NickelMenu: An integrated launcher for Kobo eReaders

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by Elektron

Hmm. Does NM have dual functions (do 2 actions with 1 menu item)? That would be useful.

Yes, see chain_{always,success,error} in the documentation.

[RobertJSawyer]

Originally Posted by marp68

Love the nightmode feature. Much easier then before.

I would also like to rotate the screen to lanscape, but I only find an Invert orientation option, which rotates it 180 degrees.

What did I miss?

MARP68, below is my config file.

Note that the congif file can have ANY name, but I suggest you give it one ending in .txt -- although you can't EDIT .txt files on a Kobo, you can VIEW them (they'll show up in your books list if you select imported titles), which can be handy if you've forgotten what you've set up.

My file is called config-nickel-menu.txt, and it lets me do the following: invert (that is toggle night mode) from any of the four usages modes (main, reading, browser, and library); choose any of the four possible orientations from all modes; access Pocket articles from any of the four modes.

I put "> " in front of each of the orientation opens just to differentiate them on the menu list other options; makes the displayed menu easier to read but is hardly necessary. I also prefer to call the "upside down" orientations "reverse" rather than "inverse," so that inverse screen [toggle night mode] and inverse orientation [flip 180 degrees from normal] don't get confused in my mind.

# Thursday, September 3, 2020, at 8:45 p.m.
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
menu_item :main    :Invert Screen       :nickel_setting :toggle :invert
#
menu_item :main    :> Portrait          :nickel_orientation :portrait
menu_item :main    :> Landscape         :nickel_orientation :landscape
menu_item :main    :> Reverse Portrait  :nickel_orientation :inverted_portrait
menu_item :main    :> Reverse Landscape :nickel_orientation :inverted_landscape
#
menu_item :main    :Pocket              :nickel_open: library: pocket
#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
menu_item :reader  :Invert Screen       :nickel_setting :toggle :invert
#
menu_item :reader  :> Portrait          :nickel_orientation :portrait
menu_item :reader  :> Landscape         :nickel_orientation :landscape
menu_item :reader  :> Reverse Portrait  :nickel_orientation :inverted_portrait
menu_item :reader  :> Reverse Landscape :nickel_orientation :inverted_landscape
#
menu_item :reader  :Pocket              :nickel_open: library: pocket
#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
menu_item :browser :Invert Screen       :nickel_setting :toggle :invert
#
menu_item :browser :> Portrait          :nickel_orientation :portrait
menu_item :browser :> Landscape         :nickel_orientation :landscape
menu_item :browser :> Reverse Portrait  :nickel_orientation :inverted_portrait
menu_item :browser :> Reverse Landscape :nickel_orientation :inverted_landscape
#
menu_item :browser :Pocket              :nickel_open: library: pocket
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
menu_item :library :Invert Screen       :nickel_setting :toggle :invert
#
menu_item :library :> Portrait          :nickel_orientation :portrait
menu_item :library :> Landscape         :nickel_orientation :landscape
menu_item :library :> Reverse Portrait  :nickel_orientation :inverted_portrait
menu_item :library :> Reverse Landscape :nickel_orientation :inverted_landscape
#
menu_item :library :Pocket              :nickel_open: library: pocket

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by Elektron

Hmm. Does NM have dual functions (do 2 actions with 1 menu item)? That would be useful.

Actions attached to a menu item can be chained and conditionally chained, so yes.

[Alanon]

Perhaps this was already mentioned but I missed it – with the new firmware, could we change the "NickelMenu" text, now that we have to look at it all the time?

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Alanon

Perhaps this was already mentioned but I missed it – with the new firmware, could we change the "NickelMenu" text, now that we have to look at it all the time?

Yes:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=248

But you'll need to do a bit of work

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Yes:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=248

But you'll need to do a bit of work

Less so now that https://github.com/pgaskin/NickelMen...666e062dd3b353 has been merged .

(Binaries are available over here in the Actions page, for people logged into GitHub).

[Mercador]

Noob question, I'm trying to add Ultimate Manga reader to my daughter kobo, what would be the menu item to launch it?

[Elektron]

See post #9.

[Mercador]

Yeah I'm linking to the "ultimatemangareader.sh" but it seems to install it each time? I guess it invokes it?

[Elektron]

Weird. Try using KoboLauncher.

[Mercador]

In fact, it said that it started with process id xyz but then do nothing.

[NiLuJe]

@Mercador:

We don't have a crystal ball. Show us *exactly* what you're trying to do.

Fair warning: if you're using an old version of UMR, you won't be able to launch it outside of vlasovsoft (without much extra hoop-jumping, that is).

Current versions (i.e., check GitHub Releases, not the MR post), on the other hand, should behave. Emphasis on *should*: I've never tried either version myself.

[Mercador]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@Mercador:

We don't have a crystal ball. Show us *exactly* what you're trying to do.

Fair warning: if you're using an old version of UMR, you won't be able to launch it outside of vlasovsoft (without much extra hoop-jumping, that is).

Current versions (i.e., check GitHub Releases, not the MR post), on the other hand, should behave. Emphasis on *should*: I've never tried either version myself.

Yeah, sorry, here's the breakdown.

1) I installed Nickelmenu
2) I installed Ultimate Manga Reader
3) I created a menu list (code below)
--> At this point, I was wondering what was wrong
4) After, I installed KFmon (it added menu items by itself -- because of the generator? - it seems to read the files into folder \.adds\kfmon\config )

Now, Ultimate Reader launch (I got an KFMon overlay message saying it launch the .sh. Plato and KOReader got an error -- PID XXXX existed unexpectedly) but that I supposed it's because they aren't installed yet.

Menu code right now

#menu_item :main    :Show an Error      :dbg_error          :This is an error message!
#menu_item :main    :Do Nothing         :cmd_spawn          :sleep 60
menu_item :main    :Dump Syslog        :cmd_spawn          :logread > /mnt/onboard/.adds/syslog.log
menu_item :main    :Kernel Version     :cmd_output         :500:uname -a
menu_item :main    :Sketch Pad         :nickel_extras      :sketch_pad
menu_item :main    :Plato              :kfmon              :plato.png
generator :main    :kfmon
menu_item :reader  :Invert Screen      :nickel_setting     :toggle :invert
menu_item :reader  :Invert Orientation :nickel_orientation :invert
menu_item :main    :IP Address         :cmd_output         :500:/sbin/ifconfig | /usr/bin/awk '/inet addr/{print substr($2,6)}'
menu_item :main    :Telnet             :cmd_spawn          :quiet:/bin/mount -t devpts | /bin/grep -q /dev/pts || { /bin/mkdir -p /dev/pts && /bin/mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts; }
  chain_success                        :cmd_spawn          :quiet:/usr/bin/pkill -f "^/usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 1023" || true && exec /usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 1023 /usr/sbin/telnetd -i -l /bin/login
  chain_success                        :dbg_toast          :Started Telnet server on port 1023.
menu_item :main    :FTP                :cmd_spawn          :quiet:/usr/bin/pkill -f "^/usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 1021" || true && exec /usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 1021 /usr/sbin/ftpd -w -t 30 /mnt/onboard
  chain_success                        :dbg_toast          :Started FTP server for KOBOeReader partition on port 1021.
menu_item :main    :Telnet (toggle)    :cmd_output         :500:quiet :/usr/bin/pkill -f "^/usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 2023"
  chain_success:skip:5
    chain_failure                      :cmd_spawn          :quiet :/bin/mount -t devpts | /bin/grep -q /dev/pts || { /bin/mkdir -p /dev/pts && /bin/mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts; }
    chain_success                      :cmd_spawn          :quiet :exec /usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 2023 /usr/sbin/telnetd -i -l /bin/login
    chain_success                      :dbg_toast          :Started Telnet server on port 2023
    chain_failure                      :dbg_toast          :Error starting Telnet server on port 2023
    chain_always:skip:-1
  chain_success                        :dbg_toast          :Stopped Telnet server on port 2023
menu_item :library :Import books       :nickel_misc        :rescan_books_full
menu_item :browser :Invert Screen      :nickel_setting     :toggle :invert
menu_item :browser :Open Pop-Up        :nickel_browser     :modal

[NiLuJe]

menu_item :main    :Plato              :kfmon              :plato.png
generator :main    :kfmon

The explicit Plato entry is redundant, the kfmon generator will take care of it (assuming you've got Plato registered in KFMon itself).

----

Other than that, the kfmon generator should now pick up UMR's KFMon config, and Bob's your uncle.

It's unclear to me in your last message whether it launches properly or not? If it doesn't, check the KFMon logs, and try launching UMR via the UMR "book" directly (not that it should make any difference).

[Mercador]

UMR launch perfectly now. I just got errors for Plato and KOReader, as I expect they are there because they are in the kfmon config folder, even if they aren't installed yet.

In retrospec, initially, I was trying to run UMR without KFmon because it wasn't asked in the UMR initial post, I thought that Nickelmenu was enough to create an handle to that app.

How to install:
First you will need to install a launcher application. I recomend KFMon, the latest release along with install instructions can be found here.
Other launchers like NickelMenu will also work.

For the application itself just download the latest release here and extract the archive into the root directiory of your Kobo device.