KOReader advantages?

[Ken Maltby]

At least you tried it out, but you somehow missed the entire bottom menu, that appears when you are in a book and open the top menu. Or was the only menu you looked at the one you can access while in the File Manager? The menu that you see depends on what you are doing and, in some cases the type of file that is being rendered.

Luck;
Ken

[MGlitch]

I believe it was the menu I was looking at, though for me it was from the top. The bottom of the epub I opened had a bar of sorts and page numbers, though tapping on that only made the bar disappear.

It does represent one of the things that made me pick a Kobo to replace my Nook, which is customization with ease. I didn't need to root my Kobo to try out KoReader, I just followed very easy instructions.

Overall I'm glad I tried it, because now I know it's just not the reader app for me. Which, if I'm being honest with myself, isn't surprising to me. Based on the posts here, and the feature set versus the latest Kobo firmwares reader it seems to me Koreader shines best and brightest with PDFs and technical documents. Not that it can't do a good job with novels, just that it wont necessarily do a better job than RMSDK does.

[embryo]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Hmmm... using Metazoas/GeoffR's patcher, the amount of wasted space on epubs is pretty minimal while keeping the page number at the bottom -- ~2mm at the top of the screen and ~5mm at the bottom. Side margins are pretty much having text touch the edge so I set a margin to keep text ~1mm from the edges. If I really want, I can enable full page reading and get rid of the page number at the bottom. Note that Kobo's ereaders do respect the ebook's CSS so if the epub says 3em side margins, you'll need to edit the epub to fix this.

Well, AFAIK koreader reads the ebook's CSS also (to a certain degree), but has an 'option' to turn this off.
And the patcher that you use is not part of the reader but a great effort of people that liked the 'option' to use all of their screen for reading.
Option that the reader does not gives you.

I currently have ~2800 epubs on my Aura H20. Searching pops up results rapidly -- faster than koreader. As for viewing the raw library? Even with my number of books, it wouldn't take hours to page through the entire library if I was ever foolish enough to do that instead of using search and you do have the options of sorting your library by Recent, Title, Author, File Type and File Size (the last I've never used).

Hmm... quick check on searching for a specific book (We Few by John Ringo and David Weber filed as part of the Prince Roger series). Tap on search bar on the home screen and type letter p -- page full of results before my finger reaches for the next letter. Type 'r' and the Prince Roger series is on the page. Tap the series name and there are the four books in the series. Tap on "We Few" and the book opens Total elapsed time <3 seconds to find the book and 2 seconds to have it opened and ready to read.

The only wait for hours is when you first copy a large number of epubs over and then let them process -- something that koreader does not need to do so a point in it's favour. OTOH, that processing only happens when I've needed to do a factory reset and do not have a recent copy of the database to restore -- all my non-Kobo ebooks live on an external uSD card so they don't get wiped during the factory reset.

But you see, this is the problem with the nickel approach.
You live with a ticking bomb.
If the reader needs a factory reset, the nickel re-index (for hours) the library.
If the reader connects to the PC, eventually the database will be corrupted and it will re-index (for hours) the library.
Your only hope is the backup of the database, something you have to do with every library update, is not the easiest thing to do, and its not an option of the nickel.
I don't want to know what will happen if a corruption occurs on a trip away from your PC.

I do have koreader on my Aura H2O but I find less and less use for it -- my iPad is a better device for PDF files simpler due to the larger screen and I don't have many fb2, pdb, etc. ebooks and most of those I do have were converted to epub and edited quite a while back.

As for expensive screen area? I may be looking at it differently from you but what I have paid Baen alone for ebooks makes the cost of my Aura H2O a minimal part of my reading costs.

Maybe for you the price of the reader is "nickels and dimes" (pun intended), but to pay for a 6" reader and use a 4.5" one, is not a good deal in my book.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by embryo

Well, AFAIK koreader reads the ebook's CSS also (to a certain degree), but has an 'option' to turn this off.
And the patcher that you use is not part of the reader but a great effort of people that liked the 'option' to use all of their screen for reading.
Option that the reader does not gives you.

Actually, with the current firmware you can use 100% of the screen for reding epubs in full-screen mode, no patch needed. A patch is only required to do the same for kepubs.

But you see, this is the problem with the nickel approach.
You live with a ticking bomb.
If the reader needs a factory reset, the nickel re-index (for hours) the library.
If the reader connects to the PC, eventually the database will be corrupted and it will re-index (for hours) the library.
Your only hope is the backup of the database, something you have to do with every library update, is not the easiest thing to do, and its not an option of the nickel.
I don't want to know what will happen if a corruption occurs on a trip away from your PC.

I've had my Glo for over two years and never had a corrupted database. I have only factory reset once in the last two years and that was due to an accident when I was experimenting with a new patch. I also reset a few times when I first got the device as a result of my own ignorance, but never needed to factory reset as a result of any problem with nickel.

[GERGE]

I've been using Kobo devices since Touch came out, only time I did a factory reset was to get rid of Start Menu and KOReader.

If you want to install KOReader as a backup, fine; but likening current Kobo software to a ticking bomb is a huge exaggeration. Database will not be eventually get corrupted! I have used Glo two years without a factory reset, Touch for three years, mounted and unmounted the devices numerous times, encountered no problems.

Mounting and mounting, plugging and unplugging will not effect the database badly unless either the device or your OS is faulty. Are you sure you are unmounting Kobo before unplugging?

[Manolo]

Originally Posted by pickyaxe

ePubs? KOReader is first and foremost for PDFs.
And really, this software makes PDFs as usable as possible. (...)

I agree. I use KOReader mainly for PDF.
Kobo Nickel is fine for epub. And Coolreader fine for mobi or fb2.

[jberd]

I've heard that ereaders can send information to a server about the user's reading habits. I realize there can be legitimate reasons for this, but it still seems intrusive to me.

Does koreader do better regarding privacy? Does/can Kobo keep track of what the user reads using koreader?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by embryo

Well, AFAIK koreader reads the ebook's CSS also (to a certain degree), but has an 'option' to turn this off.
And the patcher that you use is not part of the reader but a great effort of people that liked the 'option' to use all of their screen for reading.
Option that the reader does not gives you.

Actually, the full screen reading option is one the reader does give me. Adding FullScreenReading=true under [FeatureSettings] in the Kobo eReader.conf file allows me that option. Though I seldom use that option, Screenshots=true is the one I use more often.

And I personally do not like the way that koreader can and will disregard parts of the ebook's CSS while misrendering other parts. I am not sure if it is an issue with koreader code or the crengine renderer that koreader uses for epubs. Either way, it's annoying.

Originally Posted by embryo

But you see, this is the problem with the nickel approach.
You live with a ticking bomb.
If the reader needs a factory reset, the nickel re-index (for hours) the library.
If the reader connects to the PC, eventually the database will be corrupted and it will re-index (for hours) the library.
Your only hope is the backup of the database, something you have to do with every library update, is not the easiest thing to do, and its not an option of the nickel.
I don't want to know what will happen if a corruption occurs on a trip away from your PC.

Given that I probably do more factory resets than the average person, I have never had a factory reset triggered by database corruption after connecting a Kobo ereader to my PC, updating my library either manually or by using Calibre and safely ejecting the ereader. Installing alternate readers, start menus, screen savers, playing with patched firmware and unsafely removing the ereader have triggered issues. And yes, koreader has caused issues on a couple of occasions.

The database backup can be done automatically using Calibre with davidfor's KoboUtilities plugin -- plug your ereader in and let Calibre mount it. Has a database backup been done in the last 24 hours? No, do a backup. Easy peasy.

Personally, I tend to do the backup manually but that's a personal preference.

As for what happens when I get corruption away from home? Most database corruption I've run into has had little effect on being able to read -- more issues with covers, being able to update metadata and adding new ebooks. The one time I was away from home and ran into a severe issue, I removed the external uSD card, did a factory reset, updated firmware and re-inserted the uSD card. I then let processing the ebooks on the uSD card run overnight while I hit a nightclub with other conference attendees and had a good night's sleep. I then connected the ereader to my laptop and used KoboUtilities to update the metadata so series info was visible. And yes, when I am on a business trip, my laptop travels with me. When on a pleasure trip, I'll bring a tablet as well as my Kobo ereader with me so I do have alternatives for ereading.

Originally Posted by embryo

Maybe for you the price of the reader is "nickels and dimes" (pun intended), but to pay for a 6" reader and use a 4.5" one, is not a good deal in my book.

Hmmm... I read mostly epubs so top margin is pretty minimal and bottom margin without patching is about 1 cm. A quick measurement says 16cm diagonal corner to corner with the default bottom margin or a 6.3 inch diagonal on my Aura H2O. Even on a 6" ereader, the diagonal measurement with the default bottom margin is 14cm or 5.5 inch from a quick measurement on the wife's Aura.

Just how big a botton margin are you using to drop the diagonal to 11.43cm? A quick calculation given the Aura has a screen approximately 9cm by 13cm and using the Pythagorean theorem where one side is 9cm and the hypotenuse is 11.43cm gives me the other side as 7.01 cm so close to a 6cm bottom margin.

As for the cost comparison, with the average cost of the ebooks in my library being around $4.17Cdn over the last 5 years, the 2782 books currently in my elibrary cost ~$11,600Cdn. My Aura H2O cost $202Cdn (taxes and shipping included) so about 1.7% of the cost of my ebook collection.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jberd

I've heard that ereaders can send information to a server about the user's reading habits. I realize there can be legitimate reasons for this, but it still seems intrusive to me.

Does koreader do better regarding privacy? Does/can Kobo keep track of what the user reads using koreader?

Kobo barely keeps track of what the user reads when reading epubs (the number of books, hours read and time of day read). Koreader does not report any information to Kobo.

Kobo does keep track of reading stats and other information for ebooks purchased from Kobo or it's partners and read in kepub format. If you download the ebook in epub format, it drops into the epub category.

[jusmee]

I am just trying out koreader for the first time today. One big plus for me, that I didn't see mentioned, is the speed of changing pages. On my touch, you can keep tapping on the rhs, so fast the page blurs trying to keep up, and the pages just keep turning. Fantastic. Under the native reader software, it's more like, tap and wait for the page to turn each time - very slow.

[sadowski]

Most important advantage for me (on a Kobo): dictionaries for languages that are otherwise not available on Kobo.

Disadvantage: inferior rendering

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by sadowski

Most important advantage for me (on a Kobo): dictionaries for languages that are otherwise not available on Kobo.

Disadvantage: inferior rendering

A side question - where do you get dictionaries for koreader? Seems to use Stardict which seems to have run into problems. Had a quick look at some links, but couldn't find any dictionary files.

[sadowski]

Originally Posted by jusmee

A side question - where do you get dictionaries for koreader? Seems to use Stardict which seems to have run into problems. Had a quick look at some links, but couldn't find any dictionary files.

I use makedict and make them from xdxf files.

[jusmee]

Thanks for that. I found 2 versions of the makedict source (github and sourceforge) and both fail to compile with the same/similar errors. I even found someone elses post about the same problem, and the response to their question was that the code is old and needs to be fixed.

Do you know of anywhere I can get a working version?

Edit: don't worry, found a windows version that will do - sorry for hijacking the thread...

[jberd]

Originally Posted by jusmee

A side question - where do you get dictionaries for koreader? Seems to use Stardict which seems to have run into problems. Had a quick look at some links, but couldn't find any dictionary files.

I haven't tried creating my own.

But there is an English Wiktionary version at http://www.dictinfo.com/stardict/wik...-2015-02-01.7z
(I found the link at http://www.dictinfo.com/).

Also, if you go to http://pan.baidu.com/s/1c01qNM4#path=%252Fhuzheng_life, there are several stardic dictionaries. They are in several files (stardict-...-tar.1 to stardict-..-tar.7); if you download them and cat them together, you get a tar file with many dictionaries.

Jay