Clara HD Custom dict font size is too small

[meo_map13]

I copy some custom dict. to folder "custom dict" on my Clara. However the font size is too small to read (as picture). The temporary solution is use Large Print Mode with increase all items size which is too big for me.

Could you please help with any solution to adjust the font size for these dicts.?
Thank you very much.
Leo

[JSWolf]

I suggest you look at the dictionary code. It's possible the font size is hard coded.

[meo_map13]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I suggest you look at the dictionary code. It's possible the font size is hard coded.

Thank you very much. Actually I download it from a source on facebook and I'm not a developer. I'll try to contact the author.

[meo_map13]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I suggest you look at the dictionary code. It's possible the font size is hard coded.

Hi Jon,
I try to find the author & source but his facebook is not available anymore. Is it possible for you to have a quick look over those files? Thank you very much.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...B2?usp=sharing

[DNSB]

You might also want to check in the KoboPatch thread. One of the items is "Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height" in the libnickel set of patches which might be able to increase the dictionary font size for you.

[meo_map13]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You might also want to check in the KoboPatch thread. One of the items is "Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height" in the libnickel set of patches which might be able to increase the dictionary font size for you.

Dear friend,
Thank you very much for your detail guide. I just find out this maybe the bug of new firmware. Maybe wait for next release.

[JSWolf]

I've had a look and the font size is not hard coded. I think this is the way it is and DNSB's suggestion is the way to fix the problem. I don't think it's a bug.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You might also want to check in the KoboPatch thread. One of the items is "Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height" in the libnickel set of patches which might be able to increase the dictionary font size for you.

Originally Posted by meo_map13

Dear friend,
Thank you very much for your detail guide. I just find out this maybe the bug of new firmware. Maybe wait for next release.

I had a look inside these Vietnamese dictionaries. The font-size problem seems to arise from the fact that each word definition uses an HTML <table> structure, rather than the usual <div>, <blockquote>, <p>, <ol>/<li> structures common in Kobo builtin and custom dictionaries posted on MobileRead. I don't think I've seen a dictionary with tables before.

I'm at a loss as to exactly why a <table> should default to displaying so small (about 50% of 'normal'), nevertheless I think it can be fixed without too much extra effort using the latest firmware 4.25.15875 and a small custom addition to the kobopatch mentioned by DNSB.

This patch as-is will allow you to change dictionary font-size but it will affect the font-size of all dictionaries you use. If you're already a kobopatch user and this is an acceptable result, then it's your simplest solution.

If this isn't an acceptable result then I can post a small patch addition which should target only the dictionary text in tables to display bigger, i.e. it should fix these 2 Vietnamese dictionaries without making the text too large in other dictionaries. If you want to pursue this then I need to know that you're already comfortable using the kobopatch system and that you've already updated your Kobo to fw 4.25.15875.

The colours in the attached screenshot appear because they are hard-coded in the dictionary but obviously you're not going to see them in real life on the Kobo.

[meo_map13]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've had a look and the font size is not hard coded. I think this is the way it is and DNSB's suggestion is the way to fix the problem. I don't think it's a bug.

Dear Jon,
Thank you very much for your kind support.

[meo_map13]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

If this isn't an acceptable result then I can post a small patch addition which should target only the dictionary text in tables to display bigger, i.e. it should fix these 2 Vietnamese dictionaries without making the text too large in other dictionaries. If you want to pursue this then I need to know that you're already comfortable using the kobopatch system and that you've already updated your Kobo to fw 4.25.15875.

The colours in the attached screenshot appear because they are hard-coded in the dictionary but obviously you're not going to see them in real life on the Kobo.

Dear Jackie,
It would be great if you can help with these dictionaries. To answer your questions:
1- Yes, I've updated to fw 4.25.15875
2- Since I'm a newbie, I didn't touch anything about kobopatch. However, I'll try to patch the system to use your modification.

Thank you very much.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by meo_map13

2- Since I'm a newbie, I didn't touch anything about kobopatch. However, I'll try to patch the system to use your modification.

Post #1 of this thread should get you started.

As DNSB said, the patch you'll need is called Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height and can be found in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml in the downloaded kobopatch pack.

As a first step, read this patch's help notes and try enabling it, customising the font-size option then installing the update to your Kobo. You need to be comfortable with this because you will need to repeat the process for every firmware update.

If you're sure that you're happy with the general patching process come back and I'll post the extra customisation which you'll need to re-add to this patch for every firmware update.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Post #1 of this thread should get you started.

As DNSB said, the patch you'll need is called Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height and can be found in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml in the downloaded kobopatch pack.

As a first step, read this patch's help notes and try enabling it, customising the font-size option then installing the update to your Kobo. You need to be comfortable with this because you will need to repeat the process for every firmware update.

If you're sure that you're happy with the general patching process come back and I'll post the extra customisation which you'll need to re-add to this patch for every firmware update.

Would it be easy enough to edit the dictionary to add in the code to make the text a specific size?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Would it be easy enough to edit the dictionary to add in the code to make the text a specific size?

That would depend on your skill set and how much time you're prepared to spend on the task. You'd need to be able to:

1. Break the existing dictionary into its individual decompressed HTML files. That's 400+ files for the English-Vietnamese dictionary, 1100+ files for the Vietnamese-English.
2. Write a program to loop round all these files applying whatever regex find/replaceall changes you want to apply to each word entry.
3. Reverse step 1 to compress everything back to a single .zip

@geek1011's dictutil utility would probably help but you'd still need programming skills to convert the source HTML into dictutil's source format.

It would have been much better if the creator of these dictionaries had put a bit more thought (and testing) into their creation. Much as I'm grateful that others have shared so many different custom dictionaries many of the ones I've tried don't look as if they've had much TLC regarding what the final result actually looks like on a Kobo.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

@geek1011's dictutil utility would probably help but you'd still need programming skills to convert the source HTML into dictutil's source format.

dictutil can unpack and repack dictionaries as HTML. There is also another tool included with it to decompile dictionaries into dictutil's format for easier editing. Note that neither tool fully supports v3 dictionaries yet (this will only be a problem for dictionaries with prefix_exceptions or a few special cases with multi-file prefixes).

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by geek1011

dictutil can unpack and repack dictionaries as HTML. There is also another tool included with it to decompile dictionaries into dictutil's format for easier editing. Note that neither tool fully supports v3 dictionaries yet (this will only be a problem for dictionaries with prefix_exceptions or a few special cases with multi-file prefixes).

These Vietnamese dictionaries are not v3 dictionaries and they don't include any variants.

So there you go, Jon, a little project for you. I know you already have regex skills so learn a bit more about dictutil to do the heavy lifting then try to update these Vietnamese dictionaries to something a bit more user-friendly without needing kobopatch.