Native Abiword 2.8.6 for the Kindle Scribe (and possibly other Kindles)

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by kbarni

I just tested Alpha 1.0, it's much better than previous versions.

However I still have some bugs:
- The menubar is not displayed at all (note: it was present in previous versions)
- The input widgets in the dialogs don't get focus (for example I cannot type in the "Find" dialog, what I type is added to the document.
- The font combo box exceeds the screen size, so when I go down, it won't scroll.

Hope these bugs will be soon ironed out so I can test the rest of the application.

Hey kbarni, thanks for testing. Are you running launch.sh from kterm instead of KUAL? For some reason I haven't pinned down yet, I have problems when I launch Abiword from anywhere except KUAL. I tried making a Scriptlet and things starting behaving strangely/breaking. The contents of the KUAL extension abiword.sh are:

#!/bin/sh
# KUAL action: launch AbiWord detached so KUAL/booklet steps aside and AbiWord
# owns the screen + keyboard (nothing left holding input like kterm did).
setsid sh /mnt/us/kindle_abiword/launch.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 &
exit 0

I did include a properly formatted Scriptlet icon in /kindle_abiword/abiword.png to be used in the future. If you have time can you experiment with getting a Scriptlet to work? I saw that you BASE64 embedded your icon for WordGrinder, but I also saw somewhere else that you can include the path to the image.

I thought a Scriptlet should work like this:

#!/bin/sh
# Name: Kindle Abiword Alpha 1.0
# Author: Kaspar
# Icon: /mnt/us/kindle_abiword/abiword.png
setsid sh /mnt/us/kindle_abiword/launch.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 &
exit 0

Also I encountered some problem where when I made scriptlets with the same name (but modified, then deleted), I can't use that name again on my device, as it seems to be stored in a cache and somewhat blacklisted?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by kaspar

Also I encountered some problem where when I made scriptlets with the same name (but modified, then deleted), I can't use that name again on my device, as it seems to be stored in a cache and somewhat blacklisted?

Maybe a row for it gets put in cc.db and deleting that row would free up that name. (Make a backup of cc.db first.)

[kbarni]

Originally Posted by kaspar

If you have time can you experiment with getting a Scriptlet to work?

Hey, here's a working scriptlet, just remove the ".txt" extension and copy to the documents folder (the forum doesn't allow attaching ".sh" files).

It's working on my device (albeit with the bugs mentioned in my previous post - missing menubar etc).

Generally I try to keep the booklet script simple and I use this site to create the icon.

[mergen3107]

@kbarni
Thanks, the scriplet works!
However I noticed that files operation on my Windows 11 machine are kinda slow with this particular file. Not sure why, maybe because of base64 image embedded. Like, renaming it (I was removing ".txt"), moving it, or deleting it freezes up the File Explorer for about 1-2 minutes. It finished fine in the end, but it is strange. Other files and scriplets are fine.

[kbarni]

Originally Posted by mergen3107

@kbarni
Thanks, the scriplet works!
However I noticed that files operation on my Windows 11 machine are kinda slow with this particular file. Not sure why, maybe because of base64 image embedded. Like, renaming it (I was removing ".txt"), moving it, or deleting it freezes up the File Explorer for about 1-2 minutes. It finished fine in the end, but it is strange. Other files and scriplets are fine.

Maybe you should stop to use your Commodore 64 in 2026. I remember that computer from '82 used to spend 1-2 minutes with a 40kb file.
Here's a no-icon version of the scriptlet, if it helps...

[mergen3107]

Yes, it is just weird

[kaspar]

Hey @kbarni,

Thank you! Your:

cd /mnt/us/kindle_abiword
./launch.sh

did the trick, and probably the DontUseFBInk.

I wonder why you're not getting a menu now. It works on my Oasis. Can you upload your run.log? I know it will be throwing missing icon errors still, but there might be something new in it that I haven't seen.

I uploaded the same script, just using the existing icon in the kindle_abiword directory.

@mergen3107

I will be releasing Alpha 1.1 this weekend. Changes are:

1. I figured out the reason for the text disappearing and reappearing while typing. In the original Abiword code there is a white out and redraw happening so quickly that it is imperceptible on an LCD screen at 60Hz. I have added some measures against it, and so typing looks smooth and less annoying. It does still need to refresh, but I mapped it to refresh locally upon backspace and period so it happens more naturally.

2. I added some more missing icon files to quiet the run.log.

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Maybe a row for it gets put in cc.db and deleting that row would free up that name. (Make a backup of cc.db first.)

Thank you j.p.s, I think that's the answer. I'm going to prune mine.

[kaspar]

Originally Posted by kbarni

P.S. It's great that you managed to put the USB port in host mode. I wonder if it can take other peripherals, like a mouse?
I think it would be great to release it separately as a scriptlet, just like the BT HID Passthrough.

Speaking of that, I found something interesting with Kindle HID Passthrough that is not working in my USB implementation.

I have a Lenovo Trackpoint II keyboard that also has the classic Thinkpad red pointer dot. When I connect it with Kindle HID Passthrough via Bluetooth and move the dot, menu items darken, and I can click. The mouse is working! But there is no cursor icon!

I think my USB implementation is indiscriminate, and that things like a thumb drive, an Ethernet adapter, pretty much anything in the kernel, will work with some very minor modifications.

When I get Abiword more stable I will work on making it a separate program. I want to get my hands on more Kindles that have USB C. Did you see that the Colorsoft Scribe uses ARM64? I looked at the GPL source. Things are getting interesting.

[mergen3107]

Originally Posted by kaspar

I want to get my hands on more Kindles that have USB C.

I have also PW6 I use in testing. Let me know!

Originally Posted by kaspar

Did you see that the Colorsoft Scribe uses ARM64? I looked at the GPL source. Things are getting interesting.

Haha first challenge will to jailbreak it first, because AFAIK these newest Kindles have dm-verity check on boot.

[kbarni]

Hi kaspar,

I found the cause of the disappearing menu bar: my Kindle was set to French, and Abiword lacked the French strings for the menu - so the menu bar was probably there, just empty. Interestingly it had the strings for the dialogs - like Find, Replace, Quit, Save etc
Probably the safest solution is to set the locale to en_US in launch.sh

The bug with no keyboard input in dialog boxes is still there.

BTW, some more ideas, mostly with Kindle/lipc integration and features :
- When closing Abiword, restore the original screen orientation. I forgot it in landscape mode and it borked Koreader.
- I think it would be interesting to add frontlight control (toggle, increase/decrease)
- Probably it's a good idea to disable screensaver while Abiword is active. I observed with my text editors that the Kindle registers only the screen touches as activity; so if you type only, it will go to sleep after 20 minutes. (as Textadept and Wordgrinder are both entirely keyboard driven, it happened to me quite often).

[mergen3107]

@kaspar can you please share sources?

[mergen3107]

> Koreader.
- I think it would be interesting to add frontlight control (toggle, increase/decrease)

This probably can assigned to keyboard binds with kindle-button-mapper with lipc commands, I’ll try to see if I can do it