Glo What hacks/patches etc do I need?

[catsknit]

I'm currently using a Kobo Glo HD that I bought recently refurbished. (I had gotten a brand new one before they were discontinued and lost it on a trip, but had not done much more than Calibre shelves on it)

I see a LOT of tips, tricks, patches, etc. but have no idea what I need? I have NO developer/hacker knowledge other than once rooting a Nook tablet to be straight android (following instructions here on MR line by line)

should I be making my books kepub over epub in Calibre now?
Do I need KOReader?

Please, very basic instructions to help me take advantage of the Glo without trashing it! Thanks!

[JSWolf]

You don't need KOReader. You don't need kepup over ePub. But if you want kepub instead of ePub, that's up to you. There are advantages to both. As to what patches you need, you should look at the patches and decide the ones you want. If you like, I can tell you which ones I have set to yes.

[ZodWallop]

The patches/hacks you need are those you find useful. Many people use the device as is, so you could argue you don't need any.

If you're looking for people to share those they have enabled, that's a different story.

I use the Kobo Extended driver in Calibre to have my epub books converted to kepub when Calibre sends them to my device. I don't keep kepubs on my PC, but that is all I read on my Kobo.

As for patches, I enable:
Full screen reading
Freedom to advanced fonts control
KePub zero body margin/padding*
Fix kepub side bearing font cut-off bug*

*These last two fix issues where the text in a kepub can run off the side of the screen.

[JSWolf]

For firmware 4.7.10413 here are the patches I use...

libadobe.so.patch
None

libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch
patch_name = `My 24 line spacing values`
patch_name = `Custom left & right margins`
patch_name = `Custom font sizes`
patch_name = `Freedom to advanced fonts control`
patch_name = `ePub disable built-in body padding-bottom`
patch_name = `Custom kepub default margins`
patch_name = `Custom Sleep/Power-off timeouts`
patch_name = `Set KePub hyphenation`
patch_name = `Fix three KePub fullScreenReading bugs`
patch_name = `ePub constant font sharpness`
patch_name = `KePub constant font sharpness`
patch_name = `Un-Force user text-align in div,p tags in KePubs`
patch_name = `Always display chapter name on navigation menu`
patch_name = `Un-Force user font-family in KePubs`
patch_name = `Un-force link decoration in KePubs`
patch_name = `KePub stylesheet additions`
patch_name = `Dictionary, remove long winded closest match notification`

librmsdk.so.1.0.0.patch
patch_name = `Disable orphans/widows avoidance`
patch_name = `Default ePub monospace font (Courier)`

nickel.patch
patch_name = `Custom reading footer style`
patch_name = `Custom synopsis/details line spacing`
patch_name = `Custom Header menubar - reduce height by 33%`
patch_name = `Dictionary pop-up frame size increase`
patch_name = `Changing the info panel in full size screensaver (lower left corner)`
patch_name = `Increasing The View Details Container`
patch_name = `New home screen removing the footer (row3) and increasing cover size`
patch_name = `Reading stats/Author name cut when the series is showing bug fix`
patch_name = `Increase size of chaper progress chart in Kepub`

[catsknit]

Thanks, I guess I was asking which patches and hacks are most useful for someone with little experience in adding/changing things. When I use Calibre to convert books to epub, for example, I pretty much leave all the default values b/c I understand very little of it.
Some of the things listed in the patches you've named above are completely foreign to me, and others are confusing. For example, why would you want to disable the orphans/widows avoidance? What advantage is there to doing that?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by catsknit

Thanks, I guess I was asking which patches and hacks are most useful for someone with little experience in adding/changing things. When I use Calibre to convert books to epub, for example, I pretty much leave all the default values b/c I understand very little of it.
Some of the things listed in the patches you've named above are completely foreign to me, and others are confusing. For example, why would you want to disable the orphans/widows avoidance? What advantage is there to doing that?

For printed material, controlling widowsand orphans is somewhat useful to prevent a paragraph being split over multiple pages where a single line might be at the bottom of one page (orphan) and the rest of the paragraph on the next page or most of the paragraph on one page and a single line at the top of the next page (widow). The software I last used for generating printed pages would automagically add a little extra space between lines (leading/feathering) to make the page take the same vertical space when widows/orphans were moved. For ereaders, this is not really necessary. The default for widows and orphans is 2 lines so if you have a 3 line paragraph with two lines at the bottom of the page, it would be forced to the next page leaving a wide blank area at the bottom of the current page. My normal procedure is to set both widows and orphans in the CSS (stylesheet portion of the epub file) to 1 so a single line can be left at either the bottom or top of a page. The patch basically removes the widows/orphans functionality and has the same effect as adding widows: 1; and orphans: 1; to the CSS without actually needing to do so for every ebook.

See the Wikipedia entry Widows and Orphans for a more information.

[davidfor]

@catsknit: I think you are looking at this the wrong way. The question is really, what do you want?

In my opinion, the best thing to do is to put some books on the device and read. And explore the device while you do. Then, when you find a problem, or something you don't like, search the patches or ask here to find a workaround. There are far to many patches/hacks/workarounds/utilities for us to blindly suggest something as a lot of this is personal.

As an example, JSWolf has listed the patches he uses, but, I use none. I do have a couple of the hidden options enabled, but don't usually have the function they enable turned on. A lot of people refuse to upgrade the firmware if the inverse video/night mode doesn't work. But, it isn't something I like at all.

The epub vs kepub is another personal thing, but can be affected by your reading matter. If you read books with a lot of footnotes or images, then kepub is the better choice. But, if you are reading reading fiction with simple formatting, it probably doesn't matter. But, again, some people hate the header that kepubs display.

Overall, this is your device and you need to customise it the way you want it. You can't really "trash" it. The worst is that you would need to do a factory reset and start again.

[JSWolf]

You could try setting the patches I specified to yes and the rest to no and see how you get on. If you don't like something, say what it is and we can figure out what patches you may need to turn off.

[geek1011]

Here are the ones I use. I also use kepubs, as I use the charts it provides quite a bit. As for the kepub headers, I use fullscreen, so it does not matter to me. I also play around with the binaries every now and then (using hopper for disassembly and reassembly) to tweak things I don't like.

libadobe.so.patch
None

libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch
patch_name = `My 24 line spacing values`
patch_name = `Custom left & right margins`
patch_name = `Freedom to advanced fonts control`
patch_name = `ePub disable built-in body padding-bottom`
patch_name = `Custom Sleep/Power-off timeouts`
Fix three KePub fullScreenReading bugs (I do this through kepubify, as it gives me more control)
patch_name = `Un-Force user text-align in div,p tags in KePubs`
patch_name = `Always display chapter name on navigation menu`
patch_name = `Dictionary, remove long winded closest match notification`

librmsdk.so.1.0.0.patch
None

nickel.patch
patch_name = `Custom reading footer style`
patch_name = `Custom synopsis/details line spacing`
patch_name = `Custom Header menubar - reduce height by 33%`
patch_name = `Clock display duration (1s)`
patch_name = `Brightness fine control`
patch_name = `Increasing The View Details Container`
patch_name = `New home screen removing the footer (row3) and increasing cover size`
patch_name = `Reading stats/Author name cut when the series is showing bug fix`
patch_name = `Increase size of chaper progress chart in Kepub`
patch_name = `Keyboard template (I put chars useful for the terminal)`

[deleted2]

I use the Kepub Output plugin and the Kobo Extended Touch plugin, available in Calibre.

I prefer to read Kepub, because to my understanding it's the only format that can display stats like time to read a book/chapter. I may be wrong...

As for Kobo Extended, I use it with Calibre so I can manage my collections by tags.

I enabled the hidden "Full page" reading. But I don't use it, because I like to see where I am in the book (page number, chapter.) I would prefer to only have a footer and no header. I don't know of any hack that can do that with Kepub. I know you can minimize it, but I don't like the idea to hack too much my device.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

I use the Kepub Output plugin and the Kobo Extended Touch plugin, available in Calibre.

I prefer to read Kepub, because to my understanding it's the only format that can display stats like time to read a book/chapter. I may be wrong...

That's my understanding as well. That's why I read kepub over ePub.

I enabled the hidden "Full page" reading. But I don't use it, because I like to see where I am in the book (page number, chapter.) I would prefer to only have a footer and no header. I don't know of any hack that can do that with Kepub. I know you can minimize it, but I don't like the idea to hack too much my device.

I enable full page reading and do use it. I would prefer a very minimum footer like the Nook has, but I don't want to mess with the header.

[fotoroberto]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

KePub zero body margin/padding*

Fix kepub side bearing font cut-off bug*

Hi, I am interested in those two patches, can you tell me where did you get them?
I have Kobo GLO HD and a latest firmware, patched, but can't seem to find those two anywhere in the config files!?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by fotoroberto

Hi, I am interested in those two patches, can you tell me where did you get them?
I have Kobo GLO HD and a latest firmware, patched, but can't seem to find those two anywhere in the config files!?

It should be under:

libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch
patch_name = 'Fix three KePub fullScreenReading bugs'

The two I mentioned have been merged into that.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by fotoroberto

Hi, I am interested in those two patches, can you tell me where did you get them?

I think the one you've referred to as 'KePub zero body margin/padding*' is probably the patch in libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch named `Custom kepub default margins`.

The other one, as ZodWallop says, is `Fix three KePub fullScreenReading bugs`

[catsknit]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I need to play with it longer and see what things I'd want to change before diving in. I don't suppose there is a patch that will allow direct library borrowing is there?