Instructions for patching firmware 3.15.0

[murg]

I've added the link to this thread into the first post of the Direct Links to Kobo Firmware thread.

[Nick_1964]

The patch for custom refresh shows a new menu option on the glo where i can set it from 1 till.. i don't know, but shows nothing on the Aura HD, what am I doing wrong ?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

The patch for custom refresh shows a new menu option on the glo where i can set it from 1 till.. i don't know, but shows nothing on the Aura HD, what am I doing wrong ?

What do you mean by it shows nothing? Is the "Refresh the screen every:" menu empty, or does it show the same 1-6 pages as when unpatched?

I don't have any device other than a Glo to test on, but perhaps someone else can check if they see the problem too.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

What do you mean by it shows nothing? Is the "Refresh the screen every:" menu empty, or does it show the same 1-6 pages as when unpatched?

I don't have any device other than a Glo to test on, but perhaps someone else can check if they see the problem too.

The option just didn't show up at all for some strange reason, so I used the second part of the patch, then it gaves the "oh humanity"in the screen itself, so the option was visible again but now with the "oh humanity" in stead of the number, so tapped on it, and then I was able to change it, so it seems to be fixed.

[GERGE]

By the way, sometimes changing the line spacing value only one step does no difference when used with fixed top/bottom margins. This is expected, I guess, but maybe you could touch on this in the fixed margins and line spacing comments.

Thanks for the patch =)

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by GERGE

By the way, sometimes changing the line spacing value only one step does no difference when used with fixed top/bottom margins. This is expected, I guess, but maybe you could touch on this in the fixed margins and line spacing comments.

Yes it is expected, but I think it is related mainly to the choice of font size. This is a guess, but I think the way the line spacing from the slider relates to the line height (in px) on screen is:

(font size) * (base line height) * (slider value) rounded to nearest integer.

I don't know what the base line height is, but I guess something like 1.3. So it you start at the middle of the slider with the default patch values, and increase the line spacing one notch at a time you would get something like this:

38px font size:
38 * 1.3 * 0.90 = 44.46 ~= 44px
38 * 1.3 * 0.92 = 45.45 ~= 45px
38 * 1.3 * 0.94 = 46.44 ~= 46px
38 * 1.3 * 0.96 = 47.42 ~= 47px
38 * 1.3 * 0.98 = 48.41 ~= 48px
38 * 1.3 * 1.00 = 49.40 ~= 49px

28px font size:
28 * 1.3 * 0.90 = 32.76 ~= 33px
28 * 1.3 * 0.92 = 33.49 ~= 33px
28 * 1.3 * 0.94 = 34.22 ~= 34px
28 * 1.3 * 0.96 = 34.94 ~= 35px
28 * 1.3 * 0.98 = 35.67 ~= 36px
28 * 1.3 * 1.00 = 36.40 ~= 36px

These examples are just made up, I haven't the patience to test it. But you can see with the smaller font size the line spacing would repeat fairly often, because the increase is quite a bit less than one pixel.

The solution, if it bothers you, is to change the patch replacement values ... 0.90, 0.92, 0.94, 0.96, 0.98, 1.0, ... and make the gaps between values larger, say ..., 0.90, 0.925, 0.95, 0.975, 1.0, ...

The default values in the patch, like most of the others, were just what worked for me on my Glo.

(Edit: The above applies to the kepub reader, and to the epub reader if the `Unitless ePub line height` patch is enabled. The unpatched epub reader uses a line height which is not proportional to font size.)

(Edit2: If my guess about how it works is correct, then the way to choose the minimum gap between the line spacing slider values would be to calculate: 1.0 / (1.3 * your favourite font size in px), e.g. if my favourite font size is 35px, then the gap to use would be 1.0 / (1.3 * 35) = 0.022 )

[jlinear]

Thanks, GeoffR. The update went smoothly as usual.

[thp1017]

Just wanted to add my thanks as well - being able to change the footer, among other things, is fantastic.

This may seem like crazy talk to some, but any idea if there is a way to disable the whole, 'move your finger along the left side to change the light level?' It was really nice at first, but now that I've found a light level I prefer to use most of the time, I seem to accidentally change it a couple of times a week - and I'm perfectly happy modifying the brightness via menu when I need to, especially with the fine control patch applied.

If anyone figures something out, either via patch or conf file, it would be much appreciated

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by thp1017

This may seem like crazy talk to some, but any idea if there is a way to disable the whole, 'move your finger along the left side to change the light level?' It was really nice at first, but now that I've found a light level I prefer to use most of the time, I seem to accidentally change it a couple of times a week - and I'm perfectly happy modifying the brightness via menu when I need to, especially with the fine control patch applied.

I second this. The same happens to me.

[John F]

Since we're doing requests...

Could a patch be made so that if you tap anywhere on the screen you get a page forward (excluding the bottom center for the menu), or maybe make the left tap zone extremely small (1 pixel). Or maybe a patch so a top (or bottom) tap doesn't bring up the menu.

Thank you. And thank you for the patches.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by John F

Since we're doing requests...

Could a patch be made so that if you tap anywhere on the screen you get a page forward (excluding the bottom center for the menu), or maybe make the left tap zone extremely small (1 pixel). Or maybe a patch so a top (or bottom) tap doesn't bring up the menu.

Thank you. And thank you for the patches.

I'd like this too. One small area for a menu, everywhere else is a page forward. It would be better if Kobo offered this as a reading setting, though.

[eatthedishes]

Is there some way to get a top margin bigger than 99 pixels? My screen is broken (at least I think so, there are vertical lines at the top of my screen) an I would need a bit less than 200 pixels top margin to be able to read everything.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by eatthedishes

Is there some way to get a top margin bigger than 99 pixels? My screen is broken (at least I think so, there are vertical lines at the top of my screen) an I would need a bit less than 200 pixels top margin to be able to read everything.

Pasting the following line into the `ePub fixed/adjustable top/bottom margins` patch after the optional replacement value for the top margin will change the units used for the top margin from pixels to millimetres:

replace_string = B82BC2, `p\0x`, `m\0m`

E.g. the following should give a top margin of 24mm, or approx 200px on the Glo:

replace_string = B82BBE, `%\01`, `2\04`
replace_string = B82BC2, `p\0x`, `m\0m`

[Jellby]

Could we have padding-bottom and font-family in the custom footer style patch?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Could we have padding-bottom and font-family in the custom footer style patch?

The CSS for the footer changed significantly in version 3.13.1, and padding no longer works for some reason. I don't fully understand how the footer works, the existing patch was created mainly by trial and error. Margin-top and margin-bottom still work, but a too-large positive margin-bottom results in a cut-off footer, while a too-large negative margin-top dosn't seem to have that problem, and I think you can achieve any size and position of footer by changing just the min/max-height and margin-top.

You can change the font-family by adding the following two lines to the end of the patch. Don't edit the first line, but you can change the font name in the second line, and unlike other replacement strings in the patch it is okay to change the length of this one:

replace_string = 00D7, `#caption[qApp_localeName="ja_JP"] {`, `#caption                          {`
replace_string = 00F9, `{font-family: Sans-SerifJP;}`, `{font-family: Avenir;}`

However be warned there might be some funny results if you use any font other than Georgia or Avenir.