Instructions for patching firmware 4.32.19501

[geek1011]

This patch thread is for firmware 4.32.19501 (0e55e3f620acfc747cbfd7569a838263e72ce6ab):

Instructions for patching on Windows, Linux, or macOS with kobopatch:

1. Download the Kobo firmware release
   You can find the download links here here.
2. Download and extract the patch zip
   Download and unzip kobopatch_4.32.19501.zip from here.
3. Copy the firmware file to the src folder
   Copy the original firmware you just downloaded into the kobopatch src folder.
4. Install the firmware if needed
   Install the firmware on your kobo BEFORE proceeding with the next steps. You can do this by extracting the contents of the firmware zip into the .kobo folder and ejecting.
5. Choose your patches from the files in the src folder
   Enable patches in the files in the src folder (or use the overrides in kobopatch.yaml to keep your options separate).
6. Run kobopatch
   Double-click kobopatch.bat on Windows, or run ./kobopatch.sh on Linux or macOS. On macOS, you can drag it into the terminal and press enter (you may need to go to System Preferences - Security and Privacy - General to confirm that you actually want to run it).
7. Install the patches by copying KoboRoot.tgz into the .kobo folder of your device
   If the patching succeeded, a file named KoboRoot.tgz will be created in the out folder. Copy it to the .kobo folder of your device. Safely remove your device once you are finished. On Linux, you may have to press Ctrl+H to show the .kobo folder.

Download

[geek1011]

Changes to the kobopatch zip:
v76 (2022-06-01): Backport new "KePub stylesheet additions - word-spacing" patch from 4.33.19608 (jackie_w), update "Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height" (jackie_w).
v75 (2022-04-15): Initial release for 4.32.19501.

Missing patches:
- GeoffR: KePub constant font sharpness
- GeoffR: Ignore .otf fonts

Removed patches in this version:
- geek1011: Enable advanced settings for all fonts (not necessary anymore)
- geek1011: Enable markup for sideloaded kepubs (not necessary anymore)

Other notes:
- The font-family customizations on jackie_w's nickel patches may not work.

[Sirtel]

Many thanks!

[Ger Teunis]

Thanks!

[Uncle Robin]

Thanks! I'm tying a whole bunch of extra patches to see if my epub reading experience in Nickel will be more like that in KOReader.

[JSWolf]

Thank you!

[Terisa de morgan]

Thank you very much! I'm going to wait a bit to see if reports are with 4.31, but I think I'll update to this.

[GlenRunciter]

Thank you geek1011!
Everything went fine with the patch.

[Number9]

Thank you! Everything seems to be working like it should so far. 😊

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by geek1011

Other notes:
- The font-family customizations on jackie_w's nickel patches may not work.

To add a bit more detail to @geek1011's comment ...

Kobo seems to have completely re-worked the way fonts are handled by the GUI. The outcome is that trying to customise font-family in the following 4 patches is now very limited:

1. Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height (libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml)
2. Custom header/footer captions (nickel.yaml)
3. Custom page navigation scrubber (nickel.yaml)
4. Customise Header back button (nickel.yaml)

If you have been using any of the above patches to customise things other than font-family (e.g. font-size, line-height, ...) then those customisations should continue to work the same as they ever did.

Based on my limited testing, if your font-family customisation in patches 2,3 or 4 was to change

Georgia --> Avenir or
Avenir --> Georgia

then there is a fair chance that will still work as it did before v4.32.19501.

In patch 1, the only font-family customisation I could make work at all was to change

Georgia --> sans-serif

which I suspect is not particularly useful to most users.

Unrelated to the above 4 patches, a font-family GUI customisation which *does* still work (at least for now) is to completely replace the default system GUI fonts, Georgia and/or Avenir, with "better" fonts for your language. If you have the technical skills to already be doing this then everything should continue to work the same as it did before v4.32.19501.

I'll update this post if I discover anything new, related to font-family, that might be useful to others.

ETA: If you try to patch to a font-family other than Georgia/Avenir you won't get your chosen font after installation. Instead you'll get a fallback font (Kakugo, I think) which is one of the built-in CJK system fonts.

[IanScuffling]

Thanks for the usual quick and amazing work! Many of us appreciate it greatly.

[Phil_C]

Update and patches are working well on Clara HD. Thank you so much!

Originally Posted by jackie_w

To add a bit more detail to @geek1011's comment ...

Kobo seems to have completely re-worked the way fonts are handled by the GUI. The outcome is that trying to customise font-family in the following 4 patches is now very limited:

1. Dictionary text font-family/font-size/line-height (libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml)
2. Custom header/footer captions (nickel.yaml)
3. Custom page navigation scrubber (nickel.yaml)
4. Customise Header back button (nickel.yaml)

If you have been using any of the above patches to customise things other than font-family (e.g. font-size, line-height, ...) then those customisations should continue to work the same as they ever did.

@jackie_w

I was using number 2, part 3 to decrease the size of page-turn tap zones. This now causes patching to fail. Thought you would want to know.

[KaizaCorp]

So excited for this patch along with the new firmware! Thank you.

It might be just me, but it seems like 'Reduce top/bottom page spacer' is leaving more space at the bottom than previously? Instead of text using the whole page, there appears to be a margin at the bottom still (similar to when the progress bar is enabled).

If I'm misremembering and this is working as intended, is there a way to completely remove that margin at the bottom? Perhaps by adjusting spacer height in the patch?

(I'm on Clara HD)

Thanks for your time.

[JSWolf]

@jackie_w Thank you for the useful info. Your patches are quite useful.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Phil_C

@jackie_w

I was using number 2, part 3 to decrease the size of page-turn tap zones. This now causes patching to fail. Thought you would want to know.

More detail, please. Do you mean running kobopatch.bat failed, or something else? If the former please post the error message you got when you ran kobopatch.bat. It should show at the end of the log from the failed run.

Alternatively please post a copy of your customised nickel.yaml file, so I can try it myself. Please note, you may need to rename it to nickel.yaml.txt before MR will allow you to add it as an attachment to your reply.