Touch Kobo Touch future firmware feature request thread

[ne0b0rn]

.landscape browsing
full keyboard - do really need the upside down question mark
options and personal menus

[Torrain]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

For me, the FIRST thing I would like is the ability to organize my library inside Kobo in any way. As it is now, it's almost unusable. People complain a lot because Booken had only a list of books TWO YEARS AGO and now Kobo is in the same way.

This this this so much this. I'd feel dumb for not checking for this before I bought one, but... it's 2011! I really did not expect that a device meant to store hundreds of individually complete entertainment files would *not* have any kind of sorting scheme beyond favourite/not-favourite and alphabetical or file-last-accessed-(not-the-same-as-book-being-read), you know?

Given that at most you can show six books on a screen at once, I think it'd work fine if I only had fifteen books. I've got a hundred and five, on a device that bills itself as being able to carry a thousand, and I was expecting to have four to six hundred, loosely, by the end of the year.

I understand the "delete what you're not reading" theory. But if I'm going to restrict myself to a tiny handful of books, and sit down in front of my library at night and sift through it to see what book I want to take along tomorrow... I can do that with realbooks. Weigh a little more, but don't need to be nearly so careful with them.

Other stuff I would like:

(1) The ability to mark books as *unread.* Not finished, since finished books stay up in the Recent Reads queue. Just something to have the system ignore the fact that they were ever opened. At the moment, I'm actually twitchy about letting other people look at my ereader, because they're probably going to poke something (which is the point of a touchscreen, I know) and then I'm going to be doing the scroll through library/open book/back to library dance until the books I'm currently reading are back at the top of the list where I'd rather they were.

(2) Some way to sort based on the attributes that do exist, like "Finished" and "I'm Reading." Right now, I can't tell my Kobo Touch not to display books I've already read. I can't tell it to only display books I haven't read, or only display books I'm reading.

Also, being able to assign books to the Previews and News&Mags categories would be nice. I want epub subscriptions to magazines Kobo doesn't carry, and it'd be nice to be able to put them in that category instead of "Books". And there was one item in the Kobo store which was essentially a half-dozen excerpts of novels being published in the coming months. It's filed under Books. Throws me every time I spot it; it is so a preview, even if it is not a "file you can click on and get an offer to buy a particular book from Kobo".

(3) The ability to jump to a particular letter in the alphabet when files are sorted alphabetically, either by author or title? I was talking to people who had the last Kobo, and when I finally realized what they thought I could do and explained that "alphabetical sorting, like Recent Reads, just tells you which screen you're on--11 of 18, f'r ex. There's no way to jump to "G" or "L" or anything else" they looked at me like I'd... well, like I'd gone out and bought a blender that didn't have newfangled stuff like "settings" or an "ON switch". You just plugged it in when you wanted it to run.

Between that and the lack of an "I'm Reading" category, they are both being very glad they have the last edition. I was hoping one of them would want to swap, but given the general reaction to that idea ATM{1} I think it's unlikely. I'm seriously thinking of returning the Touch; I haven't yet because it was bought as a gift with birthday money, and I already told the gifter I liked it.

(4) The ability to display a line or two of flavour text, as well as the cover image, when you set your library to display one book at a time.

(5) The ability to add notes to highlights. (I know you get the option to write a comment if you want to post a highlight to Facebook. I'd like to be able to make notes that don't require an internet connection and are actually stored on the device.)

L&c,
F
---
{1} "I've got the old version + wifi, and I'd been thinking of upgrading to the touch, but now they can pry my non-touchscreen out of my cold, dead hands."

[EMG]

I know I'm repeating what's already been said, but these changes seem essential to me:

1. Being able to organize your library/collections.
2. Keep separate reading stats in between each recharge.

[ella935]

white font on a black background.
please

[IsabeauG]

What I'd like to see is:
- backlit screen so that I don't have to have a reading light
- what I really really would like is a stylus with a sort of blunt end that would make it easier to touch certain points on the eReader.

[sophiek]

I am not sure if this has already been posted (i haven't read all 14 pages!) but I would love to see a way to manage having 2 Kobos share 1 account and 1 Kobo desktop.

As it stands now, my husband and I avoid using the desktop as we do not have the same taste in books and don't have common titles on our Kobos. However in order to install firmware upgrades I have to sync to the desktop which involves changing the 'I'm Reading' for each machine prior to syncing.

We only keep purchased, unread titles on our Kobos but this is still 15-20 books each and is a pain in the butt going through the 60 or more titles we have purchased to determine which ones belong on which reader and are still unread. The ability to upgrade the firmware easily (no sideloading copies of the new firmware, please) without syncing would be a great start. Recognizing multiple libraries would be even better.

As an aside, I have not tried yet but I am guessing that one-time use discount coupons don't recognize multiple readers, but rather the account as well. Does anyone know if this is the case? It would be nice if the discounts were by reader not by account as we actually have 3 Kobos in the house (one original) and it would be nice to use the discounts for each.

[danskmacabre]

Originally Posted by IsabeauG

What I'd like to see is:
- backlit screen so that I don't have to have a reading light
- what I really really would like is a stylus with a sort of blunt end that would make it easier to touch certain points on the eReader.

Unlikely those requests will be possible with a FIRMWARE update!

[ldrover]

Choice of cover sizes for Powered Off and Sleep screens would be nice. I really don't like the full screen image.

[mjsshah]

Option to turn hyphenation on and off.
Ability to have different fonts for different books. Currently if you change a font in one book it changes them all.

[EMG]

Originally Posted by ldrover

Choice of cover sizes for Powered Off and Sleep screens would be nice. I really don't like the full screen image.

I agree, the book I'm currently reading has it's cover stretched on my KT in sleep mode. Maybe have a stretch/center option?

[JohnMorris]

Originally Posted by Torrain

This this this so much this. I'd feel dumb for not checking for this before I bought one, but... it's 2011! I really did not expect that a device meant to store hundreds of individually complete entertainment files would *not* have any kind of sorting scheme beyond favourite/not-favourite and alphabetical or file-last-accessed-(not-the-same-as-book-being-read), you know?

Given that at most you can show six books on a screen at once, I think it'd work fine if I only had fifteen books. I've got a hundred and five, on a device that bills itself as being able to carry a thousand, and I was expecting to have four to six hundred, loosely, by the end of the year.

Yes. I have four or five hundred ebooks, and it's an issue. My solution is to browse on my PC and copy over only the book(s) I want to read next. Unsatisfactory.

This is a wider problem with all of the ereaders I've tried. Notwithstanding the various requests for different fonts, hyphenations, landscape modes, and so on, the fact is that, at least for me, the experience of reading a book on the kobo is as good as reading a paper book.

But reading is only half of the bibliophile's pleasure. The other half, which precedes it, is selecting what book to read next.

I have a wall of physical books. I enjoy the process of scanning the shelves. Will it be an old friend I can practically recite word for word? A new adventure, delving into pages unknown? A brief reminiscent trip back to childhood? A once read but now almost forgotten mystery? Or is it time to head to head to the store to find a new member of the family?

Ebooks don't come close to replicating this experience. I can't scan my collection at a glance: I just see a tiny, slowly, oh so slowly, moving peephole through which I can only glimpse a tiny fraction of the riches that I know are there.

I would love to see ebooks replicate the browsing for a book experience as well as they already replicate the reading of a book. Any device manufacturer who can do this can name their own price.

As a mundane first step, until some genius comes up with an answer to this, Kobo could add a simple one book per line title and author index page format, with 20 or so entries to a page, so my 400 ebooks only take 20 page turns to browse instead of 66.

[Jeff1192]

I started reading ebooks using the Kobo app for my Iphone. I was a little disappointed when I got my Kobo Touch that some features on the Iphone app were not available on the real thing. I would love to see expanded reading stats like on the app and the ability to make shelves in my library to organize my books. I had 200 some books all nicely organized on my Iphone but now I just have over 200 books randomly placed on my Kobo. I'm hoping the 2.0 firmware update will address these things.

Jeff

[jeffry]

I second the call to support multiple readers on one account.

I just got my Kobo Touch a few days ago and already my wife is thinking about getting one. We do have different tastes in books although there is some overlap. I would like to be able to share books but have the tracked (bookmarks, highlighting, etc.) separately. Until I'm fairly confident we can manage two KTs relatively independantly, I'll be holding off on another purchase.

Collections would be great too. I would prefer metadata as opposed to folders (I would like to have books in Science Fiction, Personal Favorites, and other collections).

Also, multiple bookmarks.

Another request is to have epub hyperlinks work on sideloaded content. I have the scriptures loaded a one big epub but, with over 4,000 pages, the regular navigation doesn't work well and, unfortunately, the table of contents goes by book and not chapter. Basically, it's not useful for reference, cross-referencing, or church study. Just straight reading. The epub does have hyperlinks to the content (books, and chapters) which is why I'd really like it to work.

[therealjoeblow]

Originally Posted by Torrain

This this this so much this. I'd feel dumb for not checking for this before I bought one, but... it's 2011! I really did not expect that a device meant to store hundreds of individually complete entertainment files would *not* have any kind of sorting scheme beyond favourite/not-favourite and alphabetical or file-last-accessed-(not-the-same-as-book-being-read), you know?

Given that at most you can show six books on a screen at once, I think it'd work fine if I only had fifteen books. I've got a hundred and five, on a device that bills itself as being able to carry a thousand, and I was expecting to have four to six hundred, loosely, by the end of the year.

I understand the "delete what you're not reading" theory. But if I'm going to restrict myself to a tiny handful of books, and sit down in front of my library at night and sift through it to see what book I want to take along tomorrow... I can do that with realbooks. Weigh a little more, but don't need to be nearly so careful with them.

+1

Can you imagine if Winamp was only able to sort your music files by alphabetical title? There's no way it would have become (arguably) the best and favorite music player on the PC of all time. Same goes for iPods and all other popular mp3 players...

At the very least, one should be able to sort by:

1) title
2) author*
3) series name*
4) book order within a series
4) genre/tags*
5) publishing date

...AND, preferably, within the ones marked with (*), be able to group by those too, and sort the groups by any of the other fields.

IMHO, the dev's should push this kind of functionality to the top of their priority list before adding any more bells and whistles, as this is basic core functionality that needs to be included in the device.

There's no way you can practically manage a library with hundreds of books (let alone thousands) without it. Again, think the ebook equivalent mp3 players, and what you would vs. wouldn't buy in that regard...

Cheers
The REAL Joe

[SF&F Reader]

In addition to what has been said above, a category (either metadata supported or a shelf) for short stories would be great.

While I agree with those that have asked for updates to the web browser (it is still in Beta after all) I don't consider that a priority. This is an e-reader, not a tablet! Make it the best darn ereader you possibly can before spending any energy on an extra feature like the browser.

I guess I'll post my updated wish list here now, in order of priority:

1. Fix the page turn 'freeze until second tap' causing a double turn.

2. Collections, folders, tags, whatever.

3. Support for multi-level TOC's and/or fix hyperlink functionality.

4. Notes and highlighting in epubs.

5. The ability to zoom in on illustrations in epubs (and kepubs).

6. Word search in books.

7. Options for first line indent (right now I fix my sideloaded books with css).

8. An option to sleep with the text from the last page accessed still displayed. The space for the menu bar could be used to notify that the device is in 'sleep' mode. This way you can easily leave it on a page with a recipe while cooking or something.