Could I do this with a Kobo Aura One

[Ter123]

Hello,

I'm thinking of buying a Kobo Aura One for a nun who has macular degeneration for her to use primarily to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I'm aware of the monthly ebook with the liturgy for each day but that wouldn't be suitable all the time - because the monastery uses different opening hymns for the prayers and would have special liturgy for Saints of the Dominican Order.

I was trying to think how to make it work for her, because I don't think she'd be able to manage bookmarking pages and switching back and forth between them. I'm thinking of creating separate ebooks for the hymns they use and for the Scripture readings etc for the Dominican Saints (this stuff is old, or composed by the community, so Copyright isn't an issue).

This would mean that she would start her prayers with the 'hymn ebook', then switch to the bought liturgy ebook for the psalms, then jump to the 'Dominican saints ebook' for the scripture reading. I think this could work if the time-delay when opening books isn't too long. Could anyone with the Kobo Aura One let me know how long this type of jumping between books takes.

Many thanks,
Ter

[koboy]

Originally Posted by Ter123

Hello,

I'm thinking of buying a Kobo Aura One for a nun who has macular degeneration for her to use primarily to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I'm aware of the monthly ebook with the liturgy for each day but that wouldn't be suitable all the time - because the monastery uses different opening hymns for the prayers and would have special liturgy for Saints of the Dominican Order.

I was trying to think how to make it work for her, because I don't think she'd be able to manage bookmarking pages and switching back and forth between them. I'm thinking of creating separate ebooks for the hymns they use and for the Scripture readings etc for the Dominican Saints (this stuff is old, or composed by the community, so Copyright isn't an issue).

This would mean that she would start her prayers with the 'hymn ebook', then switch to the bought liturgy ebook for the psalms, then jump to the 'Dominican saints ebook' for the scripture reading. I think this could work if the time-delay when opening books isn't too long. Could anyone with the Kobo Aura One let me know how long this type of jumping between books takes.

Many thanks,
Ter

any Kobo e-reader could do that not just the KA1, personally i would choose one that as the external micro SD card slot the H20 would do it nicely, of course the choice is entirely yours.


best wishes koboy

[robko]

I think it would work. Opening books is quite fast. The only challenge might be if the user interface font is going to be too small for her. The book titles are reasonably large on the Aura One (about 1/8"), but I don't know if that might be small for her vision. As long as she is going to be following along in sequential order in each book what you're thinking is pretty easy. If she is going to need to do a lot of flipping back and forth might be more of a challenge.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Ter123

Hello,

I'm thinking of buying a Kobo Aura One for a nun who has macular degeneration for her to use primarily to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I'm aware of the monthly ebook with the liturgy for each day but that wouldn't be suitable all the time - because the monastery uses different opening hymns for the prayers and would have special liturgy for Saints of the Dominican Order.

I was trying to think how to make it work for her, because I don't think she'd be able to manage bookmarking pages and switching back and forth between them. I'm thinking of creating separate ebooks for the hymns they use and for the Scripture readings etc for the Dominican Saints (this stuff is old, or composed by the community, so Copyright isn't an issue).

This would mean that she would start her prayers with the 'hymn ebook', then switch to the bought liturgy ebook for the psalms, then jump to the 'Dominican saints ebook' for the scripture reading. I think this could work if the time-delay when opening books isn't too long. Could anyone with the Kobo Aura One let me know how long this type of jumping between books takes.

It really depends on the where the books are. If they are all on the home screen, it is: tap to the end of the book, find the next book on the home screen and tap it. Trying it on my Glo HD, it took less than five seconds. The books could all be put on the home screen beforehand. That of course depends on the number needed and if they will all fit.

But, if they have to go the library list, it will add a couple of more seconds to open the list plus however long to scroll through the list to find the book. How long to find it depends on how many books and how easy they are to tell apart. The macular degeneration will cause a problem as the UI doesn't use a big font. There is a patch to help with that, but I don't know if there it has been done for the recent firmware and the Aura ONE.

Thinking about it, what I would do would depend on the number of variations. If they use the same set of hymns all the time, just not the same as the "standard" ebook, then I would construct a version that suited her and she would just page through it. If there is more variation, then creating a collection with all the books needed on it would be the way to go. When using a collection it appears on the home screen, so it is quick to access. Then make sure the order the books in the collection list matches the order they are needed in so that she just needs to count down the list to find the next book.

[Ter123]

Thanks for all the replies. I just have a few more questions about it.

Originally Posted by robko

I think it would work. Opening books is quite fast. The only challenge might be if the user interface font is going to be too small for her.

Is it possible to set the User Interface to show as all bold text? I know that at the moment she can read fairly normal sized text if it is in bold. I was thinking perhaps to create fairly clear and distinctive book covers so that she could identify them by tiles on the home page rather than a list view.

I did also consider a H2O, but I thought the User Interface font (and tile size) would be larger on the One; or are they the same?

Originally Posted by davidfor

It really depends on the where the books are. ... If there is more variation, then creating a collection with all the books needed on it would be the way to go. When using a collection it appears on the home screen, so it is quick to access.

There is repetition, but it's not sequential. Basically, over the course of the year there could be 30-40 of these 'Special Feasts' each of which fall into one of about 5 categories. All the Feasts in the same category would use the same set of 2 or 3 hymns. There would be a similar situation with the particular Scripture readings & prayers; although with a bit more variation.

Now since she already has the practice of, the evening before, "setting up" the various paperbooks she will need for the Feast next day, I figured that she could just move that practice to the ereader. So the night before she would open the "Hymns" ebook and use the Table of Contents to find and open the hymn in the particular category she will need and similarly for the "Scripture readings" ebook. Then when she opened the ereader the next morning they would show on her home screen as the most recently viewed items and would open on the right page.

At the moment we're talking about a total of 4 ebooks on the device so collections won't be an issue. However, if I do end up adding more ebooks and needing to have a separate "Liturgy" collection for her, can the collection be set to show recently viewed or is it alphabetical order?

[robko]

The book names on the KA1 are significantly larger than the H2O. As David said there is a patch that may allow you to adjust size (and maybe boldness? I don't have experience with it) but it may not be updated to work with the KA1 yet. If she's planning to use the table of contents to find required spot in the field you might want to dig in the Kobo Developer subforum above to see the patch is available as the TOC size could be a roadblock.
I would just use the book shelf rather than trying to get the ones you need on the home screen (it's slightly faster to go to the shelf). It is sortable as most recently opened. It will show 6 books per page.
If you're going to make distinguishable covers for the homescreen they would likely need to be just a single letter or number full size of the cover.

[Ter123]

That's great. It sounds like the KA1 will work for her then. I'll set it up with just the 4 basic ebooks and see if she can manage that. If the table of contents is an issue, I could set it up with more books that so she just has to work through sequentially - it would just take a lot more time and planning . Of course, since it's sold out here the patch might be available by the time the new stock comes in 2017 .

[tshering]

If the patch mentioned in some posts above is the Modifications for bad eyes hack for FW 4.1.7729, it does take account of the Aura One. Among other things, it increases the font size of the library by 30% and changes the book titles of the library list from italics to regular (which does improve the readability). Adding bold should be not much of a problem.

[Nil Einne]

Originally Posted by koboy

any Kobo e-reader could do that not just the KA1, personally i would choose one that as the external micro SD card slot the H20 would do it nicely, of course the choice is entirely yours.

Why external microSD? It doesn't sound like she's going to be lacking in space even if she only has 512MB and she's more likely to have at least (close to) 2GB.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by Nil Einne

Why external microSD? It doesn't sound like she's going to be lacking in space even if she only has 512MB and she's more likely to have at least (close to) 2GB.

They're also really quite small and fiddly to use, and while I don't know how dextrous your nun is you do say she has vision problems. Perhaps she'd be better without having to rely on a microSD card?

[JSWolf]

The Aura One has almost 8GB storage. So it will have plenty of storage.

[PeterT]

Nope.. not 8GB RAM.. Maybe the internal storage is 8GB but it's not RAM

[koboy]

Originally Posted by Nil Einne

Why external microSD? It doesn't sound like she's going to be lacking in space even if she only has 512MB and she's more likely to have at least (close to) 2GB.

easy answer why not. i wouldn't buy an e-reader that didn't have one, each to their own of course.

best wishes koboy

[JSWolf]

But for someone with macular degeneration, she'll need to use a larger font size. The larger screen of the Aura One will be a big help for comfortable reading.

[Ter123]

Originally Posted by tshering

If the patch mentioned in some posts above is the Modifications for bad eyes hack for FW 4.1.7729, it does take account of the Aura One. Among other things, it increases the font size of the library by 30% and changes the book titles of the library list from italics to regular (which does improve the readability). Adding bold should be not much of a problem.

That great, thanks.

Originally Posted by chrisridd

They're also really quite small and fiddly to use, and while I don't know how dextrous your nun is you do say she has vision problems. Perhaps she'd be better without having to rely on a microSD card?

While she wouldn't be able to manage it, one of the younger nuns could put it in for her. They're going to have to handle the 'admin' side of putting future ebook purchases/acquisitions on the ereader for her in any case. The great thing about giving an ereader to a nun is that there are countless public domain 'spiritual classics' . However, since I'd be very surprised if she managed to exceed the built-in storage the lack of an SD card isn't an issue. If she does manage to exceed it they could set up her library on a PC and have the younger nuns send and remove books from the ereader as needed every few months. That would probably be better than an SD card in her case because she would have less books to navigate on the ereader itself.