Clara HD Next Kobo Model - Kobo Clara HD

[barryem]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

I don't know if that's still a problem, but I've read there are various bugs with how the Nook handles sideloaded content such as certain features not working properly with sidedloaded books, or sideloaded books randomly disappearing from user-created collections, and Nook developers have shown zero inclination to fix them.

Randomly disappearing sideloaded books is a problem with the new Nook. However all the features seem to work just fine with them.

That's not true of my Kobo, where I never know if the text weight or line spacing are going to work on side-loaded books. They work sometimes and not others.

There's a lot to like about the Kobo but the thing is more than a little bit buggy. At least my original Aura's are. The Nook has it's storage bug but when reading everything works just fine.

Barry

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by barryem

That's not true of my Kobo, where I never know if the text weight or line spacing are going to work on side-loaded books. They work sometimes and not others.

There's a lot to like about the Kobo but the thing is more than a little bit buggy. At least my original Aura's are.

These are NOT bugs.

If you can't change the line spacing, then it is because the device is respecting those set in the book. That is a design decision.

And if you can't change the text weight (I assume you mean the advanced font setting) then it means it is a sideloaded font. Again, a design decision.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by davidfor

These are NOT bugs.

If you can't change the line spacing, then it is because the device is respecting those set in the book. That is a design decision.

And if you can't change the text weight (I assume you mean the advanced font setting) then it means it is a sideloaded font. Again, a design decision.

Perhaps a poor design decision in this case? Couldn't a "Publisher's Default" setting provide the choice for what the publisher wants, while allowing the space to be changed by the reader outside of the publisher's default setting? Isn't this one of the main reasons for using an eReader over a paperback book, flexibility? What's sacrosanct about one particular line space setting?

(I know that this can be side-stepped by converting with Calibre, but why should you have to?)

As for the weight of the sideloaded font I know that can be changed by patching. (Which I appreciate – but I still don't understand why Kobo would make these design decisions.)

And one last thing. I realize that programmers and users have different nomenclatures, but, from a user's point of view, poor feature designs are nearly indistinguishable from bugs.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Perhaps a poor design decision in this case? Couldn't a "Publisher's Default" setting provide the choice for what the publisher wants, while allowing the space to be changed by the reader outside of the publisher's default setting? Isn't this one of the main reasons for using an eReader over a paperback book, flexibility? What's sacrosanct about one particular line space setting?

And one of the complaints about other ereaders and apps is that they don't respect the styles in the book. The problem is what to ignore, and what not to.

(I know that this can be side-stepped by converting with Calibre, but why should you have to?)

As for the weight of the sideloaded font I know that can be changed by patching. (Which I appreciate – but I still don't understand why Kobo would make these design decisions.)

A simple reason could be that there is a problem with some fonts that mean the weight changes don't work. Whether that's the actual reason, I don't know.

And one last thing. I realize that programmers and users have different nomenclatures, but, from a user's point of view, poor feature designs are nearly indistinguishable from bugs.

Yes, that's always a problem. But, hopefully the consistency of the application will tell which it is. Otherwise, report it as a bug and see what they say. Maybe enough reports will convince them a change is needed.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by barryem

It's hard to judge an ereader based mainly on a feature list. Especially when it's not in your hands yet.

Agreed. On paper, the Kobos should've been my preferred reader. Actual use, the Paperwhite is my current favorite. Limited as they may be, the default options on the Kindle work well enough for me and its frame/chassis fits my hands better.

Granted, I don't really care about the publisher's formatting for fiction. For files where formatting is important (technical documents), I'll be reading pdf not epub.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And one of the complaints about other ereaders and apps is that they don't respect the styles in the book. The problem is what to ignore, and what not to.

Why not both? Have a publisher's setting where all the publisher's wishes are implemented to the letter – and a non-publisher's mode where you can change everything. Some books are REALLY poorly formatted by the publisher (this has been a bigger issue with Kindle (.mobi) books rather than Kobo, however).

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Why not both? Have a publisher's setting where all the publisher's wishes are implemented to the letter – and a non-publisher's mode where you can change everything.

Maybe because most people who care about such things don't want either of those two extremes, they want something in-between. Override some things but not others. Getting consensus on where that 'happy medium' should be will never happen.

Personally I think Kobos already allow some reasonable alternatives:

1. Read books as epub if you prefer a light-handed approach to style overriding.
2. Use KoReader if you're looking for a heavy-handed 'Monty Python foot' approach to overriding all styles.
3. Read books as kepub if you want something in the middle.
4. Add in Kobo patching and you have more fine-tuning of options 1 and 3

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Maybe because most people who care about such things don't want either of those two extremes, they want something in-between. Override some things but not others. Getting consensus on where that 'happy medium' should be will never happen.

Personally I think Kobos already allow some reasonable alternatives:

1. Read books as epub if you prefer a light-handed approach to style overriding.
2. Use KoReader if you're looking for a heavy-handed 'Monty Python foot' approach to overriding all styles.
3. Read books as kepub if you want something in the middle.
4. Add in Kobo patching and you have more fine-tuning of options 1 and 3

Personally, I don't think it's reasonable to expect users to hack their e-readers or edit ebooks to get formatting that suits them.

I've barely used my Glo HD so not familiar with customization options yet. I've only used KOReader on the Kindle and from my short usage, KOReader seems overly complicated (for now, I prefer the default Kindle reader). Perhaps KOReader works better on the Kobo.

Smaller app developers can do the following. Why not Amazon, B&N and Kobo?

Attachment: MapleRead

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Personally, I don't think it's reasonable to expect users to hack their e-readers or edit ebooks to get formatting that suits them.

I didn't say it was, but for those who care enough several options are possible on a Kobo because it's not locked down tight. Options 1 & 3 aren't hacks.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Smaller app developers can do the following. Why not Amazon, B&N and Kobo?

Well maybe they could but in my experience blanket style overrides can have unintended consequences. For example:

• Choose left-align: All my centred headings, images and scenebreak ornamentation have also been left-aligned - I didn't want that.
• Switch on hyphenation: My long headings which word-wrap have been hyphenated. It looks awful.
• Set paragraph indentation: But I didn't want an indent on the first paragraph after a heading or a scenebreak.

Some people don't care about any of the above and some people care a lot ... and never the twain shall meet.

On top of all that there appears to be no consistency in how publishers choose to style their books. It's possible a book styled to suit a Kindle's needs is unlikely to ever work well with a Kobo's font adjustment sliders without some kind of intervention ... and vice versa but I'll bet a lot more books are tested on a Kindle before they go on sale.

[radbaddude]

Would like to see the clara compared to the aura one side by side

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I didn't say it was, but for those who care enough several options are possible on a Kobo because it's not locked down tight. Options 1 & 3 aren't hacks.

As far as I'm aware, one doesn't really control 1 & 3 if one just buys books, downloads directly to device and doesn't remove DRM.

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Well maybe they could but in my experience blanket style overrides can have unintended consequences. For example:

• Choose left-align: All my centred headings, images and scenebreak ornamentation have also been left-aligned - I didn't want that.
• Switch on hyphenation: My long headings which word-wrap have been hyphenated. It looks awful.
• Set paragraph indentation: But I didn't want an indent on the first paragraph after a heading or a scenebreak.

Some people don't care about any of the above and some people care a lot ... and never the twain shall meet.

On top of all that there appears to be no consistency in how publishers choose to style their books. It's possible a book styled to suit a Kindle's needs is unlikely to ever work well with a Kobo's font adjustment sliders without some kind of intervention ... and vice versa but I'll bet a lot more books are tested on a Kindle before they go on sale.

That's just it, though. MapleRead allows the user to either keep or override specific publisher styles (on a per item basis even). The reader can decide which settings they wish to override and which consequences they're willing to live with. Personally, I think that should be standard behavior on all e-ink readers. Readers shouldn't have to jailbreak/root their devices or be a Calibre/Sigil whiz or know how to use Alf's tools to get books in good format.

When developing e-ink reader software, why not cater to both buyers who like to stick to the publisher's style and those who prefer more customization (for readability purposes)?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

When developing e-ink reader software, why not cater to both buyers who like to stick to the publisher's style and those who prefer more customization (for readability purposes)?

That kind of developments take money, and it's a business: cost/benefit. And I don't think there are a lot of people who choose to buy a Kobo because of these options to justify to invest that money.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by radbaddude

Would like to see the clara compared to the aura one side by side

When you say that, do you mean the Aura One or the Aura, edition 1? Kobo has a confusing naming system.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by barryem

That was changed with a firmware update. Sideloaded content now has access to the full storage capacity. That's been true for some time.

The other issue, that sideloaded content sometimes seems to get lost in the device is still a problem. I put 125 books on mine and it only finds 121 of them. If I connect it and use Windows Explorer I can see all of them but the Nook itself can't find the other four.

The problem is worse than it sounds. If I simply copy all 125 books to the Nook quite a few more get lost. I minimized it by copying them 5 and 10 books and then waiting for them to index before copying more.

I haven't had the issue with sideloaded books disappearing from my Nook Glowlight 3 yet, and all my books are sideloaded. When I first bought the thing, I dumped something like 200 all at once. So the problem isn't universal. But I have seen enough posts from other users to acknowledge it is an issue.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

As I understand it, Nook doesn't play nearly as nicely with sideloaded content as Kobo.

The biggest issue I've noticed is that I can't figure out how to get the Nook to display series info along with the rest of the book data. The Nook does show it for books purchased from B&N. But I haven't figured out how to show the same on sideloaded books.

I don't read a lot of series, so it's not a big issue for me. But with my Kobo it's very simple. With the Nook it seems to be impossible.