Some issues with my new Libra 2

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Deobulakenyo

Thank you, may i ask a favor? If you have this patch can you post a picture of the homescreen? Thank you

Here.
(the uneven screen color on the photo is caused by a dim room lighting)

[Deobulakenyo]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Here.
(the uneven screen color on the photo is caused by a dim room lighting)

Thank you very much

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Teejoo

Hi all,
After using a kindle for years and not liking the extra glass layer on the new one I bought the Kobo Libra 2. I use Calibre to organise and transfer my books to the reader.
Already patched the Home screen to make the covers bigger and get rid of the third row. Also discovered how to get the Series info filles by plugging the reader in again. So far so good.

There are some other thinks I couldn't find a working solution:

• Can’t get rid of the quick tour on the home screen. This is simply stupid and takes a lot of space.

The simplest way to get rid of this: Use the device. The home screen adapts to you usage. The top row can show up to four open books. If you only have two open, the top-right gets used for something else, such as a collection or an author. Same goes for the middle-right. Once you start using the device a bit, what is there will change.

• When I sent a book with multiple authors using '&' , Only the first author is visibele. So Preston & Child is displayed as Preston. When you check the content on the device with Calibre it says Preston & Child. When I use the option ‘updating metadata in device library’ in the KoboUtilities it corrects this and you see Preston & Child.. I'm almost sure it worked correct the first few times I did some test transfers, but have no ideau what I did that changed this behavioir.

I don't know where the belief that only ampersands can be used to separate authors came from. On the front of my paper books, I see commas used as much as anything else. I mean, commas are used in lists, and it is a list of authors, so it makes sense to me. If there

But, the issue here is not that Kobo expects a comma between the authors. The problem is really that is only reading the first dc:identifier tag in the OPF. And calibre puts each author in a separate tag. As someone has vaguely suggested, you can use a metadata plugboard to solve this. I use:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

And put that in the author field.

• Covers are sometimes scaled way too small. Don’t know how to correct this. It seems a bit random and the covers resolutions are big enough. I read multiple topics about this but found no real solution. On my Kindles this was never an issue. In Calibre they are also all full size.

What does the first page look like when you open the book? For some formats, including epub, Kobo renders the start of the book and takes the first page as the cover. That means the cover image generated will look like whatever the first page of the book looks like. If that puts the cover image as a tiny image in the top left corner surrounded by whitespace, then that is what the device will generate as the cover to be shown elsewhere.

You can fix this by fixing the code in the book. Or use the option in the driver to send the covers when sending the books to the device. Or you can update the cover for any book using the Kobo Utilities plugin.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, the issue here is not that Kobo expects a comma between the authors. The problem is really that is only reading the first dc:identifier tag in the OPF. And calibre puts each author in a separate tag. As someone has vaguely suggested, you can use a metadata plugboard to solve this. I use:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

And put that in the author field.

Oh great @davidfor, I was just writing a post regarding this issue in the Plugboard, template, and custom composite column recipes thread and saw your post when i came back searching for the link to this thread.

I'll give your code a try.

Thank you.

[Karellen]

That worked @davidfor

I deleted one multi-author book from the device and sideloaded it again. The authors were listed separately.

At the same time it also fixed the few other multi-author listings I had, so looks like I didn't need to delete the book.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I deleted one multi-author book from the device and sideloaded it again. The authors were listed separately.

At the same time it also fixed the few other multi-author listings I had, so looks like I didn't need to delete the book.

The driver can update the metadata on the device. That will use the plugboard when doing the update.

[Teejoo]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I don't know where the belief that only ampersands can be used to separate authors came from. On the front of my paper books, I see commas used as much as anything else. I mean, commas are used in lists, and it is a list of authors, so it makes sense to me. If there


But, the issue here is not that Kobo expects a comma between the authors. The problem is really that is only reading the first dc:identifier tag in the OPF. And calibre puts each author in a separate tag. As someone has vaguely suggested, you can use a metadata plugboard to solve this. I use:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

And put that in the author field.

It's more that I used ampersands because I have it on all my books and it's strange that a device that's made for books can't handle this. I tested the comma, but I didn't like how it looks.

However, when I changed it back to Preston & Child and updated the metadata using KoboUtilities it updates the name to Preston & Child!... See attachment. Since this didn't work before maybe because I changed the name in Calibre?

When I import another book it says Preston again, after updating the metadata from that book that book it says Preston & Child again.
If I change the name to Preston - Child or Preston / Child the name is already correct after the initial transfer.

Originally Posted by davidfor

What does the first page look like when you open the book? For some formats, including epub, Kobo renders the start of the book and takes the first page as the cover. That means the cover image generated will look like whatever the first page of the book looks like. If that puts the cover image as a tiny image in the top left corner surrounded by whitespace, then that is what the device will generate as the cover to be shown elsewhere.

You can fix this by fixing the code in the book. Or use the option in the driver to send the covers when sending the books to the device. Or you can update the cover for any book using the Kobo Utilities plugin.

When you open the book on the e-reader it also isn't full size, also on the screen saver. In Calibre it is, just like on my Kindle. But in some rare cases when I re-import some books it suddenly is full size.
Updating the covers using the Utilities plugin has no effect.

"Or use the option in the driver to send the covers when sending the books to the device".

How can I do this?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Teejoo

It's more that I used ampersands because I have it on all my books and it's strange that a device that's made for books can't handle this. I tested the comma, but I didn't like how it looks.

And as I expressed, I don't understand why you think it must do this. Especially as what you think you are seeing is not actually what is happening.

However, when I changed it back to Preston & Child and updated the metadata using KoboUtilities it updates the name to Preston & Child!... See attachment. Since this didn't work before maybe because I changed the name in Calibre?

When I import another book it says Preston again, after updating the metadata from that book that book it says Preston & Child again.

All of which is exactly as designed and expected. Calibre does not store the authors as "Author1 & Author2". It stores that "Book 1" has authors "Author1" and "Author2". When a book is sent to the database, the metadata is updated. This is usually written as a "dc:identifier" tag for each author. Any application reading the book has to interpret this and display it. How that application displays this is up to the application. But, Kobo only reads the first "dc:identifier" tag which means it shows the author as "Author1".

If you use the Kobo utilities plugin to update the metadata on the device, it is updating the database directly. That constructs the author from the metadata in calibre and updates the database which the device interprets and displays. There are several options for exactly how the authors are formatted when the authors are displayed. But, apparently, it is still connecting the authors using an ampersand. If you look in the Authors List, you will see this is listed as "Preston & Child" rather than an entry for "Preston" and another for "Child". And if you sort the books on author, it will be sorted as "Child, Preston &".

The driver can also update the metadata when you connect the device. It will probably do the default of connecting the authors with an ampersand. But, if there is an appropriate plugboard, that will be used.

If I change the name to Preston - Child or Preston / Child the name is already correct after the initial transfer.

Which is because as far as calibre is concerned, there is only one author, "Preston - Child or Preston / Child". There is nothing in that string that calibre would use to split the name up to multiple authors. And neither does Kobo. Again, this will be a single entry in the Authors tab and sorting by author will sort this as "Child, Preston - Child or Preston".

When you open the book on the e-reader it also isn't full size, also on the screen saver. In Calibre it is, just like on my Kindle. But in some rare cases when I re-import some books it suddenly is full size.

Looking at the screenshots, I do not see any issues with the cover images. They look like exactly what I would expect from the covers. One things is, you are using kepubs, so the covers are generated differently to my earlier description. In this case, the cover images are extracted from the books. The image in the book must be marked as the cover, but, that appears to be done correctly. The image size is changed for use in different places, but, not the aspect ratio. How the cover is displayed when the book is up to the code that displays this. I use SVG coding that fills the screen but keeps the aspect ratio of the actual image. That means there are usually white bands on the side of the images.

How the cover or first page is displayed is different for different devices. What the calibre viewer does depend on the code in the page marked as the cover. If it only has code to display the image, calibre ignores that code and just displays the image. If there is other code, it will render the page from the code. I don't know what the Kindles do, but, I suspect it is showing the actual cover image. If you had a tolino ereader, it shows the cover image for a few seconds and then show the first page of the book which will be rendered according to the code.

It might be a good idea to explain exactly what is wrong from your viewpoint. From mine, the covers look correct.

Updating the covers using the Utilities plugin has no effect.

There are various options in the cover upload dialog. You need to play with them to get the affect you want.

"Or use the option in the driver to send the covers when sending the books to the device".

How can I do this?

The driver has options to upload the covers when the book is sent to the device. This uses the cover that calibre shows in the interface. That cover might not actually be in the book. When this is done, the cover is scaled to fit the screen according to the options selected in the upload dialog.

[Teejoo]

@davidfor: Yes, these covers look perfect. Somehow they now all look as they should. The title 'Wit vuur' was one of the small ones with only a little cover in a corner. Not sure what I did that it works now.. I didn't even test your driver option.

I also transferred the rest of the books I wanted on the Kobo and it all works as it should now! I only have to unplug en replug tot get the series correct and update the metadata Using KoboUtilities to get everything correctly filled.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Looking at the screenshots, I do not see any issues with the cover images. They look like exactly what I would expect from the covers. One things is, you are using kepubs, so the covers are generated differently to my earlier description. In this case, the cover images are extracted from the books. The image in the book must be marked as the cover, but, that appears to be done correctly. The image size is changed for use in different places, but, not the aspect ratio. How the cover is displayed when the book is up to the code that displays this. I use SVG coding that fills the screen but keeps the aspect ratio of the actual image. That means there are usually white bands on the side of the images.

How the cover or first page is displayed is different for different devices. What the calibre viewer does depend on the code in the page marked as the cover. If it only has code to display the image, calibre ignores that code and just displays the image. If there is other code, it will render the page from the code. I don't know what the Kindles do, but, I suspect it is showing the actual cover image. If you had a tolino ereader, it shows the cover image for a few seconds and then show the first page of the book which will be rendered according to the code.

It might be a good idea to explain exactly what is wrong from your viewpoint. From mine, the covers look correct.

There are various options in the cover upload dialog. You need to play with them to get the affect you want.

It could be a few issues with the cover. In some cases, the cover included in the eBook is not high enough resolution to fill the screen (top to bottom). The setting to show covers full screen on sleep defaults to off. So the cover sits in the middle of the screen maybe looking small.

What I do with such covers is try to find a hi-res cover using the download cover in the Calibre metadata editor. I have some metadata download plugins installed so I get covers from different sources to try to get a hi-res cover.

If the cover is set to display full screen but is to low a resolution, it can look fuzzy. If it's a high enough resolution (even if it's less then the screen resolution), it can look good enough full screen.

[Deobulakenyo]

I just use the Resize cover plugin but checks the cover as well and replaces it with a higher quality one. Both done in calibre