Wish There Were Separate Kobo Reader and Kobo Reader Modified Forums

[petercreasey]

I run virtually everything e.g. PC, software, and, yes KA1 lean and clean -- read: no modifications. Makes everything so much simpler and more reliable with no reduction in functionality...for me, at least.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by petercreasey

I run virtually everything e.g. PC, software, and, yes KA1 lean and clean -- read: no modifications. Makes everything so much simpler and more reliable with no reduction in functionality...for me, at least.

For me that would be an absolute nightmare. Default settings generally never satisfy me.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

...there is a patch for that.

Shh! Do you want to get sued?

[DevonHess]

Originally Posted by petercreasey

I run virtually everything e.g. PC, software, and, yes KA1 lean and clean -- read: no modifications. Makes everything so much simpler and more reliable with no reduction in functionality...for me, at least.

Sure, for you maybe.

I agree that custom software can make your devices a bit less stable.
I agree that with some devices, it's not worth the trade off. The Kobo might fall into that for you.

But to categorically reject modding? I think you're limiting yourself for no reason.

There are some devices, like my 3DS for example, where modding has made them useful for years after I would have normally abandoned them.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petercreasey

I run virtually everything e.g. PC, software, and, yes KA1 lean and clean -- read: no modifications. Makes everything so much simpler and more reliable with no reduction in functionality...for me, at least.

For me, the patches and NickleMenu add functionality for how i use my H2O. True, the patches can take away some functionality, but that is my choice to enable those patches.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DevonHess

Sure, for you maybe.

I agree that custom software can make your devices a bit less stable.
I agree that with some devices, it's not worth the trade off. The Kobo might fall into that for you.

But to categorically reject modding? I think you're limiting yourself for no reason.

There are some devices, like my 3DS for example, where modding has made them useful for years after I would have normally abandoned them.

Less stable? I have the patches, NickelMenu, and a better hyphenation dictionary installed and my H2O is not at all less stable.

[DevonHess]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Less stable? I have the patches, NickelMenu, and a better hyphenation dictionary installed and my H2O is not at all less stable.

I was talking about modding more generally, like phones and game consoles. Kobopatch in my experience is just as stable as stock.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DevonHess

I was talking about modding more generally, like phones and game consoles. Kobopatch in my experience is just as stable as stock.

NickelMenu does mod and it's stable. The patches mod and they are stable. The better hyphenation dictionary replaces the default English hyphenation dictionary and it's stable.

[DevonHess]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

NickelMenu does mod and it's stable. The patches mod and they are stable. The better hyphenation dictionary replaces the default English hyphenation dictionary and it's stable.

I don't think we disagree. Kobo mods are generally very stable nowadays. I was making a point about custom software and modding in general.

[cgsmom]

I know how the OP feels. When I was looking for a new reader I considered a Kobo. When I saw how many people were modifying their Kobo, I thought the stock version must be terrible and all that modifying sounded like too much work. So I just went to B&N and bought a Nook GL+7.8 and I have been very happy.

Edit to add: I do buy most of my books from Kobo though.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

I know how the OP feels. When I was looking for a new reader I considered a Kobo. When I saw how many people were modifying their Kobo, I thought the stock version must be terrible and all that modifying sounded like too much work. So I just went to B&N and bought a Nook GL+7.8 and I have been very happy.

Edit to add: I do buy most of my books from Kobo though.

So you went out and bought a nook based on false information and now you have a really awful Reader because the firmware is lousy.

[PeterT]

The only time I'd agree with distinct threads / fora is for people who report bugs with the Kobo f/w without mentioning they've patched it.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

NickelMenu does mod and it's stable. The patches mod and they are stable. The better hyphenation dictionary replaces the default English hyphenation dictionary and it's stable.

Regarding stability, the patches have never had any serious issues, but there are bugs once in a while just after a release (e.g. it might not do anything or it might crash when you press a specific button). I've done quite a bit of work over the last two years to improve the stability, ease-of-use, multi-version compatibility, and amount of patches available (see here and here). Over the last few months, there have not been any issues other than one or two ineffectual CSS patches and a numbering issue with the smartlink patches (see here). In addition, there's now usually quite a bit of testing before each release (see here) and most development is done in the open along with detailed comments about how the patches work, like this (I originally started doing this while figuring out how the existing patches worked).

The newest mods made with my NickelHook library are about as safe as it can get, and there haven't been any significant issues in released versions: NickelMenu (bugs), NickelSeries, kobo-dotfile-hack-ng (@sherman is currently working on another one, NickelDBus). These ones don't even touch the system files directly, and can recover automatically if anything critical goes wrong. And, even so, I've put together some notes on my research about how to prevent things from going wrong to begin with here. In addition, while working on these, there was a lot of testing done before the initial release.

And, there's also other tools like kepubify, Calibre, dictutil, PyGlossary, covergen, and so on which don't have any chance of breaking things since they are mostly just file conversion tools.

As I mentioned earlier, I recently put together this list of how risky and intrusive the mods I'm aware of are: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...09&postcount=5.

P.S. I used to be somewhat paranoid about stability as well, but as I learned more, I became comfortable enough to test them on my main device (I only had a single one for a while).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So you went out and bought a nook based on false information and now you have a really awful Reader because the firmware is lousy.

Um... the 7.8'' Nook is certainly not "a really awful reader". Yes, it's slower than a Kindle or a Kobo and has relatively few customization options, but the reading experience is quite nice and I've encountered no bugs. Not everyone wants to heavily customize their devices.

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So you went out and bought a nook based on false information and now you have a really awful Reader because the firmware is lousy.

No, I went out and bought a reader that meets my needs and works just fine.