Firmware 4.17.13651

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

In terms of grabbing the patches from GitHub and setting them up to actually do what they’re supposed to I can see how it’s going to be a bit confusing.

Especially versus snagging the assembled package when you finish them and release them. I imagine I could get through it with some stumbling but I can see other users here being totally lost.

For getting unreleased patches right from GitHub, that's supposed to be somewhat difficult, as we (me, jackie_w, GeoffR) don't want to support users who choose to use in-progress patches without knowing what they are doing. Even so, I've recently made the build process a bit easier to use. As I said, the official release for the patches is coming by the end of the week.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by perisiana

Thanks, can I ask if I can just unzip everything and put it in the .kobo folder or in the root?

Yes, just unzip it in the .kobo folder like an update (you should end up with .kobo/KoboRoot.tgz).

Originally Posted by omro

My Kobo Aura HD hasn't seen the OTA update. Is there a way to force it to?

You can change the affiliate.conf as Semwize said (bestbuyca and walmartca also work), or you can download the firmware manually.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by geek1011

For getting unreleased patches right from GitHub, that's supposed to be somewhat difficult, as we (me, jackie_w, GeoffR) don't want to support users who choose to use in-progress patches without knowing what they are doing. Even so, I've recently made the build process a bit easier to use. As I said, the official release for the patches is coming by the end of the week.

Yeah I can appreciate that, not asking for it to change, just explaining the question you were responding to.

I know enough to know I'd probably mess something up, so I just wait for the official patches. 99.99% of the time you and the rest of the patchers have them out before I'm too tempted by the firmware. The new GUI was just too tempting to wait the week out. And a week is way more than reasonable an amount of time for you all to ask us to wait for those patches, especially with the changes to how things are done in this firmware.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Semwize

Great

If I understood correctly, they don’t want and will not roll back this change?

Anything is possible. But, they made the change in response to customer feedback. Something would have to happen to convince them it was a mistake. And about the only way would be more customer feedback. But, you will have to make your case very carefully. The feedback that triggered this was probably something like "Why aren't all my books imported?" and then investigation happened as to why. If you are going in with "I want to put books on the device that do not get imported", it will probably be treated as an invalid request. The device is an ereader. Putting books on it you can't read doesn't really make sense.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by djazz

Here is a short video showing some of the features when reading ebooks and manga:

Watching the video shows me how awkward the chapter being in the header and the book title being in the footer is. When the scrubber comes up, it has the chapter info at the bottom.

I really hope eventually there's a patch to swap the header and footer info.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Anything is possible. But, they made the change in response to customer feedback. Something would have to happen to convince them it was a mistake.

I can see not importing dot directories as being surprising to some users.

However, importing .Trashes and similar is almost certainly a mistake (I had a couple odd things imported, I didn't even know I had a trashes folder on my kobo), and I suspect they will eventually be expanding their blacklist.

Assuming they do that, can we get another directory (.hidden? .noimport) added to such a blacklist?

I may submit a bug report to kobo this week. I really don't care about having a hidden folder myself, but it does seem ridiculous for a trash folder to get imported.

[wingmongyee]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Yeah I can appreciate that, not asking for it to change, just explaining the question you were responding to.

I know enough to know I'd probably mess something up, so I just wait for the official patches. 99.99% of the time you and the rest of the patchers have them out before I'm too tempted by the firmware. The new GUI was just too tempting to wait the week out. And a week is way more than reasonable an amount of time for you all to ask us to wait for those patches, especially with the changes to how things are done in this firmware.

You explained my question very well. It's exactly what I meant.
I was confused. I thought kobopatch was a different system for installing patches than the one that is used with "the assembled packages" as you called them.
Just like you I was tempted by the new gui ; I usually always wait for the patches to be released officially before updating the firmware.
I was certainly not asking for the people creating the patches to hurry up or anything. As it is, I am extremely grateful for all the work that everyone involved is doing for free just to be helpful to readers like me who could never modify the firmware themselves even if our lives depended on it.
I'm sorry if I came across as if I was complaining. It was never my intention.

[rtiangha]

Originally Posted by compurandom

I can see not importing dot directories as being surprising to some users.

However, importing .Trashes and similar is almost certainly a mistake (I had a couple odd things imported, I didn't even know I had a trashes folder on my kobo), and I suspect they will eventually be expanding their blacklist.

Assuming they do that, can we get another directory (.hidden? .noimport) added to such a blacklist?

I may submit a bug report to kobo this week. I really don't care about having a hidden folder myself, but it does seem ridiculous for a trash folder to get imported.

Or even just to get nickel to respect the presence of an empty .noscan or .nomedia file in any directory and not scan it. Doing it that way might be easier for the Kobo devs to maintain than having to keep updating white/blacklists, and it'd make it easier for those who do know what they're doing to make their devices behave the way they expect.

[djazz]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Watching the video shows me how awkward the chapter being in the header and the book title being in the footer is. When the scrubber comes up, it has the chapter info at the bottom.

I really hope eventually there's a patch to swap the header and footer info.

Yeah I hope so too. Before this update my preferred way to read was with no header and footer in pages left in chapter mode. I won't keep the progress bar enabled in the new firmware, since it is visible on top of manga/comics.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Nice video. Now could you please show us 4.17.x with ePub instead of kepub? Thanks.

See attached image. I don't use that renderer for the ebooks I have, I like to see chapter progress, fast page turn etc.. This firmware doesn't seem to change that.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Watching the video shows me how awkward the chapter being in the header and the book title being in the footer is. When the scrubber comes up, it has the chapter info at the bottom.
I really hope eventually there's a patch to swap the header and footer info.

Another thing linked to the inversion of title and chapter is very annoying, particularly while navigating big books - for instance most recently dipping into Finnegan's Wake from Pynch's complete James Joyce (3566 pages): it is now impossible to navigate within a chapter as I used to do by toggling the virtual button along the line between the arrows. And it is not possible to move it along a decently smallish amount of pages while toggling on the line for the full book, or even just enter a page number.

In former F/Ws, I did (very rarely) wish to move within the whole book while reading a book I had not bothered making a decent TOC, but I move within a chapter much more frequently.

[Frenzie]

Originally Posted by compurandom

Assuming they do that, can we get another directory (.hidden? .noimport) added to such a blacklist?

Standard directories used by the community are .adds for scripts/software and .books/.documents for books/documents. But that would not be a desirable limitation. As already mentioned something like a .hidden/.noindex file in a directory would be better.

[Semwize]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

We have no way of knowing what feedback Kobo got and how accurate any reason they give for anything.

As an option, an assumption, this is done to combat mods and third-party applications. User requests seem absurd.

Patrick, thanks again.

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by Semwize

User requests seem absurd.

I think so too. It's just too unusual to have dots in folder names, moreso as the first character. As an improvement or fix it makes no sense whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Semwize

this is done to combat mods and third-party applications.

Of course, if they wanted to combat them, they could employ much more effective methods.

Scanning hidden directories is a huge inconvenience but it causes more harm to nickel itself than the addons. It's nickel that now show many files that don't belong. The addons themselves don't really care, they still work fine...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Semwize

As an option, an assumption, this is done to combat mods and third-party applications. User requests seem absurd.

Sorry, you are showing your bias again. If Kobo wanted to stop the mods and stuff, there are better ways to do it. And the workaround is to put the files inside the .kobo directory. Or use a file extension that won't be seen as a book.

As to user requests being absurd, the question has been asked at least once in this forum. I have absolutely no reason to think that Kobo are lying to me. And a lot of reasons to be sure they aren't.

[Semwize]

davidfor,
why scan a dot folder simple user? A regular Windows user simply will not be able to create .dir, and there should be many such requests..

And again, this is an assumption, and I do not insist on it at all

Originally Posted by frostschutz

The addons themselves don't really care, they still work fine...

for example, will show pictures of ScreenSaver. This is not good)