected to the town of Maltby in Yorkshire in the UK?

Thanks again

[Ken Maltby]

Right, that is where the family name originates, prior to that, my Norman/Viking ancestors didn't seem to be using surnames. I consider myself a Norman-American sometimes. My family spent ~600 years in the British isles, then another century or so as Colonials, before revolting. So sometimes I consider myself as an Americian/Americian. My older sister managed to visit Maltby once and her description makes it seem a nice peaceful place.

Luck;
Ken

[kyrilson]

What exactly is the advantage of Koreader over the default reader on kobo?

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

What exactly is the advantage of Koreader over the default reader on kobo?

There are a number of differences that offer options that some will prefer, others will prefer the stock software for some things, since adding KOReader does nothing to the stock programming, you have both to use as you wish.

The main features of KOReader, remarked upon include a better PDF reader, more formats supported, use of a normal File Management approach (over a corruptible database), OPDS support, wireless calibre interaction and others.
Check out the WiKi.

Luck;
Ken

[Alan_S]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

What exactly is the advantage of Koreader over the default reader on kobo?

This highly depend on each person.

For me it was clock visible in status bar, i.e. on every page. Of course, this just started my love for koreader, but it doesn't stops here.

At the moment koreader is much better product than nickel and it still keeps getting better and better (check koreader's github).

Best advice is that you try it out and found out if it is your cup of tea or not. It's easy to install and even easier to uninstall if you find it's not for you.

[Markismus]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

What exactly is the advantage of Koreader over the default reader on kobo?

When you ask for the advantage you're bound to get a sales pitch.

@Ken When we started out on this a few years ago, we didn't just do it because of the pdf-features and whatnot, we were kind of forced to it because of our library size. If you pumped the 4GB of the AuraHD actually full of (usually not commercially acquired) ebooks, Kobo Nickel became too slow to work with. Some MobileRead users even reported that they were stuck in a near endless loop book indexing.

When you fiited the external slot with a 16GB microSD, the situation became unworkable.

When we switched the internal SDcards to 32 and 64GB SDcards, we had more than enough space. I have filled the excess space of 128GB (internal+external SDslots filled) with my sheet music collection with room to spare.

The reason we can use the space advertised by Kobo and more is koreader and coolreader. That's the historical reason I started using koreader.

[Ken Maltby]

For me it was that, as well, and the large number of .pdb ebook files I had on hand. Another appeal of KOReader is that it has a very open feel to its development. It's not stuck in a rigid unchangeable corporate based structure. It can be "fiddled with", a major feature for some of us.

Luck;
Ken

[Alan_S]

Well, it really took a time for me to write this post, which is a good thing.

Some of you probably noticed that battery doesn't lasts that long when device is suspended. That's the reason I usually shut device off when not reading it. I suspended it only when I know I'll read it really soon.

And I heard here that if you use koreader with CoolReader's suspend script, battery problem seems solved. For a long time I didn't bothered to test it out. But, for some reason, I deceided to test it out for myself.

First I tested koreader and it's own suspend script. As some might remember, on very first day of testing there was drop from 100% to 82%, which obviously isn't good. I admit, it isn't always so drastic. But also it points that koreader's own suspend script still doesn't suspend device properly for whatever reason.

I stopped testing koreader's suspend script and uploaded instead CoolReader's suspend script on 4.12 and reported that here tomorrow (5.12). Since that day I only suspended my device and waited to see when battery would need charging.

By now you can guess, that moment has arrived. Yesterday I charged my device, and it's about 50 days that battery lasted suspending device with CoolReader's suspend script. There was again noticeable that with lower percentage battery lasts shorter and shorter times.

For example, I had 100% for first 4 or 5 days, after that there was more or less "linear" drop in percentage, but under about 40% battery was dropping faster and faster. We can say that battery should be charged when it reaches 40% or lower, just to be sure and to avoid deep cycles (which aren't good for batteries, except from time to time).

I don't know why, but there's obvious difference in CoolReader's suspend script and it seems that it really suspends device properly.

It would be really great if reason why is that so could be found out, but on the other hand, it's not too big problem to manually exchange koreader's suspend script with CoolReader's.

[NiLuJe]

No freaking idea, the two should basically do the exact same thing, AFAICT.

[Alan_S]

I must admit that I'm no coder and also don't understand hardware. But, there are some lines in CoolReader's suspend script that differ from koreader's one. It looks like it makes difference.

It also may be coincidence that my device for some reason lasted 50 days without problems suspending it. Not sure.

Just to mention, before I started shutting device off, it lasted about 10-14 days using koreader's suspend script. That's why I started shutting it off. So, whatever difference, whatever reason why it works differently, there is a difference, at least for my H2O. And it's a pretty big one.