Summary of Modified Fonts

[buffaloseven]

Originally Posted by dmapr

Well, for 2.6.1 there was a "patched" version of libnickel.so floating around that allowed TypeGenius for all fonts, including sideloaded. AFAIK it hasn't been made for 2.8.1 yet.

How did I miss this? Where can I find it?

I already have a good idea of what needs to be done; just need to dig around enough to do it.

[dmapr]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

How did I miss this? Where can I find it?

I already have a good idea of what needs to be done; just need to dig around enough to do it.

It was on the Russian language site the-ebook.org, in the Kobo Aura thread. Author is metazoa, IIRC.

[Anak]

Yes, I would also like a patched libnickel.so.1.0.0 with only the TypeGenius font settings working on all sideloaded fonts. For firmware 2.5.2.

The mentioned Russian patched version seems to contain many differences with the original file. So far I was unable to find the TypeGenius modifications.
Edit: compared mark3 with a mark4 version, these are different.

Some more info in this thread (no files)
Russian
English (Google Translate)

[buffaloseven]

Alright, I found it. Going to root around in my hex editor and see if I can identify the changes. I'll share what I find.

[dmapr]

I was running the second release (latest is the third) for a while, but as I read in bigger font sizes I eventually changed the part of the patch the lowered the bottom of the screen back to stock margins. I used xxd to dump the stock and patched binary, then ran the diff.

[buffaloseven]

Easily found where to adjust the margins and a few other small features, but it's a little trickier narrowing down which changes exactly enable the advanced font settings. Getting there slowly, though.

EDIT: Definitely narrowed it down. I'll need to do some testing though.

[dmapr]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

Easily found where to adjust the margins and a few other small features, but it's a little trickier narrowing down which changes exactly enable the advanced font settings. Getting there slowly, though.

EDIT: Definitely narrowed it down. I'll need to do some testing though.

One other thing I noticed (although I haven't looked very hard) was that CSS that was modified in the metazoa patch for 2.6.1 seems to be missing from the nickel library in 2.8.1.

Glad to hear you're making progress!

[Anak]

Originally Posted by dmapr

One other thing I noticed (although I haven't looked very hard) was that CSS that was modified in the metazoa patch for 2.6.1 seems to be missing from the nickel library in 2.8.1.

Glad to hear you're making progress!

The TypeGenius font weight and sharpness adjustments seems to work (fw 2.5.2) without patching nibnickel.so.1.0.0. but you'll have to do it manually as it is not accessable directly in the GUI. But that's why it needs to be patched, isn't it?

Try these two sets of settings. Replace the font name into any other installed sideloaded font.
In the second set I renamed Font in Aont so it will be bypassed by the fw. Rename to notice the difference.

readingFontSharpness\Minion%20Pro%20OsF="@Variant(\0\0\0\x87=L\xcc\xcd)"
readingFontWeight\Minion%20Pro%20OsF=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87>8Q\xec)

readingAontSharpness\Minion%20Pro%20OsF=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87>L\xcc\xcd)
readingAontWeight\Minion%20Pro%20OsF=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87<8Q\xec)

[dmapr]

Originally Posted by Anak

The TypeGenius font weight and sharpness adjustments seems to work (fw 2.5.2) without patching nibnickel.so.1.0.0. but you'll have to do it manually as it is not accessable directly in the GUI. But that's why it needs to be patched, isn't it?

Try these two sets of settings. Replace the font name into any other installed sideloaded font.
In the second set I renamed Font in Aont so it will be bypassed by the fw. Rename to notice the difference.

readingFontSharpness\Minion%20Pro%20OsF="@Variant(\0\0\0\x87=L\xcc\xcd)"
readingFontWeight\Minion%20Pro%20OsF=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87>8Q\xec)

readingAontSharpness\Minion%20Pro%20OsF=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87>L\xcc\xcd)
readingAontWeight\Minion%20Pro%20OsF=@Variant(\0\0\0\x87<8Q\xec)

Yes, I believe the reason for patching was to trick the GUI. I have renamed my one sideloaded font (Charis SIL) to a TypeGenius enabled one (Delima) that was only in the list but on on the device and left it at that

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Anak

The TypeGenius font weight and sharpness adjustments seems to work (fw 2.5.2) without patching nibnickel.so.1.0.0. but you'll have to do it manually as it is not accessable directly in the GUI. But that's why it needs to be patched, isn't it?

I can confirm that manually editing .kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf in a text editor with:

readingFontWeight\my-custom-fontname=@Variant(weight-setting)

seems to work for sideloaded fonts in fw 2.8.1. But without some sort of key to the cryptic @Variant weight-setting it would be a bit tedious to find your preferred value. Would anyone like to volunteer to methodically run through logging the 60-ish allowable values for @Variant?

[Anak]

@dmapr, are you active on the Russian language board the-ebook.org? If you are, can you ask the author Metazoa if he can patch libnickel.so1.0.0 for fw. 2.5.2? Or provide a (English) description how he's done it (the TypeGenius hack)?

[dmapr]

I can certainly ask. I'll let you know if anything comes out of it.

[JLuecking]

I find a lot of helpfull hints in this thread. I tried the trick to rename fonts internally and externally and it worked. I tried the patch from the russian ebook forum and it works tremendously well. Yet I never complained about the lost space on the bottom and this fix is a bit too much for me. I am happy about the line spacing fix. With that the appearance in the Aura is even more like a book and more pleasant to read. My favorite fonts on a high resolution smart phone under CoolEdit are Calluna and Sabon Next. My favorite font on the Aura is Charis SIL Compact. I can change size with an online tool at fontsquirrel, the webfont generator. It blocks commercial fonts from Adobe, Linotype or Microsoft. The need for enlarging fonts comes, because the Aura has the right size to me about 32, probablay depending on the font and book formatting. Here you can vary in steps by 4: 28 - 32 - 36, which does not help. I wonder if Metazoa can add a fix in his patch similar to what he did with the line space setting.

@dmapr:
Maybe you can ask this too.

I wonder if resizing a font can be done in the commercial version of Type Light (Type 3.2). I see that you can use a clone of ScalePStoTT (Global/Run Action).. But then the x-height grid must be fixed. I think I will need to read the manual. Want to try out before I buy. Has somebody done this before?

Thank you
Joachim

[buffaloseven]

Originally Posted by dmapr

I can certainly ask. I'll let you know if anything comes out of it.

If you're active...I've narrowed it down to 4 or 5 possible edits to enable the advanced font settings...I'd love to see him release 2.8.1 with only the advanced fonts hack so I can understand it a little better...

[dmapr]

@Joachim: yes, I'm in the same boat as you, so I have undone the change to the bottom spacing in his patch. I didn't quite catch though what exactly you would like to ask about font sizing: do you want to increase the range of the font sizes available or narrow it down but make steps more gradual? Sorry for being dense.

@buffaloseven: I'll ask. Haven't seen him back there for a few days, so don't know when/if he'll reply.