kobopatch users & non-Kobo-supported languages

[Semwize]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

See my response at #26.

If I understood you correctly:

I had hoped that this thread's patch 'Custom GUI system fonts beta1' might have had an effect on

Alas does not affect, Georgia remains

I haven't had time to look at this yet. I will after I've done more work on vostro's Chinese issues.

If you suddenly find the time, 2 fonts look ugly.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Semwize

If I understood you correctly:Alas does not affect, Georgia remains If you suddenly find the time, 2 fonts look ugly.

Georgia remains where? I thought the '2 min to go' and 'Page x OF y' in the header/footer, used Avenir, not Georgia. I agree Avenir doesn't match Cuprum very well in Vetchy's screenshots in post #40.

[Semwize]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

used Avenir

I have the right parts of the header and footer using Georgia, as it seems to me. I replaced the Avenir with your patch.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Semwize

I have the right parts of the header and footer using Georgia, as it seems to me. I replaced the Avenir with your patch.

Patches which override patches which override patches ...

Once I have time to look at this problem I'll need to strip the nickel patches right back until I can see why setting a font for header/footer only affects the left half. At the moment I have no guesses where the problem lies. If you discover anything before that, let me know

[vostro]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

[*]Open one of your Chinese kepubs. Close again.[*]Back to Book list. No missing characters, Code2000 displayed in whole Book list (not very attractive for English words )

this works well in H2O, aura one and forma, indeed Code2000 looks not very attractive for all languages. thanks again for great work.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by vostro

this works well in H2O, aura one and forma, indeed Code2000 looks not very attractive for all languages. thanks again for great work.

Do you have missing characters on any other Kobo GUI pages which are used often. Maybe the Book details page with synopsis?

Do you want to pursue this further, now? There are a couple of other things which could be tried, but only if you want to.

I noticed that in many places Code2000 wasn't used but another, bolder font was used. I'm not sure which one but it seemed to display Chinese characters quite nicely. Is this the Kobo standard Chinese font and is it this font which has missing characters sometimes.

Edit: Something else I should have asked. When you read an English book, are there now problems that you see which didn't happen before installing patches in this thread?

[vostro]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I noticed that in many places Code2000 wasn't used but another, bolder font was used. I'm not sure which one but it seemed to display Chinese characters quite nicely. Is this the Kobo standard Chinese font and is it this font which has missing characters sometimes.

Edit: Something else I should have asked. When you read an English book, are there now problems that you see which didn't happen before installing patches in this thread?

the bolder font you mentioned for chinese characters looks much nicer than Code2000 but I don't know which font it is. since Code2000 has least missing characters in english-chinese dictionary display, i assume it's the same for booklist display although this font really looks least attractive for any language i know. for other english book, i didn't find any problem so far, hence it's good enough for this solution, no more request. thanks for this valuable work.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by vostro

the bolder font you mentioned for chinese characters looks much nicer than Code2000 but I don't know which font it is. since Code2000 has least missing characters in english-chinese dictionary display, i assume it's the same for booklist display although this font really looks least attractive for any language i know. for other english book, i didn't find any problem so far, hence it's good enough for this solution, no more request. thanks for this valuable work.

OK, if you're happy, I'm happy

This patch won't be in the kobopatch standard pack, but it does have a reasonable chance of survival across new firmware upgrades. So just keep it in your personal collection.

[dmapr]

@jackie_w, shadow fonts (sideloaded fonts that are the same as built-in ones) are not picked up on reboot without post #2. I overrode the Avenir Next using the one from the Nook package (while Kobo has updated Amasis & Malabar they left Avenir out, go figure). It is clearly overriding as I can now see Cyrillic glyphs in the book and there's a single Avenir Next in the font selection menu, but the home screen defaults to something else on boot. So clearly my original excitement was just stemming from my ignorance about built-in Amasis supporting Cyrillic

Let me know if you want me to test anything else, cause I'm out of ideas .

[Vetchy]

Originally Posted by dmapr

@jackie_w, shadow fonts (sideloaded fonts that are the same as built-in ones) are not picked up on reboot without post #2. I overrode the Avenir Next using the one from the Nook package (while Kobo has updated Amasis & Malabar they left Avenir out, go figure). It is clearly overriding as I can now see Cyrillic glyphs in the book and there's a single Avenir Next in the font selection menu, but the home screen defaults to something else on boot. So clearly my original excitement was just stemming from my ignorance about built-in Amasis supporting Cyrillic

Let me know if you want me to test anything else, cause I'm out of ideas .

Can you explain how create shadow copy of Avenir NEXT?

[Semwize]

Originally Posted by Vetchy

Can you explain how create shadow copy of Avenir NEXT?

Find the Avenir Next font and put it in the /mnt/onboard/fonts/ folder

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Vetchy

Can you explain how create shadow copy of Avenir NEXT?

1. Find the font you want to use in place of Avenir Next
2. Using a font editor (such as Font Forge), change the name of the font to Aenir Next
3. Put this font in the fonts directory (in the root of the mounted partition) and if fonts doesn't exist, create it and then copy the font
4. Reboot
5. DONE

[dmapr]

@vetchy, what Semwize said above. I downloaded a Nook Glowlight firmware update which is just a zip file and extracted the Avenir Next fonts from there. I don't have the link handy at the moment but I'm sure you can find it if you Google around.

[jackie_w]

@dmapr,

Based on all the testing you've done, have you reached any conclusions?

If a brand new Kobo user came along whose library was mainly Cyrillic text, what would you advise them? Would the advice be different for 2 users, one of whom was technically able and the other not very technical, but capable/willing to follow simple instructions?

[dmapr]

@jackie_w, it's a hard question. It appears that just loading the shadow Avenir with Cyrillic support will be enough to improve the look of the book list once the font is loaded by Kobo, no patch needed (I commented out the Avenir replacement line in my last round). Doing just that should be well within the abilities of even a non-techie. So now we're down to neat freaks. Thinking about myself I'd definitely like to have this customization ability, but how many others are like that I don't know. From my hanging around the Russian-language eReader forum (now seemingly defunct) my recollection is that most of them were much more interested in how to make the Coolreader work than how to make nickel play nice with Cyrillic.

Myself I can't imagine using Kobo without patches no matter which language I'm reading in But for Russian you would definitely want to at least get the keyboard patch, so you have to get technical enough to be able to run the patcher, and then it seems (to me at least) almost a no-brainer that you'd want your book list to look exactly the way you like it and not just not suck if there's such an option. Plus the patch itself looks like a universal one… (famous last words, I'm sure).

To summarize all this rambling:

1. Get the Avenir Next with Cyrillic support onto your Kobo
2. See if you like the book list well enough
3. If not, proceed with the patch to customize as you see fit