Dumbing down the Kobo UI for an older person

[mxbndr]

Hello!

First, I just want to say that I appreciate this forum as a resource, and I'm grateful for your participation with my challenge. I initially posted this to reddit, and that community was both kind and generous, and also sent me here.

I want to dumb down my Libra H2O for an older library user not used to smart devices. What are the best things I can do?

Some ideas (most of which I'm optimistic about but don't yet know how to change):

Easy

• Changing the screensaver to have instructions rather than the book title or nothing (I know how to do this with the "screensaver" folder)
• Making the default reading font larger (settings)
• Making the default UI font larger (settings)
• Loading up the ereader with books ahead of time (I am good with Calibre)

Hard

• Defaulting the search to the device or Overdrive, instead of the store, which they will never use
• Disabling the store entirely
• Cleaning up the homescreen to get rid of things like "Top 50 Picks" so it's less cluttered and confusing (I would love for it just to show his most recent book, and a link to Overdrive)
• Making the borrow-from-Overdrive option more prominent and not in an overflow menu

I would love your suggestions for how to accomplish the above, and also welcome your suggestions for anything I missed. The reddit thread folks suggested exploring the yaml files in the patcher, as well as NickelMenu. While I have successfully patched the device, I have yet to successfully leverage NickelMenu, and don't yet know at-a-glance what the patches are that would serve my needs.

Thank you!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by mxbndr

Hard

• Defaulting the search to the device or Overdrive, instead of the store, which they will never use

The default for search is different depending on where you are. And it remembers what you last used. Once you do a search of My books from the home screen, it will remember that.

• Cleaning up the homescreen to get rid of things like "Top 50 Picks" so it's less cluttered and confusing (I would love for it just to show his most recent book, and a link to Overdrive)

Exactly what is on the home screen changes as you use the device. Open a few books and there will be four across the top rather than the a store-based tile in the top right. And the middle-right will change to either an author or a collection as you open and read books.

• Disabling the store entirely
• Making the borrow-from-Overdrive option more prominent and not in an overflow menu

These are contradictory. The store is used for borrowing. If a book in the store is in your library, it will have options to borrow it as well as buying the book.

I would love your suggestions for how to accomplish the above, and also welcome your suggestions for anything I missed. The reddit thread folks suggested exploring the yaml files in the patcher, as well as NickelMenu. While I have successfully patched the device, I have yet to successfully leverage NickelMenu, and don't yet know at-a-glance what the patches are that would serve my needs.

Some of the patches will help with what you want. I don't patch or use NickelMenu, so I will leave those suggestions to others.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by mxbndr

I want to dumb down my Libra H2O for an older library user not used to smart devices.

Defaulting the search to the device or Overdrive, instead of the store, which they will never use

IIRC, it just saves the last one you use.

Disabling the store entirely

Even though it's theoretically possible, I'll never be doing that.

Cleaning up the homescreen to get rid of things like "Top 50 Picks" so it's less cluttered and confusing (I would love for it just to show his most recent book, and a link to Overdrive)

Look at the nickel.yaml home screen patches and the recommendations one in libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml.

You may also like the SmartLink customization patches and NickelMenu.

Making the borrow-from-Overdrive option more prominent and not in an overflow menu

Not currently possible.

I don't yet know at-a-glance what the patches are that would serve my needs

For your situation, I'd also recommend the ComfortLight patch if your sunrise/sunset times are different, the 24 line spacing values one to give more control over line spacing, possibly the custom font sizes one for the same reason, the allow showing info panel on random screensaver one, jackie_w's dictionary patches, and the kepub chapter graph size increase one.

I have yet to successfully leverage NickelMenu

Have a look at the documentation and see if any of the actions interest you. Then, if you have questions about those, feel free to ask about them.

For you, the invert screen option might be useful, the extras if you'll be using them, the overdrive one to add a direct link to it, the browser one if you want to add custom CSS, and the force usb connection one if you often have issues with your computer not being detected properly.

Also, note that the upcoming v0.5.0 release will support adding items to the selection menu, optionally using the current selection. This can be used to add things like custom search engines.

your suggestions for anything I missed

You may also like NickelSeries if you're sideloading a lot of books in series.

[lel24]

Is it possible to access OverDrive while parental controls are available? (Or could this be a patch?)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by lel24

Is it possible to access OverDrive while parental controls are available? (Or could this be a patch?)

Yes and no. Borrowing books is implemented via the store. If the store is not available, you cannot borrow books. But, if the device is connected to OD and you borrow books by some other method, they will sync to the device.

[mxbndr]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Yes and no. Borrowing books is implemented via the store. If the store is not available, you cannot borrow books. But, if the device is connected to OD and you borrow books by some other method, they will sync to the device.

This is actually really helpful, and not obvious. I think my old friend would be fine getting books from OverDrive.com. I just tested it and it works great (aside from OverDrive's own confusing website): borrowed the book via browser, and it synced to the device.

Since that works, I think a lot of my challenges are resolved by turning on parental controls, since it simplifies the device by that much.

[mxbndr]

This part seems really useful, but I struggled to understand it and my trial and error hasn't borne fruit:

## Change Browse Kobo home screen link target ###
# This patch allows you to change the target of the Browse Kobo link. To
# rename the top description, use the rename home screen footer patch.
#
# The easy options for this patch are fairly limited, as BrowseKoboWidget::tapped
# just calls the superclass event, then the call to DiscoverNavMixin::storeFront
# in the PLT is tail-call optimized. This places a number of restrictions on the
# replacement target, namely: the branch must be a branch and exchange, but not
# link (lr must be unchanged to return correctly), which is implemented as a
# 32-bit branch to a bx pc (nop branch, but still switch instruction sets)
# immediately before a PLT entry to a nav mixin without any arguments (i.e.
# must be static). Note that the first branch is relative to pc. Also, note that
# in general, this requirement means anything called by StatusBarController (the
# menu) can be used as a replacement.
#
# Basically, the following two steps are needed:
# - In BrowseKoboWidget::tapped, change the tail-call to the bx before
# [something]NavMixin::[something] in the PLT.
# - In the BrowseKoboWidget constructor, change which function is called to get
# the bottom text (Shop Kobo) from N3DeviceCharm::shopName (Shop Kobo / Walmart)
# to N3DeviceCharm::[something] (note that there isn't enough room to
# load an entirely different string here).

Can someone give an example? For instance, making a link target the device library, or OverDrive?

You may also like the SmartLink customization patches and NickelMenu.

What does SmartLink do? My understanding is that it forces a message to display at the bottom of the homescreen. This is achieved by uncommenting the line in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml? Which is presumably customizable?

[mxbndr]

I think I'm close. One thing I would like to do is remove two things on the Home screen:

1. The My Books link (it's redundant with the My Books nav item)
2. The "UNREAD BOOKS" link next to the My Books link, which changes depending on what books are unread (I'm trying to really cut down on the dynamic content, which is distracting and confusing to an old man).

Is this possible? I've attached my current patch settings. Your help is appreciated!

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by mxbndr

What does SmartLink do? My understanding is that it forces a message to display at the bottom of the homescreen. This is achieved by uncommenting the line in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml? Which is presumably customizable?

Those patches just change the bottom two links on the homescreen. Just look at the patches underneath and set Enabled to yes on the one you want.

In general, you can ignore most of the commented-out text since the most relevant information will be in the patches themselves.

[mxbndr]

Got it, thanks. Is it possible to remove the My Books and Unread Books links? Or is SmartLink patching those into something else the way to go?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by mxbndr

Got it, thanks. Is it possible to remove the My Books and Unread Books links? Or is SmartLink patching those into something else the way to go?

Why would you remove those? It's not like it'd give you another row of recent books instead.

[JSWolf]

Are you saying because the person the Kobo is intended for is unable to learn how to use it without dumbing it down?

[mxbndr]

Why would you remove those? It's not like it'd give you another row of recent books instead.

Are you saying because the person the Kobo is intended for is unable to learn how to use it without dumbing it down?

Thanks for following up.

The person who will be using this is not a typical user. They have a flip/feature phone and only rudimentary email experience. It's my hope that they can learn to use an e-reader (because they like to borrow books from the library but have a hard time with small text), but the kobo throws a lot at you if you don't know how to interact with it.

My hypothesis is that the less this person sees, the better. To that end, I am disabling anything they won't need. This includes dynamic stuff such as recommended content, store access, Pocket, redundant links, etc. It doesn't matter if it results in whitespace. It simply has to minimize their choices for interaction. In the end, this will hopefully look something like this: https://i.imgur.com/VVRd4Xa.jpg

(The attachment uploader on this forum isn't working for me all of a sudden)

Even with all of this, I'm not sure it will be enough for them (for instance, the touch screen, itself, might just be too much). But I want to try! I also only have one shot at this, as they live across the country and I will mail them the dumbed-down device.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mxbndr

Thanks for following up.

The person who will be using this is not a typical user. They have a flip/feature phone and only rudimentary email experience. It's my hope that they can learn to use an e-reader (because they like to borrow books from the library but have a hard time with small text), but the kobo throws a lot at you if you don't know how to interact with it.

My hypothesis is that the less this person sees, the better. To that end, I am disabling anything they won't need. This includes dynamic stuff such as recommended content, store access, Pocket, redundant links, etc. It doesn't matter if it results in whitespace. It simply has to minimize their choices for interaction. In the end, this will hopefully look something like this: https://i.imgur.com/VVRd4Xa.jpg

(The attachment uploader on this forum isn't working for me all of a sudden)

Even with all of this, I'm not sure it will be enough for them (for instance, the touch screen, itself, might just be too much). But I want to try! I also only have one shot at this, as they live across the country and I will mail them the dumbed-down device.

My Mother used a flip phone. I taught her how to use a Windows based computer, a Sony Reader, and an iPad Mini. I also gave her some help remotely. I was able to remote access her laptop and help her as needed. It worked out very well as it meant I did not have to go over to her place every time she needed or wanted some help. I was able to put eBooks on her Sony for her. She did really well on her own. I was really impressed how well she took to this. I never once thought about dumbing anything down for her. If I even did that, it would have been more difficult to teach her as I would have to remember what it is I did.

[mxbndr]

Well done! I was successful with my own mom. I am not optimistic about this other older person, who has less patience,

Any help anyone can provide on how to eliminate those components would be welcome!