[Device Plugin] Kobo Touch Extended Driver

[gers1978]

Since the changes in Calibre 0.9.42 and driver 2.1.0, is there any value in removing all books from my Aura HD and re-adding them?

[buffaloseven]

Originally Posted by gers1978

Since the changes in Calibre 0.9.42 and driver 2.1.0, is there any value in removing all books from my Aura HD and re-adding them?

I just resent all my books to the device (without removing). Back-up your reading positions using the Kobo Utilities plugin in case a file or two produces a new version of the book on your device. This will update all the books on your device but keep all the existing database entries.

I resent all my books to clean up the ePub markup and to set widows and orphans to 0 using the mainline driver's new CSS feature.

EDIT: For a couple books they produced new entries on my Glo; I deleted the old versions of them and restored the reading positions for those ones. It worked very well.

[gers1978]

I don't care about reading positions, I only have 1 book on the go.

What's a widow and orphan?

What other advantages come from resending the books?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by gers1978

I don't care about reading positions, I only have 1 book on the go.

What's a widow and orphan?

What other advantages come from resending the books?

You know when you see a word or phrase on a screen by itself?
W & O control when to push the bit at the end of the last full screen to make a fuller last page.

[gers1978]

Which setting do I set in the new driver to ensure that?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by gers1978

Which setting do I set in the new driver to ensure that?

That is not a driver setting.
You could carefully insert that in a custom stylesheet.
Note: not all devices support W & O

[buffaloseven]

Widows define how many lines of a paragraph must be visible on the top of a page:

The widows property sets or returns the minimum number of lines for an element that must be visible at the top of a page (for printing or print preview).

Orphans define how many lines of a paragraph must be visible on the bottom of a page:

The orphans property sets or returns the minimum number of lines for an element that must be visible at the bottom of a page (for printing or print preview).

Kobo's default settings for widows and orphans are (in many people's opinions) too high, and it can result in entire paragraphs being shifted to the next page instead of breaking them more naturally. This can result in large amounts of white-space on a page instead of the page being full of text. If you want to correct that, you just need to create a file in the root (the main directory) of your Kobo e-reader called kobo_extra.css. Open that file up with a text editor (such as notepad if you're running Windows) and paste the following code into it:

body {
    widows: 0;
    orphans: 0;
}

...then save the file. In Calibre, open the preferences and click on Plugins and then open the preferences for the KoboTouchExtended driver and make sure Modify CSS is checked, then hit OK.

I ejected my e-reader then plugged it back in and let Calibre re-recognize it just to make sure everything was up to date.

A secondary advantage to re-uploading all your books with the 2.1.0 version of the KoboTouchExtended driver is that there have been fundamental changes to how it modifies your ePub files. Starting with this version, annotation features -- in particular highlights -- should work much more reliably on your kobo-ified ePubs. All the ePubs I've tested highlights on so far have worked wonderfully. You don't need to do any extra work for this (i.e. you need to do none of the steps I described above), just re-send your books.

Hope this helps explain it a bit!

[jgoguen]

You do need to delete any books you're reading before resending. I think the Kobo Utilities plugin's function to save the reading position won't necessarily work here, the IDs have likely changed, so you'll need to manually note your reading position before deleting.

Anything you haven't started reading though, absolutely fine to resend without deleting

[buffaloseven]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

You do need to delete any books you're reading before resending. I think the Kobo Utilities plugin's function to save the reading position won't necessarily work here, the IDs have likely changed, so you'll need to manually note your reading position before deleting.

Anything you haven't started reading though, absolutely fine to resend without deleting

Hmm, I just resent all my books and everything is working peachy-keen...

EDIT: Maybe I'll run into quirks after I dig in for a while...

EDIT2: The only books that seemed to require any extra work were books with special characters in the title that with the new driver were converted to underscores resulting in a new entry on my Kobo Glo. All others seemed to simply replace the file. Now that I think of how reading position is stored, the reading position probably won't be quite right since the spans have changed.

[jgoguen]

That's what I meant to say The books you haven't started yet will be fine. Except apparently for titles with special characters. But books that you have started reading in expect may have various issues with the reading position.

[Frenchdummy]

Hi, just donated 15. Now I have to understand the plugin task. Well if you, Jgoguen could speak French, It would be great. Now I'm going to read this thread. By the way, is there a way to read summaries (metadata) with a kobo glo. No other way than shelves to sort our books ? kobo is unix nobody to develop a better firmware ? ( Hey, David57 (P): calibre2opds)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Frenchdummy

By the way, is there a way to read summaries (metadata) with a kobo glo.

There is a details page for each book. Long press on the book in the library list and select "View details". Sideloaded books usually show the synopsis in the bottom half of the screen. Pressing "Synopsis" or "Details" will show a menu.

No other way than shelves to sort our books ?

The library lists have several ways to sort the books. But,shelves are the only way to group books.

kobo is unix nobody to develop a better firmware ?

There are people doing some work over in the Kobo forum.

[jgoguen]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I wonder if it would make more sense to centralize the various options that the KoboTouchExtended driver and Kobo Utility plugin have for creating database triggers.

Currently we seem to have
KTE:

• Block Kobo Analytics DB
• Dismiss New Book Tiles
• Dismiss Award Titles

Util:

• Awards
• Extras
• Library
• Recommendations
• Shelf
• Top 50
• Bookstore
• Global Stats
• Quick Tour
• Related Items
• Sync

Logically, to my mind at least (and we all know how irrational my mind can be at times), all these triggers belong in one place; the Utility and not the driver.

Sorry, I totally missed this. I have no objection to moving the triggers into Utilities, and I'll be happy to send davidfor the changes to the current version of Utilities to do it.

[Frenchdummy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is a details page for each book. Long press on the book in the library list and select "View details". Sideloaded books usually show the synopsis in the bottom half of the screen. Pressing "Synopsis" or "Details" will show a menu.

You make my day ! I own 2 kobo glo and didn't know that. Thanks

Originally Posted by davidfor

The library lists have several ways to sort the books. But,shelves are the only way to group books.
There are people doing some work over in the Kobo forum.

great too

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

Sorry, I totally missed this. I have no objection to moving the triggers into Utilities, and I'll be happy to send davidfor the changes to the current version of Utilities to do it.

I can quite understand your missing this. Now we just need David to chime in (when those crazy people from down under wakeup).