Glo Kobo not starting on first page...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sysKin

This is one of those features that sound excellent (heck even obvious) in theory but just don't work in practice.
The problems I have with it are:

2. Simply opening a new book and closing it magically makes it 1-3% read. I have to open it again and go to the beginning to make it unread...

As far as I know, your 2nd point which seems to say that moving back to page 1 in an epub marks it as unread does not work. Opening the epub even if it opens on the cover and you never move off the cover marks the epub as having been opened. Unless you feel up to some database editing, logging out or factory reset, it will never show as unread again.

Regards,
David

[sysKin]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As far as I know, your 2nd point which seems to say that moving back to page 1 in an epub marks it as unread does not work.

Um, you're right of course. What I should have said is 0% read (apparently I think of 0% read as rough equivalent of unread).

Bottom line is: saying that a book is 3% read just because I opened it and closed it, is one of those complications arising from this helpful-looking feature, which makes it not really that helpful...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sysKin

Um, you're right of course. What I should have said is 0% read (apparently I think of 0% read as rough equivalent of unread).

Bottom line is: saying that a book is 3% read just because I opened it and closed it, is one of those complications arising from this helpful-looking feature, which makes it not really that helpful...

I just checked with 4 epubs. Opening on the cover shows from 0% for one longer book (~450 pages) to 3% for a short story (~29 pages).

Regards,
David

[Anak]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I just checked with 4 epubs. Opening on the cover shows from 0% for one longer book (~450 pages) to 3% for a short story (~29 pages).

Regards,
David

The books that skip the cover and/or other pages probabably all have a guide section in the content.opf

<guide>
    <reference href="Text/cover.htm" title="Cover page" type="cover" />
    <reference href="Text/title.xhtm" title="Title page" type="title-page" />
    <reference href="Text/copyright.xhtml" title="Copyright page" type="copyright-page" />
    <reference href="Text/TOC.xhtml" title="Contents" type="toc" />
    <reference href="Text/Acknowledgments.xhtml" title="Acknowledgments" type="acknowledgements" />
    <reference href="Text/Introduction.xhtml" title="Preface (by author)" type="preface" />
    <reference href="Text/Index.xhtml" title="Index" type="index" />
    <reference href="Text/Notes.xhtml" title="Note" type="notes" />
  </guide>

If a reader supports it it will skip the cover page, because opening on a cover takes much time because a picture must be loaded and sometimes rescaled. Consumes more battery power than regular text pages.
A book normally opens on the type= "title-page" skipping all other non type="text" pages before the title page.

See for more info at idpf

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Anak

The books that skip the cover and/or other pages probabably all have a guide section in the content.opf

As near as I can tell, ebooks open on the first item inside the <navmap> section of the toc.ncx file.

[CODE]
<navMap>
<navPoint id="navPoint-1" playOrder="1">
<navLabel>
<text>Pilgrimage</text>
</navLabel>
<content src="Text/Section004.xhtml"/>
<navPoint id="navPoint-2" playOrder="2">
<navLabel>
<text>INTERLUDE: LEA 1</text>
</navLabel>
<content src="Text/Section005.xhtml"/>
</navPoint>
<navPoint id="navPoint-3" playOrder="3">
<navLabel>
<text>ARARAT</text>
</navLabel>
<content src="Text/Section006.xhtml"/>
</navPoint>/CODE]

This may be due to using Sigil to edit the epubs since it does quite a bit of housekeeping behind the scenes. In the epub I grabbed the toc.ncx segment from, the content.opf does have the title page listed in the manifest and guide sections, however it does not open there.

Regards,
David

[Arios]

For those of you sideloading their epubs, there is a way to force the display of the first page (usually the cover).

It's always a good thing to first add the semantic "Cover".

Now here is the trick with Sigil in code view, just add this code in the (x)html cover page:

<h1 class="nodisplay">Cover</h1>;

and this one in the CSS:

.nodisplay { display: none; line-height: 0; }

There will be a "real" heading 1 named "Cover" in the epub, that will be invisible ("display: none;") and taking no space because of "line-height: 0;". The eReader will start there because it is a heading. It works well on the Kobo Touch and my Sony.

After that you must, always with Sigil, update the TOC (click Generate TOC).

We must thank Dave Heiland (see his Sigil User Guide 0.7.2) for this wise trick.

[Morganucopia]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You read those pages where they list every book the author has written, co-written, edited or otherwise contributed to? Every time you read that book? The first time I read a book by an author, I might skim over that content. After that, why bother?

I like to read these pages too. Probably for the same reason I read shampoo bottles in the bathroom, and the fine print on CD jacket liners. Don't want to miss anything. If it's indeed very boring, I will skip it, but I do have to check first!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Morganucopia

I like to read these pages too. Probably for the same reason I read shampoo bottles in the bathroom, and the fine print on CD jacket liners. Don't want to miss anything. If it's indeed very boring, I will skip it, but I do have to check first!

I will read them once for an author. After that, I like starting at the meat of the book.

As for reading shampoo bottles, I've given up on such activities after trying to explain to my daughter a few years back why 7 varieties of toothpaste with the same brand name claimed to be whitening, good for sensitive teeth, enamel rebuilding, etc. while the list of medicinal ingredients were identical (same ingredients, same %'s) while the non-medicinal ingredients were listed without percentages but in the same order which is supposedly from the largest to smallest percentage.

Regards,
David

[byblo]

Originally Posted by Arios

Now here is the trick with Sigil in code view, just add this code in the (x)html cover page:

<h1 class="nodisplay">Cover</h1>;

and this one in the CSS:

.nodisplay { display: none; line-height: 0; }

There will be a "real" heading 1 named "Cover" in the epub, that will be invisible ("display: none;") and taking no space because of "line-height: 0;".

Could you provide a working sample please? Whatever I do, a new page with the string "Cover ;" appear while reading the ebook. (I tried on a Glo and the Calibre ebook reader)

For now, I just edit the ncx file and add a line after the <navMap>, for instance:

<navPoint><navLabel><text>Cover</text></navLabel><content src="cover.xml"/></navPoint>

Then it start at the cover page, and a new entry is visible in the TOC: "Cover"

Note that it doesnt need a playOrder value to work well.


I'm still shocked to discover that e-readers aren't giving to theirs users the ability to choose that kind of behavior...

Personally, it feels unnatural to start at first chapter instead of the cover page. I know I will never get used to it.

BTW, Is it possible to automatize this with Calibre, with some sort of scripting? At adding ebooks to the library for instance?

[Arios]

byblo, with Sigil, this shouldn't be a problem.

1) Open an epub (with no DRM of course) and go to the cover page. To create a cover if you don't have one, choose Tools, Add Cover and select an image you want to use.
2) Insert just below <body> in the cover file (named cover.xhtml):
<h1 class="nodisplay">Cover</h1>. You must be in Code view.
3) Insert ".nodisplay { display: none; line-height: 0; }" in the CSS and link it to the cover file.
4) Always in Sigil, click the "Generate Table of Contents" icon and in "Select headings to include in TOC", click All. Save.

That is certainly possible to automatize this with Calibre, but as I barely use it, I can't really help.

Theorically, the "Cover" semantic should be sufficient, but it appears not, so with an heading at first place, the ereader has no choice to stop there.

Here a short epub with the codes inserted.

Have a nice day/evening.

[byblo]

@Arios: Oh sorry. I misunderstood you.

I thought the trick was to make the reader to start at the cover page WITHOUT showing a TOC entry. My bad, I have too imagination...

Then, I don't know for other e-readers, but on the Glo, simply adding a line on the ncx works, as I explained on my previous post.

I'll try to make a script of something to automatize it. When adding a ebook to Calibre should be the perfect moment. I hope it is doable. I'm still discovering it.

Thank you for your help

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by byblo

@Arios: Oh sorry. I misunderstood you.

I thought the trick was to make the reader to start at the cover page WITHOUT showing a TOC entry. My bad, I have too imagination...

Then, I don't know for other e-readers, but on the Glo, simply adding a line on the ncx works, as I explained on my previous post.

I'll try to make a script of something to automatize it. When adding a ebook to Calibre should be the perfect moment. I hope it is doable. I'm still discovering it.

From what I can see, you are both generating the toc.ncx entry. Arios is adding the code in the ebook to allow generating the toc.ncx entry by using Sigil's TOC generator while you were adding the entry directly into the toc.ncx file. Same result in the end though I prefer the first technique as it saves me from having to redo the toc.ncx entry if I modify the TOC and regenerate it.

Regards,
David

[byblo]

Curiously, simply by renaming a epub file to .kepub.epub, makes the opening of a new book ALWAYS at the cover page, TOC entry regardless...
(note: this is NOT a tip, but was only a test. simply renaming an epub to kepub will involve some new problems, like missing preview cover on the lists)

Same result for original kepub ebooks or converted epub to kepub ebooks.

[Arios]

from byblo:
I thought the trick was to make the reader to start at the cover page WITHOUT showing a TOC entry. My bad, I have too imagination...

It may be not what you were expecting, but if you don't want the cover page showing in the TOC, you can exclude it or put something like that in the h1 class: <h1 class="nodisplay">&nbsp;</h1> or simply nothing.

[byblo]

Hum. Not sure we're talking about the same objective.

English is not my native language, so I'll try to explain clearly my wish here :

When opening an unread ebook, i want the Glo to open it at the very first page (usually a Cover picture), and this, regardless the TOC entry.
Currently, the epub renderer is opening the page pointed by the first TOC entry, which annoys me.

Now, on Glo it seems that the kepub renderer opens the book as i wish, at the very first page, regardless the TOC...

But personally i have some problems with the kepub renderer and prefer to use the epub renderer (i won't enter in details. too long to explain and off-topic anyway)

So, the simplest workaround I found for now was a mix of the advices that people gave on this topic:
I ended by adding a single line (<navPoint><navLabel><text>Cover</text></navLabel><content src="cover.xml"/></navPoint>), pointing to the cover page in the TOC .ncx file to do the trick.

I'm fine with this solution, but it lack 2 points that could be added to improve it:
1. To find a way to use the epub renderer to open an unread book at the first page, without having to add a TOC entry, or at least, not visible from the TOC. But this point is no big deal, and maybe its even bad. Being able to restart from page 1 from the TOC may be an advantage. so, not sure about this point eventually.

2. automated script to add that line inside the TOC (.ncx file) on the fly while transfering the ebook from the calibre librairy to the Glo.


This said, still wanting/hoping the firmware to be fixed by Glo's devs and to open first page as default like in the kepub renderer, without having to mess around like now !


But the best would be to have it optional:

The Glo really lack of optional basic choices. People should be able to choose that kind of behavior by themselves, like they do already for the pages refresh, the fonts sizes, ect...

I really hope Glo devs will take this request in account.