[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Majutsushi

Just a note that I do have plans to make configuring a custom column for the reading times easier, I just need to find the time for it, and there are a few other things I want to get done first.

Also, having the raw seconds available is important for uses cases other than just displaying the time in its own column, for example I use that time together with the Count Pages plugin to calculate the reading speed for a book. Having to convert the time back and forth between different formats, especially if it's customizable, would make things much more complicated and also potentially lossy.

And timezones of hell...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Majutsushi

Just a note that I do have plans to make configuring a custom column for the reading times easier, I just need to find the time for it, and there are a few other things I want to get done first.

Also, having the raw seconds available is important for uses cases other than just displaying the time in its own column, for example I use that time together with the Count Pages plugin to calculate the reading speed for a book. Having to convert the time back and forth between different formats, especially if it's customizable, would make things much more complicated and also potentially lossy.

Then how about an option to get minutes/seconds as well as raw seconds?

[ownedbycats]

Might be able to make template to convert it.

EDIT: See post here.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Might be able to make template to convert it.

EDIT: See post here.

But that means yet another column. With the plugin doing it, I only would need one column.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that means yet another column. With the plugin doing it, I only would need one column.

It's a minimal amount of work to set up two custom columns for reading time and time remaining with a template to display hours:minutes:seconds and hide the two columns displaying the seconds only from view.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It's a minimal amount of work to set up two custom columns for reading time and time remaining with a template to display hours:minutes:seconds and hide the two columns displaying the seconds only from view.

It's not the amount of time to set it up. It's the excess resources needed that I don't feel need to be used.

[DNSB]

For what little it may be worth, here are the two templates I use for the Time Read and Remaining Reading Time with hr:min:sec displayed. Basically a borrow from the original template in message#2 in this thread and chaley's template in the message #820 in the Templates: various questions not worth their own thread thread. My original code wasn't nearly as pretty since I tried using gmtime and strftime in a Python template.

program:

	total = $#kobo_time_spent_reading;
	hours = floor(total/3600);
	minutes = floor(mod(total, 3600)/60);
	seconds = mod(total, 60);
def format(v, str):
    if v == 0 then return '' fi;
    return v & ' ' & str & ' '
fed;
format(hours, 'hr') & format(minutes, 'min') & format(seconds, 'sec')

program:

total = $#kobo_rest_of_book_estimate;
	hours = floor(total/3600);
	minutes = floor(mod(total, 3600)/60);
	seconds = mod(total, 60);
def format(v, str):
    if v == 0 then return '' fi;
    return v & ' ' & str & ' '
fed;
format(hours, 'hr') & format(minutes, 'min') & format(seconds, 'sec')

[Majutsushi]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that means yet another column. With the plugin doing it, I only would need one column.

You would need two columns regardless, one to hold the raw value and one to hold the formatted one. The plugin can just make it easier to set up the formatted column. Until Calibre columns gain the ability to apply arbitrary formatting to a column independently of their value I'm not sure how you imagine it working otherwise.

As for resources, I don't see how additional columns consume any noticeable resources other than a small bit of storage.

[ownedbycats]

Composite columns are different. It takes not storage but CPU cycles. Can't remember words. But it can be slow. Probably not this one.

[DNSB]

The only time I've—in person—seen slowdown from composite columns was when the calibre install had over 80 custom columns with some rather complex and weird templates. That one was solved by asking what use was made of the columns and disabling the ones for which no use was found.

Even then, the major effect was reducing the startup time by about 4 seconds since the values for fewer composite columns needed to be calculated at startup.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Majutsushi

You would need two columns regardless, one to hold the raw value and one to hold the formatted one. The plugin can just make it easier to set up the formatted column. Until Calibre columns gain the ability to apply arbitrary formatting to a column independently of their value I'm not sure how you imagine it working otherwise.

As for resources, I don't see how additional columns consume any noticeable resources other than a small bit of storage.

Why can't Kobo Utilities get the raw value, format it and stick in the one custom column? Why would we need to store the raw value?

[fogice]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why can't Kobo Utilities get the raw value, format it and stick in the one custom column? Why would we need to store the raw value?

You have spent more energy and computing power arguing over this than the resources that storing two columns would require.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why can't Kobo Utilities get the raw value, format it and stick in the one custom column? Why would we need to store the raw value?

If nothing else, my time spent reading method needs the raw seconds and I do not want to waste the time and effort to convert hr:min:sec back to seconds to satisfy your demands.

[bluepeter]

I use my primary e-reader (a Kobo Clara BW) in sideloaded mode, with books managed by Calibre. I have the Kobo Utilities plugin (v. 2.21.1), and use it to set the time on my e-reader. We switched from GMT to BST (aka DST) yesterday. My laptop clock is correct: it updated to BST automatically. However, I used Kobo Utilities to set the clock on my e-reader a few minutes ago. The clock on the computer said 19:31. However, it set the Kobo's clock to 18:31 - i.e., it's still on GMT.

What am I doing wrong? How can I get Kobo Utilities to take account of summer time (when appropriate) as it sets the e-reader's clock?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

What am I doing wrong? How can I get Kobo Utilities to take account of summer time (when appropriate) as it sets the e-reader's clock?

Going back quite a few years here, but the time set by the Kobo Utilities writes a file called epoch.conf to .kobo directory. This file contains the number of seconds since 1970-Jan-01 midnight UTC. It is a fixed number. You need to configure your Kobo timezone setting. What timezone do you have configured under Setttings => Date and time => Time zone? Given you are in Britain, pick a large city near you. When I tested London, the timezone was set to UTC+1 which would appear correct for daylight savings time (BST) there

At Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:18:02 PDT, the epoch time was 1743448682.