PRS-T1 Recently Opened on Homescreen Hack for T1

[seabee]

Very effective SQL hack (Kolenka) and super-easy to follow step-by-step instructions (jackie_w)

[opitzs]

Originally Posted by dpierron

This is a great hack, it should be stickied !

I can only agree to that, it is easy to do, doesn't affect the firmware and it doesn't void your warranty.
Still it makes the home screen leagues better than it was before.

[amoth]

Because I often re initialise my book.db, I quickly created a tool to automatize the installation / uninstallation for this hack.

It can help those who doesn't want to enter SQL command line too.

Then, this tool contain another trigger option to automatically creating collection with the folder structure of your SD card.

Both triggers can be easily added / removed individually.

tweakDB.zip
Sources are included in the zip file.

Just unzip, double click on start.bat and follow the instructions

[bagby]

I'm afraid this doesn't work anymore, after some firmware revisions.

[Lanix]

Too bad. How can they make a home screen that only show last read book without thinking "is this really enough?". Specially considering as an e-reader it can hold thousands of books. IMO it should be a horizontal scrollable list with every read book.

So I'd have to tag books with e.g. "Reading" or what? Though that means I'd have to connect it to calibre more than I'd wanna.

[bagby]

well, not *necessarily*. You can do this from the touch screen, and it may even make more sense that way.

When you finish a book, use the screen to delete it from the 'Currently Reading' category. When you start a new one, use the screen to add it to "Currently reading".

Doing this via the screen may actually make more sense/be easier than using Calibre to do it.

But you still couldn't get the thing to display "currently reading". (Sigh) Then I could switch between, say, 4 or 5 books as I work through them. Alas.

[amoth]

This hack seems to work perfectly on my PRT-T1, and I have the latest official firmware (1.004.12210)....

[bagby]

Using amoth's java hack, now it works for me as well.

OOPS, Spoke too soon.

As soon as I added some books, my Reader reverted to listing "recently added" books again. The trigger's still in place, says SQLLiteSpy, and re-running the java installer has no effect. Installer still thinks it's on. Turning it on and off again with the installer doesn't work.

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

And yet again,

Adding books (at least) causes the Sony Reader to "forget", or maybe more properly, "overwrite" what you've been reading. There is, afaict, no way to get the whole thing back intact. However, it will remember what you read thereafter, so all is well until you add more books (or maybe delete them, haven't tried that.)

There may be a way, through sqllitespy, to play with the "added" dates for new books so that this doesn't happen anymore. I will have to look at the new trigger again, and try that.

[log]

Originally Posted by bagby

As soon as I added some books, my Reader reverted to listing "recently added" books again.

This is intended behavior. This hack is make homescreen recently read or added. So yes, if you added new books they will appear on your homescreen.

[xtreme_tribal]

Thanks a lot Kolenka and jackie_w, the hack works perfect in the version 1.0.04.12210!

[roebek]

Worked like a charm, using sqlite3 on Linux.

Thank you!

[fewilcox]

Thanks a billion. This worked a treat.

I still don't get why Sony won't give us this feature themselves. I put a custom firmware on my dear departed 505 exclusively for this feature so my wife and I could share it without having to always refind our books, and so I could easily flip between reference books, and not have to go hunt up my novel of the day again afterwards.

[pssquirrel]

I decided to attempt this on my Mac using MesaSQLite, despite the fact that I really don't know what I'm doing Unfortunately, I keep getting error messages

[deleted useless info -- see post #47 for solution]

[snarkophilus]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

I decided to attempt this on my Mac using MesaSQLite, despite the fact that I really don't know what I'm doing Unfortunately, I keep getting error messages

A real WAG - try putting a semicolon after the END in the last line (or if that doesn't work a / on a blank line at the bottom after the END line). The basic Oracle sqlplus command seems picky about how you finish a SQL statement or block, whereas some of the GUI tools are more forgiving. Maybe MesaSQLite is being overly picky here too.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Simon.

[pssquirrel]

Thanks Simon (and jackie_w, who has been helping me via PM). Unfortunately, the semi-colon and / didn't help ...

[deleted useless info -- see post #47 for solution.]