kobopatch - An improved patching system

[sekazi]

Originally Posted by geek1011

It depends how hard it would be to modify the cover layout code. I'll have a look later, but it'll probably be too complex to be worth making.

Is there instructions somewhere on how you find the files you are editing?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by sekazi

Is there instructions somewhere on how you find the files you are editing?

It's all in libnickel and nickel. For libnickel, you need to disassemble it with something like Hopper, objdump, or IDA (but don't use Radare, it's too slow for this). For nickel, most of the useful stuff can be extracted with cssextract (comes with kobopatch).

It's the kind of thing you learn by taking a look and trying different things. For CSS, the Qt docs document the properties, and for the disassembly, ARM Kiel has useful information.

[sekazi]

Thanks for the info. Do you know what device name the Forma would use? The list in this thread did not specify it since it was prior to its release.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by sekazi

Thanks for the info. Do you know what device name the Forma would use? The list in this thread did not specify it since it was prior to its release.

For patching purposes, in most (all???) places it's the same as the AuraOne, namely "qApp_deviceIsDaylight=true", although the actual name for the Forma is Frost.

[JeanPierre]

Once again, I can't thank you enough for your efforts, geek1011.

[lbschenkel]

Hi geek1011, I have a suggestion: could the overrides in the main yaml file be moved or included from a separate file, so when upgrading firmwares and patches all we need to do is to copy that override file across versions without touching anything else? That would be a great usability improvement.

I mean something like this in kobopatch.yaml:

overrides_file: overrides.yaml

overrides.yaml:

src/nickel.yaml:
  Patch 1: yes
  Patch 2: yes
src/libadobe.so.yaml:
  Patch 3: yes
  Patch 4: yes
...

Not sure if there's a lot of value to allow arbitrarily specifying a file name, you might as well just look for a specifically-named file such as overrides.yaml. You can keep the existing override mechanism so it doesn't break existing setups and additionally use this file.

What do you think?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by lbschenkel

Hi geek1011, I have a suggestion: could the overrides in the main yaml file be moved or included from a separate file, so when upgrading firmwares and patches all we need to do is to copy that override file across versions without touching anything else? That would be a great usability improvement.

I mean something like this in kobopatch.yaml:

overrides_file: overrides.yaml

overrides.yaml:

src/nickel.yaml:
  Patch 1: yes
  Patch 2: yes
src/libadobe.so.yaml:
  Patch 3: yes
  Patch 4: yes
...

Not sure if there's a lot of value to allow arbitrarily specifying a file name, you might as well just look for a specifically-named file such as overrides.yaml. You can keep the existing override mechanism so it doesn't break existing setups and additionally use this file.

What do you think?

I decided to put it in kobopatch.yaml so people wouldn't blindly update. The main reason for this is you already need to install the firmware first, and funny things happen if you forget to. I've discussed the rest of the reasoning behind this in other posts as well.

[geek1011]

kobopatch v0.14.0 is out

kobopatch v0.14.0 mainly consists of a complete rewrite of the kobopatch patch file parsing. It is completely backwards-compatible.

This version will be included in patches v51 later tonight.

Main changes:
- Better error messages:
--- All error messages will include line numbers.
--- Length mismatches show the number of characters.
--- Patches will be applied in a consistent order to make errors easier to fix.
--- All instructions will add their name to error messages.
--- Error checking will be done in stages and will give an error as soon as possible during parsing.
--- Multiple patches in a PatchGroup will mention the other patch.
--- Kobopatch will check for tabs instead of spaces in patch files.
--- Fixed the bug where a whole bunch of hexadecimal gets show on-screen in some cases where a value replacement fails.
- You can now use more than one PatchGroup per patch.
- Checksums of patched files are now recorded in the log file.

Internal changes:
- I've gotten rid of a bunch of old cruft from the transition period.
- I've switched the builds from Travis to Drone (it's faster and more structured).
- I've slightly reduced binary sizes.
- kobopatch is now automatically tested with the patches during builds.
- The patch file logic is now nicely split up instead of being dumped into a big switch statement.
- To add new instructions, you now only need to add 3 lines of code (before you'd have needed to add around 15 scattered everywhere).
- The parsing is a lot more type-safe now.
- I've updated go-yaml to v3, which is what allowed me to do most of the improvements in this rewrite.

For those interested in the internal improvements, compare the instruction implementation(old, new), the validation implementation (old, new), and some of the parsing (old, new).

Error message examples:
old: error applying patch file 'src/libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml': could not find bytes
new: patch "Freedom to advanced fonts control": line 399: inst 8: ReplaceBytesNOP: could not find bytes

old: i16: replacement string must not be shorter in `Custom reading footer style
new: patch "Custom reading footer style": line 107: inst 16: ReplaceString: replacement string 2 chars too long

old: error applying patch file 'src/libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml': ReplaceInt: could not find specified bytes at offset ***a bunch of hex which fills your screen ***
new: patch "Custom Sleep/Power-off timeouts": line 512: inst 22: ReplaceInt: could not find specified bytes at offset

old: i21: more than one instruction per bullet in patch `Custom Sleep/Power-off timeouts` (you might be missing a -)
new: instruction 21: line 511: multiple types found in instruction, maybe you forgot a '-'

old: could not parse patch file: error parsing patch file: yaml: line 512: found character that cannot start any token
new: could not parse patch file: patch file contains tabs (it should be indented with spaces, not tabs): yaml: line 512

[Carmelocotonto]

Hi, I think there is an omission in the file 'kobopatch.yaml'. I have tried the new version and it fails. I added 'patchFormat: kobopatch' and it works.

Is it correct?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by Carmelocotonto

Hi, I think there is an omission in the file 'kobopatch.yaml'. I have tried the new version and it fails. I added 'patchFormat: kobopatch' and it works.

Is it correct?

Oops, I had a change locally which removed the need for it, but it seems I didn't merge it. I'll fix the patch zips now and add tests for it. https://cloud.drone.io/geek1011/kobo...patches/24/2/3

[kobayashi]

The patcher isn't working at all for me. DOS box pops up for a flash and then is gone. Not sure what has changed with the most recent version.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by kobayashi

The patcher isn't working at all for me. DOS box pops up for a flash and then is gone. Not sure what has changed with the most recent version.

For the record, the issue was that Go 1.12 no longer supports Windows XP. For now, you can use a kobopatch v0.13.0 binary with the patches, or you can build it on an older release of Go. If enough people have this issue, I'll make a workaround for it (right now it's only because of this syscall).

[kobayashi]

^^^ As pointed out to me, the Linux command works in MacOS. For anyone else who didn't know, just open the kobopatch.sh in Terminal and it runs perfectly.

[fotoroberto]

Hi,
this is nice set of patches, I use it on my GLO HD along with Kobo Start Menu / KoReader / Plato, and everything seems fine.

Is it possible to include patch that will enable replacing Sleep and Power Off screen with picture of our choice?
My idea is to put some ownership info in there…

Thanks

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by fotoroberto

Hi,
this is nice set of patches, I use it on my GLO HD along with Kobo Start Menu / KoReader / Plato, and everything seems fine.

Is it possible to include patch that will enable replacing Sleep and Power Off screen with picture of our choice?
My idea is to put some ownership info in there…

Thanks

You don’t need to patch for this anymorev

Plug your Kobo in to your computer, on the drive you have access to should be a .kobo folder in that folder make a new folder called screensaver. Whatever image you put in will be used when the device sleeps or powers off if you have the display cover option enabled. Note multiple images results in a random selection at the time of sleep or power off.