PRSCustomizer: Customize and personalize your PRS505 Reader

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by jedavis1

Have you looked at adding support for other PRS models after the 505? I bought a 600 and really miss my clock!

Not feasible at this time

1. I don't own a 600

2. AFAIK, the Universal Flasher hasn't been released for the device.

[[SkA]]

I've been reading trough this forum and as a owner of a PRS-505 with the german firmware version 1.4.00.23260 I'm interested if there's a way to backup my current firmware and restore it in case I'd need to do so? I tried creating a "files.505.1.4.00.23260" folder on the SDCard thinking that PRSCustomier would make a backup there, but sadly I was mistaken.

Also, do I understand this correctly - I need to downgrade to the US firmware version 1.1 with the Sony updater, then use PRSCustomizer to get to UK firmware version 1.2.

In some other thread, somebody mentioned I can change the language on my 1.4 firmware by simply editing a file in the /opt folder, but since I can't find a way to access that file I'm presuming you can't really accomplish that at this point?

[[SkA]]

Ok, silly me - I looked all over the card for the image backup, but not on the reader itself.

Mounted the cramfs image in linux, changed the file, now I just need to double check how to replace "sony/ebook/application/resources/scripts/main.xml" on my reader.

[jedavis1]

Originally Posted by JeffElkins

Not feasible at this time

1. I don't own a 600

2. AFAIK, the Universal Flasher hasn't been released for the device.

I used this method to get the clock on the PRS600. I don't speak Russian, and the Google translation is a bit jibbery, but I notice that there seems to be 2 methods to flash the 600 and one of the posts mentions Igorsky... I just thought I would point this out incase you wanted to go somewhere with it and could make more out of it than I could. I flashed with the Russian executable (but used the English language selection) and so far I haven't noticed anything bad.

Hopefully you find this information useful.

Thanks for the great software. I loved it and it saved my bacon when I lost my 505. The Russian doesn't have a way to personalize it that I CAN TELL.

[davotibarna]

Hi, I own a PRS-505, firmware: 1.1.00.18040. I think I've successfully flashed the device with PRSCustomizer 1.04 (Linux) with the next settings:
- firmware: 1.1USA
- language: English
- icon set: IconSet2
- fonts: unicode

I'd like to read Hungarian novels on the device. Some Hungarian characters are not part of the latin1 (ISO-8859-1) character set, but can only be found in latin2 (ISO-8859-2). Basically the device could not display those characters. The document I used to test is a utf8 encoded ebook generated by the last version of calibre.

Interestingly after the flashing displaying the author names and also the history is correct, but the text is not... getting question marks.

So, the very same text gets displayed correctly when it appears in the history, but wrong when the content is displayed.

I have a feeling this device has 2 font sets and I have replaced only the one which is less important to me.

What can I do? I'd highly appreciate any help.

[Beny]

Hi Everyone,

PRS Customizer 1.04 worked perfectly for me.

Only thing is I noticed some artifacts when I switched to Iconset2. So I pulled out my handy dandy graphics editor and touched the file up.

I've attached it in case anyone else wants to use it.

I've also attached my own kBookAssets.png that has a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme to it, if anyone else wants to use it.

Keep up the great work,

This is a really useful piece of software!

Beny

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by Beny

Hi Everyone,

PRS Customizer 1.04 worked perfectly for me.

Only thing is I noticed some artifacts when I switched to Iconset2. So I pulled out my handy dandy graphics editor and touched the file up.

I've attached it in case anyone else wants to use it.

I've also attached my own kBookAssets.png that has a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme to it, if anyone else wants to use it.

Keep up the great work,

This is a really useful piece of software!

Beny

Thanks!

[VoFiWG]

Originally Posted by [SkA]

Mounted the cramfs image in linux, changed the file, now I just need to double check how to replace "sony/ebook/application/resources/scripts/main.xml" on my reader.

How did you get the cramfs of the german firmware?

EDIT: Solved. Got it.

[davotibarna]

Please answer to my question posted at 12-04-2009, 08:17 AM (#800).

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by davotibarna

Please answer to my question posted at 12-04-2009, 08:17 AM (#800).

Do the mentioned eBooks contain embedded fonts maybe? LRF- and ePub files without embedded fonts should be displayed correctly after flashing the device with unicode fonts. Could you attach a sample please (as long as it's not copyrighted material)?

[davotibarna]

I used Calibre to convert it from LIT to ePub. As far as I'm aware I kept the default settings. Calibre displays it correctly. Btw. I run Calibre on Ubuntu 9.10.
On the device turning pages is fast, I doubt fonts are embedded.
I opened up the ePub file (it's a zip. right?) but haven't found fonts in it.
It's a free ebook, I' attached both the original LIT and the converted ePub formats.

Again: the same content get displayed correctly in the history view, but when displaying the content I get question marks instead of the special characters.

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by davotibarna

...
Again: the same content get displayed correctly in the history view, but when displaying the content I get question marks instead of the special characters.

Ok, no fonts emebedded and the ePub-file is encoded correctly with UTF-8. I will check it on my Sony PRS-505 (flashed with unicode fonts) today in the evening. Either your device doesn't use the unicode fonts or the unicode fonts used by the PRSCustomizer are not really completely "unicode" (do not contain all unicode characters) ... We will see.

PS: Maybe somebody else is able to check it before evening...?

[davotibarna]

I'm talking about these characters:
<O"> /xD5 <U0150> LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DOUBLE ACUTE
<U"> /xDB <U0170> LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DOUBLE ACUTE
<o"> /xF5 <U0151> LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DOUBLE ACUTE
<u"> /xFB <U0171> LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DOUBLE ACUTE

You find them in this code chart:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0100.pdf

Does the PRS-505 use different fonts to display the history and the content?

[pepak]

Originally Posted by davotibarna

Please answer to my question posted at 12-04-2009, 08:17 AM (#800).

As you wrote later, you used EPUB. The EPUB renderer uses its own fonts, not those updated by PRS Customiser.

[pepak]

Originally Posted by davotibarna

Again: the same content get displayed correctly in the history view, but when displaying the content I get question marks instead of the special characters.

History view uses system font, which you updated.

EPUB books use EPUB fonts, which you didn't update (and it is not known how to update them).

Result: History view displays correctly, EPUB view does not.

Solution: Use LRF instead of EPUB. LRF uses system fonts.