Glo Can I Remove these Buttons from Glo Home Screen??

[Sxygrrl]

I need ! Searched the forum for days and can't find what I'm needing. I accidentally logged out of my Kobo Glo and had to sign in which forced an update on me. I don't remember what firmware I was using but it was old enough to be compatible with Calibre 1.43 (between fw 2.6 to 3.1) and the home screen was tiled but didn't have the annoying "Reserved for your next great read" tile or the 'Sync' tile below it. (And shelves were called 'collections').

I now installed FW 3.19.5761 and also the patch to adjust the line spacing and margins. To make it like my old version, is there a way to:

• Remove the "Reserved for your next great read" tile
• Remove 'Sync' tile
• Hide book title on the header while reading a book

My old version would put the book full screen with page number on the bottom but title would only show up if I tapped the book in the middle. A second tap would show the date/time and a third tap would go back to full screen. I miss these options! How do I get them back???

Photo to show my current screen and the 2 items on the left I want gone. Thanks in advance for any help! I'm not overly familiar with all of this, but I can follow instructions lol.

[John F]

Just a quick guess...

Is the clock/date set correctly? Tap and hold to dismiss a tile?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Sxygrrl

• Remove the "Reserved for your next great read" tile

This tile should always show the book currently being read. I think the only time I ever saw it like what you are seeing is when I was setting up a new device. I don't remember there was a way to get rid of this tile. If opening a book and doesn't change the tile to that book, then I'd go with @John F's suggestion that the date and time is wrong.

• Remove 'Sync' tile

There should be a function in my Kobo Utilities plugin to hide some of the tiles, including the sync. It has been a long time since I used it, but, I haven't removed the function so it should still work for older firmware.

• Hide book title on the header while reading a book

My old version would put the book full screen with page number on the bottom but title would only show up if I tapped the book in the middle. A second tap would show the date/time and a third tap would go back to full screen. I miss these options! How do I get them back???

That at least partly sounds like one of the differences between epub and kepub. Epub didn't show the title, but, it did when the menu bars were displayed. Kepub always showed the title. You could use the hidden option to enable full screen reading, but, then both the header and footer were hidden.

And I don't ever remember tapping working like that. The time would display when the menubars were first displayed and a few seconds later it would change to the percent read. There was something where tapping the clock icon would show the time for a while. Is that what you are thinking of?

It has been to long since I have touched any of these firmware versions, so, I'm working on memory. There were some patches back then, but, I don't remember what. Maybe the title gone from the header all the time was one.

[Sxygrrl]

The date and time are correct, yes. The way it was set up before, that reserved reading section always had a book in it but now if I open a book and start to read it and then go back to the home screen, it still does not show up in that section. And the times that it does, it does not stay for long.

I'm using all epubs on my Glo. The majority are Word files that I converted to EPUB in calibre. I do remember seeing the date and time and the percent read in the header when I would tap but it would also alternate and show me the title of the book. Maybe I didn't tap extra to see the title but I know it would switch so I would see all three of these things. Hmm...

I factory reset and then tried multiple firmware versions to see which one looked most familiar. The closest I got was the 3.1 but I know it wasn't that one because that version takes forever for a book to go to sleep. I wish I could remember what I was using! I know it was right after they switched from calling it shelves to collections. Unless there was a patch that made that switch for earlier fw?

I suppose there's a psychology lesson in here somewhere for me to learn to adapt to change haha.

[Sxygrrl]

Tap and hold does dismiss a title but it doesn't work for the reserved reading or sync buttons on the left column. Whatever I was using before had just regular tiles that I could dismiss. And it didn't include the time remaining to read the book. It only included the percentage read. I looked on calibre to customize the home screen and there is an option for sync but when you hover over it, the text that pops up says that that feature does not work

[JSWolf]

Did you give the 4.18.x firmware a try before you went back to 3.19.x? If not, you should have given it a try as you may like it. Yes the home screen has changed. But there are features not available in 3.19.x.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Sxygrrl

Tap and hold does dismiss a title but it doesn't work for the reserved reading or sync buttons on the left column.

The current book and sync tiles are different tiles. You could never dismiss them from the screen

As to the behaviour of the current read tile, I never saw that when I was using 3.19.x. If I opened a book, it showed that until I finished. Finish the book and it would change to the next book.

Whatever I was using before had just regular tiles that I could dismiss. And it didn't include the time remaining to read the book. It only included the percentage read.

Which means that before, you were reading epubs, and now you are reading kepubs. The time remaining is only shown for kepubs. Have you added the KoboTouchExtended driver recently? That will send books to the device as kepubs instead of epubs.

I looked on calibre to customize the home screen and there is an option for sync but when you hover over it, the text that pops up says that that feature does not work

You mean in the "Dismiss Tiles from Home Screen" options? The tooltip for the Sync tile is: "Displays when a sync was last done. Does not have options to dismiss it." All that is saying is that the Sync tile doesn't have a dismiss option on its menu. The plugin can do the dismiss, but, from memory, it can reappear after some actions and only disappear after the home page is refreshed.

[Sxygrrl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Did you give the 4.18.x firmware a try before you went back to 3.19.x?

I did give 4.18 a try but I really didn't like the home screen. Originally I was using something much earlier than 3.19 so even this firmware is new to me. But from what I read, it is the most updated firmware before the home screen makes the switch.

I don't really use any of the features but I did notice the speed is better then what I used to have.

[Sxygrrl]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Have you added the KoboTouchExtended driver recently? That will send books to the device as kepubs instead of epubs.

Ugh! YES! That's exactly what I did. I was trying all sorts of options that I read on the forum to figure out how to get back what I used to have. So does that mean if I delete that driver in Calibre, delete all the books on my Kobo and then resend, that they will then go back to epubs?

I'm going to keep 3.19 fw as I'm happy enough with it but I do want to tweak it. One last question, if I were to install a lower version of firmware, would my Kobo still retain some settings from the current one? Or does it completely overwrite everything? (I mean fw only, not the loaded books).

[Sxygrrl]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The current book and sync tiles are different tiles. You could never dismiss them from the screen.

In whatever older version I was using, I could dismiss the current book title and then whatever was next in line on the home screen moved up in its place. I never did have the sync button on the screen but it's possible I had one of the versions that had it written at the bottom of the screen where those three options are.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Sxygrrl

Ugh! YES! That's exactly what I did. I was trying all sorts of options that I read on the forum to figure out how to get back what I used to have. So does that mean if I delete that driver in Calibre, delete all the books on my Kobo and then resend, that they will then go back to epubs?

Yes. The KoboTouchExtended driver only exists for transforming books to kepub. If you don't want to do that, don't use it.

I'm going to keep 3.19 fw as I'm happy enough with it but I do want to tweak it. One last question, if I were to install a lower version of firmware, would my Kobo still retain some settings from the current one? Or does it completely overwrite everything? (I mean fw only, not the loaded books).

If you simply installed an older firmware over the current one, it won't change anything in the config file or the database. Anything in the config file that relates to the newer version will either be ignored, or, if it is an option that is not available in the older version, will probably change to the default value. The same pretty much goes for the database. The database is backwardly compatible with a lot of versions. Most changes are additions that the old versions would ignore. If you are going back to 3.1, you should be OK. If you do have problems, signing out of the Kobo account and back in would probably fix them. That will regenerate the database and config from scratch. And if all else fails, a factory reset will get it working.

[Sxygrrl]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If you are going back to 3.1, you should be OK. If you do have problems, signing out of the Kobo account and back in would probably fix them.

I'm going to stay with 3.19.5761 now. It is faster than my previous version which is nice and with the patch, I was able to fix 2 of my concerns (line spacing).

I don't want to sign out of the account again!! That's what caused this mess in the first place. It was a case of me randomly thinking, "I wonder what will happen if I do this..." Well... I know now. Upon signing back in (because it left me zero choice), it automatically installed the newest firmware and I've spent the last week trying to figure out what I used to have.


Update: I found this post and it solved my header issue but also made the page numbers vanish. But it's progress haha.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=15

Thanks for replying, I appreciate it.