Modifications for bad eyes

[wikiped]

Originally Posted by tshering

If you would like to make some experiments with regard to the library view, I could provide you with some materials.

I will be glad to try that.
Thanks in advance!

[tshering]

Originally Posted by wikiped

I will be glad to try that.
Thanks in advance!

I am not sure whether we will succeed, but we can try. My idea was this: I tried to find all css blocks that concern only the Aura HD (dragon) and refer to font-size. I then made a patch file that increases all font size values of those css blocks by 50 percent.

Now, the first step would be to patch libnickel.so.1.0.0 and test it on the device. This will probably produce overlapping and cut off texts on several screens. But we don't care for that. At this point we are only interested, whether the library view shows some changes. If the library view does not show any change, my basic assumption was wrong and we have to start thinking for another approach.

If there is a change to the library view, we can start searching for the concerned patch jobs. Maybe you could edit the configuration file so that it contains only half of the patch jobs. If you test it on the device and still see the changes to the library view, you could repeat the process until you have a somehow manageable number of patch jobs. If however the first half of patch jobs did not work, you would test the second half, and so on. One underlying assumption is that the css blocks that concern the library view of the Aura HD are located close to each other.

Next step would be to examine those patch jobs that have not yet been eliminated. As I said, I do not know how the Aura HD library view looks, but maybe there are some peculiar things like different colors, italics, uppercase or something of the like that can be of help.

On the other hand, if there is something as rare as uppercase, we could take this as a starting point (and skip the cut-in-halves business), since there are not many css blocks that contain "text-transform: uppercase." Or if the library view of the Aura has some similarities with the old style library view of the Touch, you could take that as a starting point. For instance, the patch "Library Books, Title" contains "qproperty-forceLeading" (which is rather rare in libnickel), so maybe the concerned css block of the Aura HD does also contain this. These are only some suggestions. Practically, you are on your own.

The uploaded archive contains:

• 3.5.0_mark4_auraHD_test_source (folder)
• 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test.bat
• 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test_nopack.bat

Usage:

• Copy the folder 3.5.0_mark4_auraHD_test_source and the two bat files into the folder on your pc that already contains 3.5.0_source, tools, and 3.5.0.bat.
• Copy libnickel.so.1.0.0 to 3.5.0_mark4_auraHD_test_source.
• Double click on 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test.bat to create the patched file and pack it into KoboRoot.tgz. You will find the created KoboRoot.tgz in 3.5.0_mark4_auraHD_test_target.

Note: The patch file is for the mark 4 version.

Spoiler:

I saw that you are using the Kobo Start Menu. There is a script ("scripts" > "restore" > "restore libnickel.sh") that copies libnickel.so.1.0.0 from .kobo/kbmenu/copyrepos/ to /usr/local/Kobo. In this way you can put the libnickel.so.1.0.0 to the right location without using the KoboRoot.tgz. After copying, restart the device in order to make sure the new libnickel.so.1.0.0 is used, rather than a cached version.
If you want to do that, use 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test_nopack.bat instead of 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test.bat. 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test_nopack.bat will produce the patched file without packing it into KoboRoot.tgz.
(If you want to use 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test.bat after you run already 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test_nopack.bat, delete the folder 3.5.0_mark4_auraHD_test_target, before running 3.5.0._mark4_auraHD_test.bat)

[wikiped]

Well, I did the test and unfortunately library screen showed no changes in font size. At all.
Had to do it couple of times (with photos) to make sure I did not miss anything.

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

[tshering]

@wikiped
This is really unfortunate! Thank you for trying and for the pictures.
Just for my curiosity, did you by chance notice any changes in font size on other screens?

[wikiped]

Originally Posted by tshering

did you by chance notice any changes in font size on other screens?

I did flip through few other screens (like top menu, some in settings) and I DID see font increase on Settings Screen.

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

So I would say the patch "as is" is already useful one . Most of the text under Settings was also bigger (with the exception for screens like one under "About Kobo..." where some graphics is used).

P.S. Maybe library setting are in other parts of Kobo (nickel? as in case of "Menu")?

[tshering]

Originally Posted by wikiped

I did flip through few other screens (like top menu, some in settings) and I DID see font increase on Settings Screen.

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

So I would say the patch "as is" is already useful one . Most of the text under Settings was also bigger (with the exception for screens like one under "About Kobo..." where some graphics is used).

P.S. Maybe library setting are in other parts of Kobo (nickel? as in case of "Menu")?

Good that at least something changed at all. I was already wondering, ...

If you would like to do a further experiment, I have prepared some materials.

Generally speaking, there are three canditates that could contain the css code for the library view.

• plain text in libnickel.so.1.0.0
• plain text in nickel
• zlib compressed text in nickel

Therefore, I have prepared three patch files, one for each of the three possible sources. Since we need for this experiment more flexibility, I did it a little different from yesterday.

Preparation:

• copy the content of the archive into a folder on your PC
• copy nickel and libnickel.so.1.0.0 (mark 4) to the folder 3.5.0_source

The names of the configuration files for the patcher have the pattern conf_xxx.txt. If a file name does not start with conf_, the file will not be processed. I prefixed a "_" to the configuration files to disable them, apart from conf_nickel_empty.txt and conf_libnickel.so.1.0.0_plus50.txt. The configuration file conf_nickel_empty.txt does not change anything in nickel. The purpose is that you have a clean nickel. So that you can be sure any change you see is done by conf_libnickel.so.1.0.0_plus50.txt.

1 test:

• run 3.5.0.bat
• copy the produced KoboRoot.tgz to .kobo
• look (among other things) whether liberary view has changed (if nothing has changed there, I will be really shocked)

2 test:

• prefix "_" to conf_nickel_empty.txt and conf_libnickel.so.1.0.0_plus50.txt (or delete these two files)
• remove the prefixed "_" from _conf_nickel_zlibcss_plus50.txt and _conf_libnickel_empty.txt
• run 3.5.0.bat
• copy the produced KoboRoot.tgz to .kobo
• ...

3 experiment:

• prefix "_" to conf_nickel_zlibcss_plus50.txt and _conf_libnickel_empty.txt (or delete these two files)
• remove the prefixed "_" from _conf_nickel_plaincss_plus50.txt
• run 3.5.0.bat
• copy the produced KoboRoot.tgz to .kobo
• ...

By now we should hopefully know which patch file influences the library view. It is even not impossible, that more than one patch file is involved. Anyway, it should give us a hint where to start.

By the way, I have all three files applied to my Touch. The result is not so bad. User settings>accounts is one of the worst, however.

[wikiped]

@tshering

Well, good news is that library view has now nice big font and it all came after the 1st test (see below).

"Bad" news is that it came with 1MB conf_ file which seems like a lot of tries to pin-point the responsible part (I realize that bisection search will allow to make it in about 11 iterations, but still ;-)

I personally did not see any negative effect on overall font increase - quite the opposite - you can be sure that in whatever part of Kobo you might need to look at it will all look "eye-comfortable".

Results of Test 1:
Aside from the lower Menu font (which as expected did not have any change) everything else is as it should have been made from start. Even the Top Menu, Reboot, PC connection, etc screens were welcoming with easy to read font-sizes.

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

Results of Test 2:
Looks like zlib in not being used here - I did not see any changes from the original state wherever I looked...

Spoiler:

Results of Test 3:
Menu is back with big font, and the search field shows big nice font.

[Image violates guidelines for size - MODERATOR]

Now the question is: is it worth the effort to locate the exact strings responsible for each particular change of would it make more sense to keep this total change approach and enjoy the overall effect (without any noticeable side effect, unless of course there is an allergy to big font-sizes).

Perhaps a cool thing would be to have a script increasing font-sizes to other than 50% values in conf_ files, but I don't know how easy it is for you to make it available.

[wikiped]

@tshering

While I was doing all the patching I occurred to me that after all I will need to combine this "bad eye" mode with the one which deals with margins/keyboard.

And I now have all of them applied at the same time. But this had to be done in consecutive steps, catching and disabling the overlaps.

I realize that your patcher is using different conf file format from the other one. I tried to combine one with another and use each of the patchers, but there was always an error linked to conf file format.

Do you think it would make sense to have some sort of alignment on the patching format for Kobo devices? What do you think would be the approach to deal with this?

[tshering]

@wikiped

Thank you for testing and comenting. In the meantime, I recreated the patches that increase indiscriminately the font size values of all css blocks that I was able to find. But this time, I increased them by only 30 percent. For me this is an acceptable compromise. Up to now I have seen only one real problem: in Settings > Device Information, the Software Version is cut off. Also some parts of Settings > Accounts are cut off, but since they are shown in light gray color on light gray back ground, I cannot see them anyway.
Next, I included the "old" patches, which have identified targets, into the new configuration files. So these parts are still easily configurable.
I upload the new package to post #46.
Note: I used again the files of the mark 5 version, since they are slightly newer and I did not see any harm while using it together with the mark 4 FW.

Originally Posted by wikiped

While I was doing all the patching I occurred to me that after all I will need to combine this "bad eye" mode with the one which deals with margins/keyboard.

And I now have all of them applied at the same time. But this had to be done in consecutive steps, catching and disabling the overlaps.

I realize that your patcher is using different conf file format from the other one. I tried to combine one with another and use each of the patchers, but there was always an error linked to conf file format.

Do you think it would make sense to have some sort of alignment on the patching format for Kobo devices? What do you think would be the approach to deal with this?

Generally, you can use the content of the xxx.patch files with my patcher. Cf. this post (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=35). You would copy the jobs of libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch to conf_libnickel.txt. For the other two configuration files you would add

sourcefile=libadobe.so
targetfile=..\3.5.0_target\usr\local\Kobo\libadobe.so

and

sourcefile=librmsdk.so.1.0.0
targetfile=..\3.5.0_target\usr\local\Kobo\librmsdk.so.1.0.0

respectively, and would rename them to conf_XXX.

There is, however, one problem. On some machines my patcher cannot handle "replace_float." I have on my machines XP, Win 7.0, and Win 8.1. And on all of them it works as expected. So maybe you are lucky and it works on your machine too. replace_float is used in three patches of libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch.
If it does not work for you, you can first patch libnickel.so.1.0.0 in GeoffR's patcher and copy the resulting libnickel.so.1.0.0 to \3.5.0_source, before you run the bad eyes patcher. (libnickel.so.1.0.0 of the mark 4 and mark 5 packages are identical, even so they have different time stamps. So there is no problem.)

[wikiped]

Originally Posted by tshering

On some machines my patcher cannot handle "replace_float." I have on my machines XP, Win 7.0, and Win 8.1.

It looks like I am out of luck today:

Spoiler:

438: (mz-style patch)  `My 15 line spacing values`
  processing ...
ERROR(b): wrong value in  `My 15 line spacing values`  (position=6B26F8)

And there two lines with this address:

Line 460: replace_bytes = 6B26F8, 8D F5 FA E8 3C A3 D3 E9, 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 3F
Line 467: replace_float = 6B26F8, 1.0,  0.7

I am on Win 8.1 x64.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by wikiped

It looks like I am out of luck today:

Spoiler:

438: (mz-style patch)  `My 15 line spacing values`
  processing ...
ERROR(b): wrong value in  `My 15 line spacing values`  (position=6B26F8)

And there two lines with this address:

Line 460: replace_bytes = 6B26F8, 8D F5 FA E8 3C A3 D3 E9, 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 3F
Line 467: replace_float = 6B26F8, 1.0,  0.7

I am on Win 8.1 x64.

This is really bad luck. By the way, I am also Win 8.1 x64.
But luckily, there a ways around. All of them have in common, that you have to patch libnickel.so.1.0.0 with both GeoffR's patcher and the bad eyes patcher. The order does not matter. nickel has to be patched with the bad eyes patcher; the other files with the one or the other. Then you have to get all patched files into KoboRoot.tgz. Or you create two KoboRoot.tgz files, and apply them one after the other. (Or, since you are a KSM user, you can simply copy the files to /usr/local/Kobo)
There are too many options to describe them in detail. If you settle for one and you get stuck, just post your problem, and somebody will might find a solution.

[tshering]

Since combining the bad eyes patches with the other patches is a little tiresome (and my patcher does not handle replace_float correctly on some machines), I prepared a version for the patcher that is maintained by GeoffR. This is also more convenient for Linux users.
While preparing this version I became aware that GeoffR's patcher does not support replace_zlib. Therefore, I had to skip those patches that need zlib compression (for instance Notes [formerly Annotation Details] and the caption of buttons.
I uploaded the archive here. The archive (350_mfbe_mark4_MZstyle.zip) contains

• 3.5.0_mfbe_source (folder)
• 3.5.0_mfbe.bat
• 3.5.0_mfbe.sh

Copy the folder and the two files into the folder patch_kobo_35 on your pc and execute the bat file (windows) or the sh file (linux) as usual. For more information on the kobo patcher, see here.

[surquizu]

Hi tshering,

its possible patch for fw 3.8.0?

Thanks!
_____________

[tshering]

For FW 3.8.0. Don't use it with other FW versions.
I admit that I could not yet test the result on my device. (Since then I have tested it a little. The fonts of the annotations is not increased.)

Usage:

• extract the content of the archive KBPatcher09_3.8.0.zip into a folder on your pc
• double click on 3.8.0.bat
• copy the newly created KoboRoot.tgz, which you will find in the folder 3.8.0_target, to the .kobo folder on your device.

New: I added a version for the patcher maintained by GeoffR.

As always, owners of devices different from Touch, especially of Aura HD, will have to modify the patch files partially.

USE THIS PACKAGE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

[surquizu]

thanks!