Wish There Were Separate Kobo Reader and Kobo Reader Modified Forums

[fathead]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

...most folks, once exposed to how easy modding a Kobo is, tend toward modding.

I'm not sure that's true. This forum is an invaluable resource when seeking solutions to specific problems or sometimes just for entertainment but mostly, I'd rather read a good book than tinker with the device itself.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Nightflyer

Don’t know if this has ever been discussed.

I’m a newbie with stock Clara HD for a few months and have no plans to modify. I don’t expect to be a big player/talker here in mobileread but who knows. I read almost daily.

I frequently get into a Kobo Reader forum thread and then realize it only applies to modified Kobo readers although I can sometimes know by thread title.

Really confusing early on here on mobileread until I realized so much talk in the Kobo Reader thread is not about my stock unmodified Kobo Reader. Still hard to tell about some threads until getting into it.

Anyway, would be nice for some, possibly a lot, of people, to have a dedicated Kobo Reader (unmodified) forum.

I hear you. Wading into the discussions here can feel like being plunked into the deep end without knowing how to swim. I feel comfortable hacking devices, even modding motherboards, but I never patch my Kobos. I like it just the way it is. Reading is supposed to be relaxing for me, so I avoid turning my Kobo Clara into another “project”. (Well, I did get excited about tweaking the configuration file to enable screen shots. Haha).

You’ve already received some good advice here. I’d add that you don’t have to mod your Kobo to belong here or enjoy the forum. I’ve been here for years, and I’m not the only one who enjoys their Kobo out of the box as is. There’s room for all types here.

Forum activity here spikes on new product announcements and new firmware updates. The rest comprise of people looking for help with their Kobos, people with Calibre questions, and, of course, modding questions. Sprinkled in here and there are fun topics about feature wishlists, new Kobo model speculation (watch for that to pick up again by next month), and oddball posts.

And of course, you could always start your own. Welcome to the forum!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

probably goes to show that most folks, once exposed to how easy modding a Kobo is, tend toward modding. Not all, but even those who don't would generally admit it's not difficult.

I tend to agree. Going by the hoops needed for most other ereaders, Kobo makes it so easy plus the built-in factory reset makes it easy to recover from most errors.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by fathead

I'm not sure that's true. This forum is an invaluable resource when seeking solutions to specific problems or sometimes just for entertainment but mostly, I'd rather read a good book than tinker with the device itself.

Well, it's not like you have to spend most of your time endlessly tinkering once you've started. There are people who do, of course, but I tend to stop tinkering after I have modified my device so that it does what I want. I patched my Kobo when I got it and redo the patches after firmware updates, but otherwise I don't tinker with it. Just read. The reason I patched was the out-of-the-box experience not satisfying me. YMMV, of course.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Well, it's not like you have to spend most of your time endlessly tinkering once you've started. There are people who do, of course, but I tend to stop tinkering after I have modified my device so that it does what I want. I patched my Kobo when I got it and redo the patches after firmware updates, but otherwise I don't tinker with it. Just read. The reason I patched was the out-of-the-box experience not satisfying me. YMMV, of course.

Yep. I only use patches to fix two major annoyances I have with the Kobo:

1. change left and right margins to advance to next page

2. make EPUB and KEPUB font size match

Without #1, I wouldn't use Kobo at all.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by fathead

I'm not sure that's true. This forum is an invaluable resource when seeking solutions to specific problems or sometimes just for entertainment but mostly, I'd rather read a good book than tinker with the device itself.

I'm not sure how what you want to do is supposed to be reflective of what everyone on this forum wants to do?

Certainly there are folks who like the stock Kobo experience, I never questioned that. But the more time you spend on this forum, the more you'll come to realize modifying a Kobo is very easy. In many cases it's dragging and dropping a file to a specific folder on the Kobo and rebooting. I'd also argue the more popular and harder to manage mods (things such as nicklemenu which isn't hard just harder than drag/drop) are still fairly easy.

[JSWolf]

Thing is, there are enough o us who patch/mod/etc. that we don't actually remember what the stock firmware would be like. I've not used stock firmware since the patches came out. I've patched most firmware I've installed. Last time i ran stock firmware was sometime in the version 3 releases.

So if a question comes up about the stock firmware that needs someone running it to answer, a lot of us may not be able to help. Also, sometimes the answer is to install some software or patch. I've seen a number of questions such as, How do I do that? And the answer is to mod/install/patch because stock doesn't do that.

A frequent question is how do I reduce the wasted space in the header/footer? Patch is the answer.

[Gone]

Originally Posted by geek1011

Have you tried NickelMenu and NickelSeries? Those ones (and anything else using NickelHook) won't need to be updated with different firmware versions, and they are a lot safer and less intrusive than the other mods (like patches).

Also, if there's demand for it, I can make a NickelHook version of the 24 line spacing values patch and a few others.

Some useful things you can do with NickelMenu are:
- Invert screen menu item.
- Pop-up web browser (even within a book or the full web browser).
- Custom orientations, including the inverted ones, on all devices (after next week's NM release).
- Rescan books transferred wirelessly.
- Toggle the built-in telnet/ftp server.
- Connect to USB without reconnecting the cable or on computers which aren't detected.
- Add the browser or other extras to the main menu.

NickelSeries adds support for series metadata (without needing to plug it in twice) and subtitles.

P.S. I recently posted an up-to-date list of all mods I'm aware of: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...09&postcount=5.

Very nice of you to offer.

The only things I used to modify are advanced fonts, height of header/footer. And maybe another one, for the size of the dictionary box.

But thanks

PS : Advanced font setting for side loaded fonts should be in the firmware by default. Even Kindle has it.

.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

PS : Advanced font setting for side loaded fonts should be in the firmware by default.

I agree.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I agree.

I would disagree. I've run into several fonts over the years that do not respond well to having their weight modified using Advanced fonts weight slider.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I would disagree. I've run into several fonts over the years that do not respond well to having their weight modified using Advanced fonts weight slider.

Do you enable advanced font control?

I'd argue that a user who knows enough to add fonts to their reader would be able to figure things like that out.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I would disagree. I've run into several fonts over the years that do not respond well to having their weight modified using Advanced fonts weight slider.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Do you enable advanced font control?

I'd argue that a user who knows enough to add fonts to their reader would be able to figure things like that out.

I no longer enable advanced font control. I prefer modifying the font weight before loading it on my Kobo ereaders. The few times now that I experimented with a new font, I edited the configuration file.

Yeah, it would be nice if they would. I suspect Kobo's customer service is not so optimistic.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Nightflyer

Don’t know if this has ever been discussed.

I’m a newbie with stock Clara HD for a few months and have no plans to modify. I don’t expect to be a big player/talker here in mobileread but who knows. I read almost daily.

I frequently get into a Kobo Reader forum thread and then realize it only applies to modified Kobo readers although I can sometimes know by thread title.

Really confusing early on here on mobileread until I realized so much talk in the Kobo Reader thread is not about my stock unmodified Kobo Reader. Still hard to tell about some threads until getting into it.

Anyway, would be nice for some, possibly a lot, of people, to have a dedicated Kobo Reader (unmodified) forum.

Even though I can see how this can be confusing for a newbie or is a lot to take in sometimes, you'd rob yourself of learning something new. The beauty of the forums is not only the shared love of reading with a dedicated reader, it is also about learning.

When I joined I didn't know much about it. First thing I learned was Calibre and how to Alf stuff, then how to personalize my readers. I love to learn and people here are very generous helping and explaining. Now I am frustrated when I can't modify my reader

If you only wanna read on your Kobo and don't plan to personalize it, why hang out at the Kobo section at all? The updates come via wifi and there is a how-to on board of your Clara. You don't need the Kobo forums if you just wanna use your Clara as it is, you could just enjoy everything else MobileRead has to offer, which is a lot.

[haydnfan]

I think that the problem is not discussing patches.

The problem is when someone replies to someone using stock Kobo or is new to either Kobo or the forum and they provide an answer to a question that implicitly assuming that they are familiar with and are using patches. I've seen that happen alot and everyone should take more care to explicitly state when they unlocked a feature through a patch.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I think that the problem is not discussing patches.

The problem is when someone replies to someone using stock Kobo or is new to either Kobo or the forum and they provide an answer to a question that implicitly assuming that they are familiar with and are using patches. I've seen that happen alot and everyone should take more care to explicitly state when they unlocked a feature through a patch.

I've seen someone asking something like "Is there a way to do XYZ?" and the answer is yes there is a patch for that.