kobopatch request thread

[droopy]

Dear geek1011,
I have another suggestion.

Please give us option to have "PIN required to unlock Kobo" just for going from Power-Off to Power-On, while not requiring the PIN if just going from Sleep to Awake.

[droopy]

I have another suggestion:

I followed DavidFor's instructions on https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...95&postcount=1 (titled Random Screensaver) to create an "Owner's Info" message, in case my Forma gets misplaced.

Here is what I kinda have (I've anonymized my contact details):
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/at...1&d=1567667753


I'd like an option to display one image screensaver when device is sleeping and the inverse image (black background, white text) to display when device is powered off.

[droopy]

Suggestion: After the initial USB-conmected installation of the tgz, let us enable or disable patches on the Kobo device itself, without needing to USB-connect to a computer

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by droopy

Dear geek1011,
I have another suggestion.

Please give us option to have "PIN required to unlock Kobo" just for going from Power-Off to Power-On, while not requiring the PIN if just going from Sleep to Awake.

That might be possible. I'll need to have another look at the code. I'll look at it in a week or two (I'm currently taking a break from Kobo stuff).

Originally Posted by droopy

I have another suggestion:

I followed DavidFor's instructions on https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...95&postcount=1 (titled Random Screensaver) to create an "Owner's Info" message, in case my Forma gets misplaced.

Here is what I kinda have (I've anonymized my contact details):
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/at...1&d=1567667753


I'd like an option to display one image screensaver when device is sleeping and the inverse image (black background, white text) to display when device is powered off.

That won't be possible, as the code is shared, and there isn't enough room to easily add enough extra instructions.

Originally Posted by droopy

Suggestion: After the initial USB-conmected installation of the patch, let us enable or disable patches on the Kobo device itself, without needing to USB-connect to a computer

That is a whole separate project. If someone wants to work on it, they can.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by geek1011

That won't be possible, as the code is shared, and there isn't enough room to easily add enough extra instructions.

Thanks for your reply.
What do you mean that the code is shared? Shared with other devs like you?
And what do you mean there's isn't enough room? I take it you are not referring to the 8GB of user space?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by droopy

Thanks for your reply.
What do you mean that the code is shared? Shared with other devs like you?
And what do you mean there's isn't enough room? I take it you are not referring to the 8GB of user space?

The assembly instructions are shared between both power-off modes. To make changes, I usually replace existing instructions, put instructions in unused space in the binary, or shrink existing instructions to make space. If you look in some of the older patch threads (and earlier on this thread), you should get a general idea of what I mean.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by droopy

And what do you mean there's isn't enough room? I take it you are not referring to the 8GB of user space?

Patches are exactly that. They replace existing bytes in programs by other bytes. They can't make the programs any larger than they are.

The skill of creating patches is in decompiling the programs, not back to their original language (which was probably C or C++) but to assembly language, and then seeing how to affect the functionality by changing the assembly code and then replacing the original bytes (the op codes) by different opcodes.

Some patches are to the data; strings of characters which in somes cases are stored in compressed format in the compiled modules



Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

[droopy]

thanks to all who have helped me learn about patching.

I have another suggestion.
Some multi-author ebooks separate the authors with the ampersand symbol (&). In Kobo Forma's listing of authors, it doesn't work very well.
Say I have a book written by Ashley Galloway and Mark Bentham. In my Forma, it will show up under Bentham, but not under Galloway.
This "author entry" will situate itself somewhere like this:

Lisa Bastke
Ashley Galloway & Mark Bentham
Christopher Browning

I have to edit the author metadata from

Ashley Galloway & Mark Bentham

to

Ashley Galloway, Mark Bentham

Forma interprets the comma symbol correctly.
When I make this change, the book will now correctly appear both under Galloway and Bentham.

Questions: Is there a patch to make my Forma correctly interpret the ampersand symbol?
How do you deal with multiauthored books with the ampersand symbol?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by droopy

Questions: Is there a patch to make my Forma correctly interpret the ampersand symbol?
How do you deal with multiauthored books with the ampersand symbol?

You go to calibre Preferences > Metadata plugboards and add a new plugboard for your calibre driver,
e.g. if you're using the KoboTouchExtended driver:

Format: any format
Device: KOBOTOUCHEXTENDED
Source template:

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

Destination field: authors
Then Save plugboard

This plugboard will then auto-replace the ampersand with the comma whenever the Author metadata is updated on the Kobo.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

You go to calibre Preferences > Metadata plugboards and add a new plugboard for your calibre driver,
e.g. if you're using the KoboTouchExtended driver:

Format: any format
Device: KOBOTOUCHEXTENDED
Source template:

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

Destination field: authors
Then Save plugboard

This plugboard will then auto-replace the ampersand with the comma whenever the Author metadata is updated on the Kobo.

Thanks, Jackie, for your reply, and for writing in such a way that a noob like me can easily follow.

Here's a screenshot of how my Metadata plugins window looks like now.

[jackie_w]

You're welcome Are your authors now correct after you've done a full calibre connect/disconnect?

[asettico]

Hello,
I have a request on behalf of my wife.

Is it possible to show the collection name in the book list, beside or under the author name?
In this way it's possible to quickly check if a book already is in a collection or not.

Thank you.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

You're welcome Are your authors now correct after you've done a full calibre connect/disconnect?

Before getting your response, I manually fixed my authors. I guess we'll have to wait till I add another set of books.

[rogerinnyc]

Dear Geek1011, don't know whether it's possible, but I like the existing header and footer arrangement on my Forma, once patched to reduce some of the marginal space, and don't like the introduction of the new arrangement (chapter progress on top, book progress on bottom) of the latest software. If a patch is possible to keep the prior layout, I would (once again) be in your debt. Thanks.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

You're welcome Are your authors now correct after you've done a full calibre connect/disconnect?

Hi Jackie.

I have just uploaded some co-authored books separated with the ampersand symbol. Happily, they are auto-changed to commas in my Kobo.
I noted that on my Calibre, the ampersand symbol stays as ampersand symbol.
Thanks!