Firmware 3.18.0 discussion

[Rand Brittain]

Wow, I see a lot more blank space at the bottom than that, even on books with no margins between paragraphs and tight line space. Like, often as much as three lines missing.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

Wow, I see a lot more blank space at the bottom than that, even on books with no margins between paragraphs and tight line space. Like, often as much as three lines missing.

Have you acquainted yourself with GeoffR's magic Patcher?

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Have you acquainted yourself with GeoffR's magic Patcher?

Yes.. but on the bottom I have,even patched, a lot of more space... Maybe the Glo HD needs a different value of the footer patch because of the higher resolution ?
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...3&d=1443353072

[Rand Brittain]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Have you acquainted yourself with GeoffR's magic Patcher?

These patches seem potentially useful. Will the footer disabling patch give me something like fullscreen mode in an ePub?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Yes.. but on the bottom I have,even patched, a lot of more space... Maybe the Glo HD needs a different value of the footer patch because of the higher resolution ?
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...3&d=1443353072

Wow, that's a real 'wall of words' you have there, Nick

If it's any help, in the `Custom reading footer style`patch I have used the following values for the GloHD:

Footer Height: `min-height: 045px;`and `max-height: 045px;`
Font Size: `font-size: 28px;`
Caption Top Margin: `margin-top:-10px;`

Based on your linked image, it looks like you may be using a bigger font-size than I am.

Also, and I know this sounds counter-intuitive, if you actually increase the line-spacing by one or more steps the last line of text may actually come closer to the footer text. You won't get extra lines on screen but you may not get less either plus you may find it more aesthetically pleasing. This is more likely to work if you've also enabled the patch, `My 15 line spacing values` so that the gap between each setting is very small.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

These patches seem potentially useful. Will the footer disabling patch give me something like fullscreen mode in an ePub?

Yes if coupled with the top/bottom margin adjustment patch. At least it does on my H2O. I could -maybe- squeeze another line of text if I combined the top and bottom margins and didn't care that the tops of letters like an upper case T may brush right up against the bezel of the device thereby making it difficult to discern if it was a T or an I or an l depending also on the font used.

[outlandos]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Wow, that's a real 'wall of words' you have there, Nick

If it's any help, in the `Custom reading footer style`patch I have used the following values for the GloHD:

Footer Height: `min-height: 045px;`and `max-height: 045px;`
Font Size: `font-size: 28px;`
Caption Top Margin: `margin-top:-10px;`

Based on your linked image, it looks like you may be using a bigger font-size than I am.

Also, and I know this sounds counter-intuitive, if you actually increase the line-spacing by one or more steps the last line of text may actually come closer to the footer text. You won't get extra lines on screen but you may not get less either plus you may find it more aesthetically pleasing. This is more likely to work if you've also enabled the patch, `My 15 line spacing values` so that the gap between each setting is very small.

Would it be possible to post a screenshot here? I might copy your footer settings.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by outlandos

Would it be possible to post a screenshot here? I might copy your footer settings.

Here's a zip file containing all 3 of my .patch input files. I used the same ones for all 3 of my hi-res devices, AuraHD, H2O and GloHD. Hope you'll find something useful in there.

[GeoffR]

I think i've found the pattern for the 'centre black bar' refresh hat happens sometimes at the beginning of a chapter:

1.It only happens in KePubs, ePubs seem to be immune.
2. It is triggered in the same way as the other refresh bugs, by putting the device to sleep, uning dictionary etc.
3. Once triggered, it happens when a normally-scheduled refresh coincides with the first page of a chapter. I.e. if you have the device set to refresh every page then it will happen every chapter, but if you have it set to refresh every six pages then it will happen apparently at random but on average once every six chapters.

That is the pattern on my Glo anyway, the Aura at least will surely be affected differently.

[rogerinnyc]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I think i've found the pattern for the 'centre black bar' refresh hat happens sometimes at the beginning of a chapter:

.....
3. Once triggered, it happens when a normally-scheduled refresh coincides with the first page of a chapter. I.e. if you have the device set to refresh every page then it will happen every chapter, but if you have it set to refresh every six pages then it will happen apparently at random but on average once every six chapters.

That is the pattern on my Glo anyway, the Aura at least will surely be affected differently.

FWIW, On my H2O running 3.18.0, it occurs with each new chapter of my sideloaded kepubs (if I've put the device to sleep with the book open), regardless of whether or not it coincides with my scheduled refresh settings.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by rogerinnyc

FWIW, On my H2O running 3.18.0, it occurs with each new chapter of my sideloaded kepubs (if I've put the device to sleep with the book open), regardless of whether or not it coincides with my scheduled refresh settings.

You are right, and it seems to be more complicated than I thought. There is perhaps a two-stage trigger for this bug: The first trigger is the same as the other refresh bugs. But once triggered, the first 'centre bar' refresh doesn't happen until a scheduled refresh coincides with a new chapter (the second trigger). Then after it happens the first time, the 'centre bar' refresh happens at every chapter threrafter (until the book is closed and re-opened.)

Or maybe it is different on the Glo than on the Carta devices.

[rogerinnyc]

I've given up and reverted to 3.17.3 (no factory reset, but did first remove the 3.18 patch by setting all patches to "no" and re-running). A little more ghosting, but delighted to lose the funky refresh bar.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by volpo

I see it as:
Last line of text
space
space
page xx of xx

Wasted space that 3 lines of text could occupy.

Really though a minor quibble. Not like refresh every page, that flash would really get on my nerves after a while.

Ok, so the issue is with the way that Kobo have designed the reader application to display the footer. And that's something hasn't changed for very long time. The way you described it, I thought you were seeing something different to the previous firmware. And nothing in what you said suggested it was in the footer.

As to the spacing, at least some of that is the design of the book and the font you are using. jackiew showed screenshots of what she has. I get very similar results without any patches. If you tap the screen to bring up the menu, there is a line drawn across the bottom of the screen. That is the limit for any text. Whenever I see what seems to be to much space and bring up the menu, there is rarely enough space for a fill line. And any time there is, it means I hadn't edit the book and set the widows and orphans in the CSS to 1.

Now I'm not arguing that the footer size couldn't be reduced. I think that it could be reduced by about a third without changing the current aesthetics and usability. Anything smaller would need a rethink on the bottom menu bar when it was displayed.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Now I'm not arguing that the footer size couldn't be reduced. I think that it could be reduced by about a third without changing the current aesthetics and usability. Anything smaller would need a rethink on the bottom menu bar when it was displayed.

By a small alteration to some CSS in the firmware, it is possible to reduce the footer height so it is smaller than the bottom menu, and then the book text will be displayed below the line drawn by the bottom menu. When the menu opens it covers that part of the text, but that doesn't cause any problems that I have seen.

So I don't think the size of the bottom menu is any limit to the size of the footer, at least not in ePubs. I expect the issue is that KePubs have a very large header (for whatever reason, I can't imagine a good one), and Kobo have made the footer large enough to match the header, which is reasonable. Unfortunately KePubs and ePubs use the same footer, so ePubs end up encumbered with the large footer even though they don't have the large header to match.

[robko]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

By a small alteration to some CSS in the firmware, it is possible to reduce the footer height so it is smaller than the bottom menu, and then the book text will be displayed below the line drawn by the bottom menu. When the menu opens it covers that part of the text, but that doesn't cause any problems that I have seen.

I doubt there is any technical reason the bottom menu couldn't cover part of the bottom line of text, but as soon as you do that you will have people screaming about that as much as some complain about the bottom margin space being too big. Different people prefer different aesthetics.