Do you patch your Kobo? How many patches do you use?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by John F

With ebooks, what are you applying the % too? I'm 10% thru an ebook; but 10% of what: 10 "pages", 100 pages, 1000 pages?

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

Exactly. I've never used the percentage because it could be based on 50 or 5000 pages.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If youdon't know how long a book is, then % is 100% useless.

I'm not going to use percent read myself. But don't be ludicrous. On both Kobo and Nook, you could always see total page count in the book either directly on the screen or with a tap. So you know if you are 10% through a 500 or 5,000 page book.

[perisiana]

I have used my kobos for years without patches, and was pretty satisfied with the Calibre/Kobo combo.
Now I use the advanced fonts control patch that is really useful, and Koreader for about a month especially for its fabulous translation function for when I read in English, I still use Nickel to read in my language though.
I feel good with Nickel, love the shelves with the ability to split the menu into tags, to see the covers and read the synopsis quickly, if it had the ability to sync sideloaded books and a translation function like the Kindle Nickel would be perfect for me.

[Katsunami]

I've never patched my KA1 (first Kobo after a Kindle Touch and PW1) in the first three years.

(I used the full screen mode before it became official, but I do not consider chaning the Kobo Reader.conf file and injecting some 'special' CSS into the books during upload patching.)

With the latest firmwares, Kobo now allows you to put useful information into the book's header and footer, so I started using those, but they took up too much space. I looked into the patches, and I installed:

- Reduce header/footer space.
- Replace "Show EPUB Numbers" with Invert Screen (have always wanted that for night-time reading in an almost dark room, in bed).
- Bigger KEPUB chapter progression chart.
- MiniClock mod showing the current time and battery charge in the lower left corner. Love this mod.

The new firmware and those patches (combined with the KEPUB converter/driver in Calibre) make Kobo readers almost perfect for me. Do I NEED them? Nah. But they do make the reader a bit better than the stock firmware

I might restart to experiment with the Freedom Font Choice patch and some custom fonts.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I'm in the same boat myself and use almost the same patches as you do, except I prefer epubs and don't do PDF at all, so no PDF patches. I also turned off both header and footer, the progress bar is enough.

In addition to patches I've installed custom screensavers and an additional English dictionary. I'm pretty happy with my Libra now.

I discovered recently how to have screen savers, and I added two English dictionaries too (disguised as -nl and -en-nl), plus one French (the Littré). That last was less easy for me since I had to delve into the database with SQlite.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

(I used the full screen mode before it became official, but I do not consider chaning the Kobo Reader.conf file and injecting some 'special' CSS into the books during upload patching.)

May I ask what special CSS you put into your Kobo books? I disable hyphenation and set widows-orphans to 1 in my Kobo epubs, but I'm interested what you consider useful additions.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm not going to use percent read myself. But don't be ludicrous. On both Kobo and Nook, you could always see total page count in the book either directly on the screen or with a tap. So you know if you are 10% through a 500 or 5,000 page book.

I don't mean to be ludicrous. % is fine, as long as it is used with something else. And I would rather not have % be the default, and than have to go thru multiple taps to get what I want. Maybe I missed some context, but this is what I replied to initially:

Use %. Page numbers are meaningless on ebooks. I know some people are attached. Even on paper books I glance at edge of book to see how far I've got, not page number. I only use the page number as a random access index mechanism for paper as tapping an index or reference doesn't work

Page numbers are not meaningless in ebooks, to me.

In Kobo's, I used to be able to get what I wanted with one tap (chapter info). Than it went to two. Now it is 3 taps.

I don't consider your request to swap the header and footer ludicrous (sorry if I confused you with someone else), why would someone else's preference be ludicrous?

Calling a preference ludicrous in a patching thread, seems, ... ludicrous.

[poczynek]

Can this constant page number back and forth please be in another thread?



Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm not going to use percent read myself. But don't be ludicrous. On both Kobo and Nook, you could always see total page count in the book either directly on the screen or with a tap. So you know if you are 10% through a 500 or 5,000 page book.

You've got it incorrect. It was suggested to use % instead of page numbers. So you would not have page numbers as you'd have % instead. That's where the problem would come in.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by poczynek

Can this constant page number back and forth please be in another thread?



Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

Agreed, and wish granted - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...02#post3899702

[Gone]

I could live without any of the patches, but since they are available, I tried them.

I must say that the first time was a bit confusing. I consider myself tech savy enough to follow instructions, if they are clear. And they are. But I can understand the fear of someone who has never put his hands under the hood of any operating system.

Most of the patches could be on the Kobo, but only to be discovered if you know how to activate the Developer Mode.

I only use a few patches, who should be on by default, in my opinion : Advances Fonts Control, Smaller Header/Footer. The rest, I can live with.

[poczynek]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Agreed, and wish granted - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...02#post3899702

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

[FizzyWater]

My new Libra is the first Kobo I've ever had. Tried looking over the patching instructions and didn't understand them, but I am interested in taking advantage of some of the tweaks.

[perisiana]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

My new Libra is the first Kobo I've ever had. Tried looking over the patching instructions and didn't understand them, but I am interested in taking advantage of some of the tweaks.

Is really simple, also Sirtel additional instructions are helpful (that passage concerning the fifth point is not so clear in the guide)

Originally Posted by Sirtel

DomesticExtremis, the detailed instructions on how to patch can be found here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...72&postcount=1. It probably looks more difficult than it really is. As to the fifth point, enable patches, that just means you open the .yaml files in the .src folder with Notepad or a similar text editor and change Enabled: no to Enabled: yes for the patches you want. There are detailed descriptions there what the individual patches do.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

May I ask what special CSS you put into your Kobo books? I disable hyphenation and set widows-orphans to 1 in my Kobo epubs, but I'm interested what you consider useful additions.

body { margin: 0 !important; padding: 0 !important; }
div#book-columns { padding-left: 0.2em !important; padding-right: 0.2em !important; }

Put this css into kobo_extra.css in the root folder of the reader, and then enable Modify CSS in the Kobo Touch Extended driver. This CSS will then be added to any book you upload.

Warning: This CSS was necessary three years ago, when the full screen mode (disabling header and footer) was not yet officially supported. You had to enable it in the config file. Then some problems would occur with KEPUBs, and this CSS fixed those for most books.

There are also three patches to fix these problems, but AFAIK, they have been removed as they're no longer necessary.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

There are also three patches to fix these problems, but AFAIK, they have been removed as they're no longer necessary.

Yeah, it's nice to see Kobo improve their software in ways that makes some of the patches redundant (full screen reading). But then they introduce new wrinkles requiring new patches (swap header and footer).

I very much appreciate the patches. When B&N or Amazon make a decision, you just have to live with it. At least with Kobo, you can make the device do what you want.