NickelMenu: An integrated launcher for Kobo eReaders

[ccadi]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

For those of us who want to control the frontlight via NIckelMenu, that would be just fine. I just want to toggle it between off and on at my preferred setting depending on whether I'm reading during the day or at night, so I'd be perfectly happy to not mess with or even look at the UI sliders anymore.

I use gestures to do this

[John F]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Jon, did you read message #1089 and the information in the link in that message? The message immediately before the one you quoted.

To save you the trouble of scanning back a few messages:

Some of us (or maybe just me) have trouble following some of the technical posts. From your quote, it sounds like light control can be set using NickelMenu and ioctl and sysfs? Could some example NickleMenu entries be given?

Thanks.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

Some of us (or maybe just me) have trouble following some of the technical posts. From your quote, it sounds like light control can be set using NickelMenu and ioctl and sysfs? Could some example NickleMenu entries be given?

To quote the last informative message from pgaskin in the thread mentioned by @NiLuJe:

Update: this segfault actually happens for the brightness too ... I've decided not to implement this for now, and not for the next while (unless I suddenly realize why), as it's too intermittently buggy, it will be the most complex action, and I don't think it's worth the hassle. In addition, even if I did manage to get it working, I wouldn't be confident that it works completely, much less that it works on all firmware versions supported by NickelMenu.

Basically, this says that no, there are no light control settings in NickelMenu since the work on setting colour temperature and light brightness consistently ran into segfaults. Patrick decided that he could not implement the action reliably and over multiple firmware versions. The game wasn't worth the candle.

[John F]

I'm not looking for a direct control thru NM, or the GUI to be accurate, but the talk of sysfob and ioctl and this post:

Originally Posted by akadaedalus

That worked great for the front light, thank you.

Seems to the lay person that it can be done?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm not looking for a direct control thru NM, or the GUI to be accurate, but the talk of sysfob and ioctl and this post:

Seems to the lay person that it can be done?

Did you look at Jérôme Pouiller's IOCTL page on GitHub? Pay special attention to the line that reads: The missing tool to call arbitrary ioctl on devices.

At some point, pgaskin might add the ioctl binary to the NickelMenu install but given how busy he has been for the last while, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.

[NiLuJe]

Kobo ships the ioctl binary, we've already had the discussion (possibly in this very thread) with the very same people (namely, Jon) with example code.

EDIT: Yup. (See surrounding pages (~65) for context and more examples)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Kobo ships the ioctl binary, we've already had the discussion (possibly in this very thread) with the very same people (namely, Jon) with example code.

EDIT: Yup. (See surrounding pages (~65) for context and more examples)

I noticed the reference to Jérôme Pouiller's ioctl implementation and made the assumption Kobo's version did not support some of the needed code. My bad.

[John F]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Turns out it's https://github.com/jerome-pouiller/ioctl .

So, my example above is as simple as `ioctl /dev/ntx_io 241 -v 0` (I *think* the WiFi/BT power stuff also takes a value, not a pointer, but I'm in no position to double-check right now).

So all I need in NM is 2 lines:

ioctl /dev/ntx_io 241 -v 0
ioctl /dev/ntx_io 241 -v some-number

The first line to turn off the front line and the second line to set it to some light level? But where are the labels for the menu entries?

I appreciate the "teach someone to fish, ..." philosophy, but sometimes you have to give them the fish.

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I noticed the reference to Jérôme Pouiller's ioctl implementation and made the assumption Kobo's version did not support some of the needed code. My bad.

No worries, I think I followed the exact same train of thought at the time, until I actually sat down and tried it on a device ;p.

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by John F

The first line to turn off the front line and the second line to set it to some light level? But where are the labels for the menu entries?

The range is [0, 100].

I can't speak for the NM-specific bits as I don't know the syntax off the top of my head, and cannot test it readily as I don't actually run Nickel most of the time .

Something based on cmd_spawn ought to do the trick, though.

[John F]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

The range is [0, 100].

I can't speak for the NM-specific bits as I don't know the syntax off the top of my head, and cannot test it readily as I don't actually run Nickel most of the time .

Something based on cmd_spawn ought to do the trick, though.

Thank you. I'll give it try.

I actually want two menu entries:

set dark mode true AND set the light level to a value
Set dark mode false AND set the light level to a different value

I think I can work my way through that.

[Aleron Ives]

Based on the KOReader code, it looks like you can also do something like:

echo 10 > /sys/class/backlight/mxc_msp430.0/brightness

to set the backlight to 10% and:

echo 5 > /sys/class/backlight/lm3630a_led/color

to set the warmth to 50% on the Libra 2. Older devices require the ioctl method, though, and I haven't actually tried this yet.

[JSWolf]

delete post

[asettico]

Hello all,
after uninstalling NM, redoing a fresh firmware installation, and applying some patches, including "Replace adobe page numbers toggle with invert screen", I can see the new setting, but it does not work anymore.
Manually editing the setting inside ".kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf" works.
What can I do to regain the right behavior?
Thanks for any hint.

[hatuluang]

Hi,
To do invert, I think you should reboot your device to make it work.

I use the below command in nickelmmenu configuration:

menu_item :main     :Invert             :nickel_setting :toggle :invert
     chain_success  :nickel_orientation :swap

the invert works without rebooting the device, but you should set again your portrait/landscape mode.

the other command is below and it will reboot your device in order to do the invert:

menu_item :main     :Invert             :nickel_setting :toggle :invert
     chain_success  :power :reboot (edit colon power :reboot)

Hope it helps.