Instructions for patching firmware 4.18.13737

[geek1011]

This patch thread is for firmware 4.18.13737 (0f26e9d78c8564081468817aa796dcea05114055):

Instructions for patching on Windows, Linux, or macOS with kobopatch:

1. Download the Kobo firmware release
   You can find the download links here here.
2. Download and extract the patch zip
   Download and unzip kobopatch_4.18.13737.zip from here.
3. Copy the firmware file to the src folder
   Copy the original firmware you just downloaded into the kobopatch src folder.
4. Install the firmware if needed
   Install the firmware on your kobo BEFORE proceeding with the next steps. You can do this by extracting the contents of the firmware zip into the .kobo folder and ejecting.
5. Choose your patches from the files in the src folder
   Enable patches in the files in the src folder (or use the overrides in kobopatch.yaml to keep your options separate).
6. Run kobopatch
   Double-click kobopatch.bat on Windows, or run ./kobopatch.sh on Linux or macOS. On macOS, you can drag it into the terminal and press enter (you may need to go to System Preferences - Security and Privacy - General to confirm that you actually want to run it).
7. Install the patches by copying KoboRoot.tgz into the .kobo folder of your device
   If the patching succeeded, a file named KoboRoot.tgz will be created in the out folder. Copy it to the .kobo folder of your device. Safely remove your device once you are finished. On Linux, you may have to press Ctrl+H to show the .kobo folder.

Download

If you aren't currently on 4.17.13337 or newer, you'll probably want to take a look at the 4.18.13694 patch thread, as it includes many large changes, additions, and removals.

[geek1011]

Changes to the kobopatch zip:
v66 (2020-08-19): Fixed "Don't uppercase header/footer text" patches not applying to percent read text (geek1011).
v63 (2020-07-08): New "Increase page navigation history" patch (geek1011).
v60 (2020-05-01): New bulgarian keyboard patch (Svens), updated kobopatch to v0.15.0 (geek1011).
v55 (2019-11-16): Added quite a few new patches by geek1011: change Browse Kobo home screen link target (2 variants), hide top-left menu items (6 variants), allow USB storage even when device locked, change ComfortLight settings (tested and debugged by jackie_w).
v54 (2019-11-09): Added the remaining missing patches (Semwize: 24 line spacing values, custom font sizes [libra added by geek1011]; Bald Eagle: Cyrillic and Greek keyboard patches) and a few new patches (NiLuJe: Prevent nickel from grabbing event0; geek1011: Swap reading header/footer).
v53 (2019-10-01): Initial release for 4.18.13737. You probably want to read the 4.17.13694 thread too if you haven't already done so.

Missing patches:
- None as of v54!

Patches for other files / patches not in the main zip:
- GeoffR's variant of my toc indentation patch:

Spoiler:

TODO: coming soon

Notes about this firmware version:
- There's now Dropbox integration for Forma users.

New patches in this version:
- jackie_w: Custom page navigation scrubber
- jackie_w: Custom new header/footer font
- jackie_w: Custom header/footer page number text (see demo here)
- geek1011: Don't uppercase header/footer text (later transferred to geek1011) (see demo here)
- geek1011: Swap reading header/footer (see demo here)
- NiLuJe: Prevent nickel from grabbing event0
- geek1011: Change Browse Kobo home screen link target (2 variants)
- geek1011: Hide top-left menu items (6 variants)
- geek1011: Allow USB storage even when device locked
- geek1011: Change ComfortLight settings (tested and debugged by jackie_w)
- There are a lot more for the 4.17.x versions here.

[jackie_w]

This patch allows you to customise various parts of the new 'scrubber'. The 'scrubber' is the navigation/progressbar which pops up at the bottom of the screen when you tap to bring up the in-book menus.

It will be of most use to those who read books in languages not officially supported by Kobo, e.g. Russian, Vietnamese, where Kobo's default Avenir font is a poor choice for displaying the necessary unicode characters for chapter names.

It can also be used by those who just want to change the scrubber's cosmetic appearance.

Part 1: Customise these 3 buttons:

- Left & Right 'Back to page nnn'
- Current chapter name (bottom left, next to TOC icon)

• 1a. Change font-size (by model)
• 1b. Change other font properties, e.g. font-family, bold, italic ... and anything else you can do with CSS

Part 2: Customise central 'Page x of y' label

• 2a. Change font-size (by model)
• 2b. Change other font properties, similar to 1b.

N.B:

• If you customise any font-family and after install/reboot you still do not see the new font being used in the scrubber, please see help notes at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...90&postcount=2
• *** This patch is not suitable for Japanese/Chinese locale users ***

In the attached screenshots:

• Image 1: Shows an unpatched Kobo with an English book.
• Image 2: Shows the same book after patching with cosmetic customisation. (Whether I made it better or worse is subjective )
  - in 1a. reduce font-size slightly
  - in 2a. increase font-size
  - in 1b. & 2b. use sideloaded Bookerly font, un-bolded
  - in 1b. make the 3 buttons look more like buttons and less like labels by using a light-grey background.
  - in 2b. remove forced UPPERCASE
• Image 3: Shows an unpatched Kobo with a book with chapter names containing Cyrillic characters.
  Note how poor Avenir and the fallback font are for this Kobo-non-supported language.
• Image 4: Shows the same book after patching using the same customisation as Image 2.
  Note that customising to use the Bookerly font now displays Cyrillic better.

[jackie_w]

This patch allows you to change font-family and/or font-size in the new header/footer. They will automatically be a matched pair.

It will be of most use to those who read books in languages not officially supported by Kobo (e.g. Russian, Vietnamese) where Kobo's default Avenir font is a poor choice for displaying the necessary unicode characters in Book title and Chapter name.

It can also be used by anyone who wants to change the cosmetic appearance of each book page.

This patch and patch Reduce new header/footer height should cover all the options which used to be available in the old patch Custom reading footer style.

Users who would also like to see their header/footer not forced to UPPERCASE should look for new patch Don't uppercase header/footer text.

Part 1: Customise font-family

Part 2:

• 2a. Customise font-size (by model)
• 2b. Fine-tune header/footer vertical positions (all models)
  e.g. to avoid the footer text cutting the bottom progressbar.
  This option is most likely to be needed if you have used patch
  Reduce new header/footer height
  to aggressively reduce header/footer height, see images 3,4 below.

N.B:

• If you customise any font-family and after install/reboot you still do not see the new font being used in the header/footer, please see help notes at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...90&postcount=2
• *** This patch is not suitable for Japanese/Chinese locale users ***

In the attached screenshots:

• Image 1: Shows an unpatched Kobo with an English book.
• Image 2: Shows the same book after patching with cosmetic customisation.
  - in 1. set font to sideloaded Trebuchet and set text colour to mid-grey so it fades into the background more.
  - in 2a. increase font-size
• Image 3: Shows the same book patched as in Image 2 but additionally patched with Reduce new header/footer height set to aggressively reduce height by 60%.
  Note how the footer text now cuts the progressbar.
• Image 4: Shows the same book as Image 3 plus this patch's optional extra
  - in 2b. Fine-tune header/footer vertical positions.
  Note how the footer text no longer cuts the progressbar and how the header has moved slightly away from the top bezel.
• Image 5: Shows an unpatched Kobo with a book with Book title and Chapter name containing Cyrillic characters.
  Note how poor Avenir and the fallback font are for this Kobo-non-supported language.
• Image 6: Shows the same book after patching using the same customisation as Image 2.
  Note that customising to use the sideloaded Trebuchet font now displays Cyrillic better.

[IanScuffling]

Just patched (using the overrides in kobopatch.yaml). Worked beautifully!

Thanks for doing this at all and also for doing it so quickly!

[jiminrussell]

Thank you again to all those who work on the patches and double thanks for getting them out so fast for this new firmware!

My devices are all updated and patched again, and working great.

[Phil_C]

Updates are smooth, efficient, wonderful. Thank you all!

[poczynek]

Thanks geek1011, Jackie and NiLuJe for all your hard work esp with 4.18 coming out so soon after 4.17.

All patched and working beautifully!

[jackie_w]

Details and screenshots for new patch Custom page navigation scrubber in post #3

Details and screenshots for new patch Custom new header/footer font in post #4

[geek1011]

There's also a new site for the patches with everything in one place now: https://pgaskin.net/kobopatch-patches .

[JeanPierre]

Thank you again.

[JSWolf]

@geek1011, has the Larger Sleep/Power-off timeouts patch been fixed?

[NiLuJe]

Short answer is: we don't know for sure, as quite a few things potentially outside of our/the end user's control can and will mess with it.

Long answer is in a note in the patch in question .

[aceflor]

Beautiful work guys, many thanks.
Jackie, I commend you on your book selection. Maurice Druon is the best! I have read Les rois maudits I don't know how many times.

[Carmelocotonto]

Hi jackie_w, you wrote this:

Image 2: Shows the same book after patching with cosmetic customisation.
- in 1. set font to sideloaded Trebuchet and set text colour to mid-grey so it fades into the background more.

How can I add text colour in this patch?. What line? Thanks