Kobo Aura 6" fullscreen fix

[aluisscp]

Hi!

Does anyone know if there has been a fix for the full screen patch on the kobo aura, because when I uncheck the book margin and header square everytime there is a new chapter it deformats the text.
Thanks

[hleo12]

By patch, do you mean the fullscreensettings=true thing? It is still buggy with kepubs, and as far as I know it's still a beta feature and it is not yet fully implemented/supported by Kobo.

[pgaunt]

Originally Posted by hleo12

By patch, do you mean the fullscreensettings=true thing? It is still buggy with kepubs, and as far as I know it's still a beta feature and it is not yet fully implemented/supported by Kobo.

It's implemented in 3.8.0 which I've just loaded on my Aura. The 'Reading settings' now occupy two pages.

[Quexos]

This is one of the most despicable issues with Kobo readers: the developers adamant refusal to give consumers a real full screen option. So much wasted space on a screen that is smaller than even a pocket book...
As for my Aura HD, I got the fix from this website a long time ago and the only price to pay is to never update the firmware of course but I enjoy my full screen and that means more to me than any new features on firmware upgrades.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pgaunt

It's implemented in 3.8.0 which I've just loaded on my Aura. The 'Reading settings' now occupy two pages.

I don't see the Page Layout/show header and footer option unless I edit Kobo eReader.conf to add the FullScreenReading=true under [FeatureSettings]. This is on an Aura HD and an Aura.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quexos

This is one of the most despicable issues with Kobo readers: the developers adamant refusal to give consumers a real full screen option. So much wasted space on a screen that is smaller than even a pocket book...
As for my Aura HD, I got the fix from this website a long time ago and the only price to pay is to never update the firmware of course but I enjoy my full screen and that means more to me than any new features on firmware upgrades.

Huh? On firmware 3.8.0 here, GeoffR's patcher, disable footer and you get very close to full page. Despicable? You waste hatred and contempt on an ereader? As for adamant refusal? The FullScreenReading has been there for a few firmware revisions for those who really want/need it.

Perhaps you might save that feeling for the publisher who generated an ebook with 100px left and right margins and 133px top and bottom margins. It does look like a real book with the wide margins but, sheesh, get into the 21st century and don't waste up to 55% of the screen space making an ebook look like a dead tree book. 55% coming from a 600x800 screen with 400x534 being available for text.

Quick explanation of calculation:

original screen size: 600x800 or 480,000 pixels

available screen size: 400x534 or 213,600 pixels

wasted space 1: 2 strips (100x800) on each side or 160,000 pixels
wasted space 2: 2 strips (133x400) on top and bottom or 106,400 pixels

So 266,400 pixels for margin and 213,600 pixels for text.

Regards,
David

[aluisscp]

Thanks for your answers, I guess if I want to use this feature I'll have to turn to epubs.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by aluisscp

Thanks for your answers, I guess if I want to use this feature I'll have to turn to epubs.

The stock available space on the screen for reading purposes on the Kobo Glo (6") is:
kepubs: 74,522% (4.47 inch)
epub: 90,527% (5.43 inch)

The rest of the screen is taken by a fixed header (kepub) and/or footer (both formats) and/or left and right page margins (kepub) which can not be altered by the user.

This is probably not much different for other Kobo ereaders.
You can only increase this using the Patcher.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Anak

The stock available space on the screen for reading purposes on the Kobo Glo (6") is:
kepubs: 74,522% (4.47 inch)
epub: 90,527% (5.43 inch)

The rest of the screen is taken by a fixed header (kepub) and/or footer (both formats) and/or left and right page margins (kepub) which can not be altered by the user.

This is probably not much different for other Kobo ereaders.
You can only increase this using the Patcher.

Or you can insert FullScreenReading=true in the Kobo eReader.conf file's [FeatureSettings] section and get rid of the header/footer in both kepub and epubs though at the cost of having issues in kepubs with lines being cut off -- the last line at the bottom of the screen getting a few pixels and the first line at the top of the next screen completing the line.

As for the fixed right/left margins? They are not only set by the ereader's margin slider but are a combination of the ereader's margin slider and margins defined in the ebook's style. You can set the margin slider to it's minimum to see just what is defined within the ebook. And yes, some of them are ridiculously large but that is hard to blame on Kobo since their editing of ebooks does not seem to involve modifying the left/right margins. Or the horrible example I mentioned earlier where the margins were set in pixels taking away over 50% of the available screen space on a Touch size screen.

Regards,
David

[Anak]

@DNSB. I'm familair with the FullScreenReading option but this is not a official feature yet. You won't find it in the GUI/can't enable it without modifying the conf file first. This beta feature is hidden. Will it ever become an official feature?
I'm not discussing the margins which are set in the epub/kepub itself (and yes, these can be ridiculously large too).
My calculations are solely based on on the margins/header/footer set by the reader.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Anak

@DNSB. I'm familair with the FullScreenReading option but this is not a official feature yet. You won't find it in the GUI/can't enable it without modifying the conf file first. This beta feature is hidden. Will it ever become an official feature?
I'm not discussing the margins which are set in the epub/kepub itself (and yes, these can be ridiculously large too).
My calculations are solely based on on the margins/header/footer set by the reader.

I was looking at your "left and right page margins (kepub) which can not be altered by the user". The left/right margins set by the ereader can be modified by the margin slider. The minimum is set by the ebook.

I have complained to several publishers about ebook formatting. So far not much in the line of results but I don't expect instant results. A reason that I prefer publishers/authors who do not DRM their ebooks is I can modify the style without indulging in removing the DRM. A few self-published authors have been a lot more responsive. The issue there being that they generally do not have access to testing their ebooks on a large number of ereaders and a couple of times, the response has been "but it looks okay on a Kindle".

Regards,
David

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

the response has been "but it looks okay on a Kindle".

And that just goes to show how clueless they really are. A Kindle is not a valid Reader to test how eBooks look as Amazon forces margins and line-heights on the users. You need a Reader that doesn't have such forced settings so you can see what your CSS is really doing.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I was looking at your "left and right page margins (kepub) which can not be altered by the user". The left/right margins set by the ereader can be modified by the margin slider. The minimum is set by the ebook.

I checked again. Your right there are no left and right margins for kepubs either. I don't know why the margin slider was in the "1" position (could this be a default setting?) instead of "0" (slider to the far left) as I don't read kepubs.

This changes the outcomes to:
kepub: 79.785%.
epub: 90.527%

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And that just goes to show how clueless they really are. A Kindle is not a valid Reader to test how eBooks look as Amazon forces margins and line-heights on the users. You need a Reader that doesn't have such forced settings so you can see what your CSS is really doing.

I agree. Would "country of origin" play a part in this? Like American publishers automatically format for Kindle because these devices have the largest market penetration? And the epub version is derived from it?

Slightly off topic (but layout related)
I asked Kobo (Netherlands) nicely if they could fix my problematic kepubs (you know the 'older books' with empty lines between p-tags, etc.) by simply reconverting or reprocessing these books to update the books to the latest "kobo code" modifications.

Their answer was: no.

While I've read here (and other forums too) that Kobo does fix these books in other countries where Kobo is active. Why isn't this standard policy for all countries?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Anak

I agree. Would "country of origin" play a part in this? Like American publishers automatically format for Kindle because these devices have the largest market penetration? And the epub version is derived from it?

I'm not sure if "country of origin" would have much of an effect. Quite a few publishers/authors see Amazon as being their biggest single bookseller regardless of country of origin.

Originally Posted by Anak

Slightly off topic (but layout related)
I asked Kobo (Netherlands) nicely if they could fix my problematic kepubs (you know the 'older books' with empty lines between p-tags, etc.) by simply reconverting or reprocessing these books to update the books to the latest "kobo code" modifications.

Their answer was: no.

While I've read here (and other forums too) that Kobo does fix these books in other countries where Kobo is active. Why isn't this standard policy for all countries?

I only asked Kobo about fixing a book once and got the same answer. With a little help from our favourite apprentice, I edited the book and remove the <expletive deleted> blank paragraphs between each paragraph. Not a item in the styling but a <p class="p2"><br class="c7" /></p> line inserted after each paragraph.

Regards,
David

[Rizla]

Bit OT, but for those who have rooted their Kobo, Alreader has a full-screen mode.