JBPatch

[morrow]

Hi, for some reason I can never get the multiple dictionaries to work. I have English and Chinese dictionary, I see the ARROW when I select a word but it's grayed out. Am I doing anything wrong?

I'm on firmware 5.3.1 and JBPatch 4.0.0.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by morrow

Hi, for some reason I can never get the multiple dictionaries to work. I have English and Chinese dictionary, I see the ARROW when I select a word but it's grayed out. Am I doing anything wrong?

I'm on firmware 5.3.1 and JBPatch 4.0.0.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong, but you probably misunderstood the purpose

This only has an effect when you have installed *multiple* dictionaries for the *same* language (like: Oxford, American Oxford, English -> Chinese).

Entries will only be looked up in the dictionary/dictionaries whose input language matches the language of the current book.

[morrow]

Originally Posted by ixtab

I don't think you're doing anything wrong, but you probably misunderstood the purpose

This only has an effect when you have installed *multiple* dictionaries for the *same* language (like: Oxford, American Oxford, English -> Chinese).

Entries will only be looked up in the dictionary/dictionaries whose input language matches the language of the current book.

Ah, thank you. I thought I can use it as translation

[knc1]

Originally Posted by morrow

Ah, thank you. I thought I can use it as translation

You could
If reading a Chinese book, install a Chinese->Urdu (or whatever) dictionary.

[morrow]

Originally Posted by knc1

You could
If reading a Chinese book, install a Chinese->Urdu (or whatever) dictionary.

Um... where would I find such dictionary? Is there s English > Chinese?

p.s As I checked the new paperwhite2 screenshots, I wonder if is possible to make the dictionary pop-up as big as the paperwhite 2. The current one is quite small, and sometimes does not show the full definition, the new paperwhite's dictionary had it extend to the full bottom screen.

[pirl8]

Looks like firmware 5.3.8 for KPW is out. I read (see linked thread) it allows multiple dictionary lookups, which is a really good new feature (well, quite old indeed, for people using jbpatch).

Being possible to hyphenate AZW3s with a calibre plugin, the only very missing feature is a decent margin customization, like that provided by jbpatch.

In fact, at the moment, a jbpatched device is still better than the original firmware alone. I have multiple dictionary lookup, I have hyphenation both on AZW3 (thanks to the calibre plugin) and on Mobi (thanks to jbpatch) and I'm able to fully use the kindle screen (thank's to jbpatch, again) without those stupid large white margins. I won't upgrade my Kindle to newer firmware, yet.

[twobob]

yeah 170 Mb to update a few files.

Perhaps they got some advice from the Microsoft Update site...

[Antoinekamel]

May we expect JBPatch for PW 5.3.8?

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by Antoinekamel

May we expect JBPatch for PW 5.3.8?

Since FW 5.3.8 isn't particularly compelling and from the looks of what is being promised software-wise on the PW2 there probably will be additional updates for the PW1, I can't imagine why ixtab would bother....

[ixtab]

Well, ok.

After thinking back and forth about this, I came to the following conclusion:

First and foremost, because this is the only thing that most of the folks asking are interested in anyway: I don't have the time or energy to play Lab126's war games, so JBPatch will not support new firmwares anymore. I've outlined the reasons many times. Curse me if you want, but better yet, go and complain to Amazon about their developer- and consumer-hostile policy. It was entirely their deliberate decision to show us (and you) the middle finger again and again.

That said, JBPatch is still maintained. But the only firmware versions that will be supported from now on are 5.1.2 (Kindle Touch) and 5.3.4 (Kindle Paperwhite).

Both of these firmwares are great at doing what an e-book reader is meant to do - namely: to let you read books. And JBPatch can add a few other great features... like... hyphenation (I can't help it - that still is the single number one killer feature for me, personally. The default layout is simply horrible without hyphenation, especially for languages with a lot of long words, like german).

I realize that Amazon is also adding desirable features to their new FW releases. But at the same time, they also make it prohibitively difficult to enhance them. So it's your choice in the end - go with a new firmware, or stay with an old one that JBPatch supports.

[alanHd]

Thanks for all the time and effort you put in, such a pity Amazon couldn't embrace the improvements you made.

[hanog]

I vote JBPatch! Hyphenation and marign alignement the killer feature. Thanks for your awsome work and the new info!

[ixtab]

Here's a new experimental patch, inspired by this thread.

It affects the reader application (=the "actual" book reader) only, and provides two functionalities which can be used separately, but also in combination:

1. You can define the percentage of the screen width that, when tapped, will result in a page-back event, instead of a page-forward event. The default Kindle behavior is that if you tap in the left 15% of the screen width, it will go back, anywhere else will go forward. You can modify this, for instance to split the screen in half (50%): left half -> page back, right half -> page forward.
2. You can also reverse the tap actions - like, tapping on the right will go back, and tapping on the left will go forward.
3. Both of these can be combined at will, so you can use the combination that suits you best.

While the original purpose was to make life a bit easier for left-handed folks, there are probably other scenarios where this can be useful.

Notes:

• Requires JBPatch >= 4.0.0
• For the time being, this patch only works on Paperwhite FW 5.3.4 - don't bother to install it on other firmwares. Support for FW 5.1.2 will most probably be added later on.
• This patch only affects the reader application. It does not affect the home screen, the periodicals, or anything else. This is on purpose.
• This should be working with KF7 (="plain mobi") and KF8 (=.azw3) files, at least according to my tests. However, I can only assume that it works correctly with RTL documents - I couldn't test it, because I don't have any. If somebody could provide a link to a freely-available .azw3 document with RTL writing (arabic, hebrew, ...) to test with, that'd be awesome.
• Just a reminder: after settings are changed, they must be saved, and the framework must be restarted before the changes take effect.

Installation is as usual. Please report here any oddities that you may find. Thanks!

PS: Source code is here. The actual patching logic is merely 20 lines of code, starting at line 184.

[ixtab]

[Aeris]

Ixtab, thank you for your wonderful job! I've just downloaded the patch "Modify Reader Tap Zones" and it works perfectly for a left-handed like me!

May I suggest you a new patch/feature? I would like to read (on my kindle paperwhite 5.3.4) more lines from the dictionary definition, instead of the standard 4... is it hard to create a patch for this?
Another cool feature would be also the ability to display books subfolders in home screen, but I imagine this is not doable by a simple patch...

Regarding the version support, I perfectly agree with you! Also, it's better a fast development for a single firmware per model, instead of slow development of all firmwares!

Thank you again!