NickelMenu: An integrated launcher for Kobo eReaders

[Lavender]

Cool project. One idea I had was that it would be nice for the default kobo "more" UI element to be moved into the NickelMenu itself, and removed from the main UI. Perhaps this is already possible? I think it would be a cleaner look than the current installation.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by Lavender

Cool project. One idea I had was that it would be nice for the default kobo "more" UI element to be moved into the NickelMenu itself, and removed from the main UI. Perhaps this is already possible? I think it would be a cleaner look than the current installation.

I have to agree, especially on the Libra Colour or Sage devices the menu bar is super cramped.

[DNSB]

Super cramped? On my Sage, the bar with Home, My Books, My Notebooks, Discover, More and NickelMenu has the icons on 20mm centers with 10mm from the edge to the first icon on either side (the screen is approximately 122mm wide). For non-metric types, 10mm is ~0.4" and 20mm is ~0.79". On a Libra Colour, the screen is about 107mm wide and the spacing is reduced by about 13% whereas for a 6" Kobo ereader, the screen is about 90mm wide but icon spacing is actually increased to 17 mm since there are only 5 icons on the bar since it does not support a stylus and so no My Notebooks icon is to be seen.

[deviantintegral]

Are there any known issues with installing on more recent firmware?

I've tried both the latest release and the last build from master shared earlier. While the archive is installed (I can see the "doc" file created), no new items show up in the menu.

I'm installing on an Aura ONE with firmware 4.28.23171.

This may be a more general issue and not specific to NickelMenu. I was able to install wallabako without issue, but for some reason FBInk isn't installing (wallabako says it doesn't exist). I was next going to install NickelMenu so I could enable ssh for easier debugging... but now I'm stuck!

[deviantintegral]

I did a manual reset following https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...-Kobo-Aura-One and then installed KOReader + NickelMenu and it worked fine. Perhaps something was corrupt on my root partition earlier.

[Aleron Ives]

A default NickelMenu installation doesn't have any preconfigured menu items. You have to edit the configuration file to add the menu items you want to have.

[Lavender]

Is there a way to remedy the touch input orientation issue on the Clara bw when using NickelMenu to rotate the display?

[Aleron Ives]

No. It isn't clear whether it will ever be fixed (or whether it's even possible to do so).

[Lavender]

Understood. One more question. Is it a good idea to block firmware updates to my kobo clara bw when using NickelMenu or NickelSeries? Will kobo potentially block some feature, or patch an exploit we are leveraging for these projects?

[beckster]

I'm trying to connect my 8bitdo via nickel menu.
I've tried every configuration that I could find on the internet to do so. I am currently using this nickel menu commit. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...postcount=1484
With every single attempt, I get successfully started process with PID.
I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
I have a kobo clara color, FW 4.41.23.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Lavender

Understood. One more question. Is it a good idea to block firmware updates to my kobo clara bw when using NickelMenu or NickelSeries? Will kobo potentially block some feature, or patch an exploit we are leveraging for these projects?

At this point in time, there is no exploit being used. Kobo ereaders are an open Linux installation and no rooting/jailbreaking/whatever is needed. A contrast to the Kindle/Nook ereaders where a walled garden approach is used.

There is a good possibility that a later firmware update might not support the hooks used by NickelMenu/NickelSeries since Kobo is moving to unify the firmware used by their Kobo and Tolino ereaders. Another potential issue with those future firmware updates is that the recovery partition may be overwritten reducing the ability to easily revert to an earlier firmware version which has already been noted on the Tolino ereaders.

[Aleron Ives]

Even if an update does break NickelMenu, you can easily downgrade the firmware afterwards to get the functionality back.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Even if an update does break NickelMenu, you can easily downgrade the firmware afterwards to get the functionality back.

We won't know if that's possible once we have a newer firmware that break NickelMenu.

[filchef]

I have a problem with NickelMenu sometimes works but much more often stuck and it should turn off and turn on Kobo Aura HD to work.
When stuck no buttons work
This is my config file
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
menu_item :main : plato :kfmon : plato.png
menu_item :main :koreader :kfmon :koreader.png
menu_item :main :Browser : nickel_browser :
menu_item:browser:Quit:nickel_misc:home
menu_item:main:Reskan Books:nickel_misc:rescan_books:
menu_item:main:search:nickel_open:store:search

[unknownreader]

I did a factory reset on my Kobo Libra Color and the Nickel Menu icon is still there with "config error"
Can anyone help with getting this removed?