For those book lovers out there that prefer using e-ink ereaders, I stumbled across KOReader recently, which I will be installing on my kobo soon. Immediately after that, I found this (VERY...
For those book lovers out there that prefer using e-ink ereaders, I stumbled across KOReader recently, which I will be installing on my kobo soon. Immediately after that, I found this (VERY recent) blog post about understanding KOReader and configuring it to your tastes. This seems to be very much a 'powerusers' tool. It also integrates very well with Calibre, which is another tool I'm considering setting up for myself in the near future.
My recommendation would be to open the post in your browsers reader mode though... the font the author chose is not to my liking.
I genuinely thought the HTML was broken at first because the font spacing and shape was so off, like there were special characters that didn't transfer well when pasted into an editor. I popped...
the font the author chose is not to my liking.
I genuinely thought the HTML was broken at first because the font spacing and shape was so off, like there were special characters that didn't transfer well when pasted into an editor. I popped open the inspector and everything before finally zooming in to a comfortable reading size and realizing it was just a font choice. The lowercase t was throwing me off hard.
As someone that currently uses KOReader on my phone but was planning to buy a basic kobo reader soon, what makes KOReader preferable to the default kobo software?
As someone that currently uses KOReader on my phone but was planning to buy a basic kobo reader soon, what makes KOReader preferable to the default kobo software?
For me the main thing is the ability to use regular folders to sort files. For the life of me I don't understand why none of the mainstream e-readers let me just use folders to sort books (they...
For me the main thing is the ability to use regular folders to sort files. For the life of me I don't understand why none of the mainstream e-readers let me just use folders to sort books (they all want you to manually add everything to collections).
Other than that it's nice to be able to launch an SSH server to remotely transfer files. And the reading stats are pretty thorough. Also, although it's kind of niche, when reading manga with a bunch of volumes, KOReader will give you an option to open the next volume once you finish the current one, rather than needing to go back to the file explorer and manually find the next one. Oh, and KOReader will give you an option to discard the embedded style in a book if you don't like it (which I often have to do since certain books have weird indentation/paragraph styles).
Basically it's just a bunch of little QOL things that add up.
As the owner of a (somewhat old) Kobo, I'm also curious. The stock software seems fine for the most part, but maybe I just haven't bumped into its weaknesses yet. The only thing that I find weak...
As the owner of a (somewhat old) Kobo, I'm also curious. The stock software seems fine for the most part, but maybe I just haven't bumped into its weaknesses yet.
The only thing that I find weak is the "experimental" web browser, which struggles with things like the various sites my uni uses for online textbooks. If there's anything I wish that could be replaced, it's that.
For what it's worth, I use KOReader on my clara HD with no problems, although I only use it to read ebooks. With only a bit of initial setup I've got it just how I want it, and I can't see myself...
For what it's worth, I use KOReader on my clara HD with no problems, although I only use it to read ebooks. With only a bit of initial setup I've got it just how I want it, and I can't see myself going back to the stock software.
I am not sure what is going on with the font on that blog, but on my phone it is unreadable to me. I thought it was my browser but both Firefox and Vivaldi render the T in a very odd way. The...
I am not sure what is going on with the font on that blog, but on my phone it is unreadable to me.
I thought it was my browser but both Firefox and Vivaldi render the T in a very odd way. The scaling also doesn't work.
Also not using TLS in this day and age is a bit odd.
Sorry it is a bit off topic, but it prevented me from actually reading the post right now. But the author explicitly mentions they they are proud of the fonts they use for readability reasons. Maybe for people that have dyslexia this is the case, for me it was a big distraction.
Firefox's read focus thingy does help but then the images are missing.
Yeah, I thought the comments were exaggerating but that font by itself makes the article unreadable, thankfully Firefox has a decent reader view to strip all of it easily. The "t" is missing the...
As someone obsessed with typography and readability—
Yeah, I thought the comments were exaggerating but that font by itself makes the article unreadable, thankfully Firefox has a decent reader view to strip all of it easily.
The "t" is missing the right side, the kerning is abysmal and variant without reason, the heights of letters are not standardized, and its just a mess of a font of various styles grouped together.
There is one word in there that exemplifies nearly every issue with the readability of the font, and its quite literally the word "readability"– go do a search for it on the page and zoom in, its all over the place.
i really like KOReader, but i have the same experience with Plato being a bit better with some things. The options in these apps should be standard with the Kobo. i like landscape, two columns, etc.
i really like KOReader, but i have the same experience with Plato being a bit better with some things. The options in these apps should be standard with the Kobo. i like landscape, two columns, etc.
Any links on this? Also how does the combo version work? Is it Plato ux with some KOreader functions under the hood? I'm new to changing out the OS on my e-reader.
Any links on this?
Also how does the combo version work? Is it Plato ux with some KOreader functions under the hood?
Kobo readers have a UX called Nickel. You keep Nickel and then when you boot into Nickel there’s a hamburger menu in the bottom right and you can switch to KOreader or Plato. If you want to switch...
Kobo readers have a UX called Nickel. You keep Nickel and then when you boot into Nickel there’s a hamburger menu in the bottom right and you can switch to KOreader or Plato. If you want to switch back, you exit whichever you’re using and fall back to Nickel and can stay in Nickel or pick the other.
Agreed with everyone else here that the author's font is hilariously unreadable. But like the author mentioned KOreader does allow any and all font and view customizations. KOreader is an amazing...
Agreed with everyone else here that the author's font is hilariously unreadable. But like the author mentioned KOreader does allow any and all font and view customizations.
KOreader is an amazing tool. After getting used to it a few years ago I can't go back to any other reading UI. I like the swipe shortcuts to adjust day/night modes, warmth and backlight intensity. It has a lot of neat features like: pulling down RSS news feeds, word dictionaries (to keep up my Spanish), Calibre integrations, reading history and statistics, etc.
Recommend it to anyone that loves their e-reader and doesn't mind tinkering with power user tools.
ohhhhh man, I can use KO as my RSS feed reader??? That's expedited my plans, it's getting put on my Kobo by the end of the weekend. I much prefer using it to using my phone
It has a lot of neat features like: pulling down RSS news feeds, [...snip]
ohhhhh man, I can use KO as my RSS feed reader??? That's expedited my plans, it's getting put on my Kobo by the end of the weekend. I much prefer using it to using my phone
Keep an eye out. Every couple of years someone finds a good one. Alternatively, pick up some ancient ones used. Mine is from 2013 and is working just great.
Keep an eye out. Every couple of years someone finds a good one.
Alternatively, pick up some ancient ones used. Mine is from 2013 and is working just great.
Nice to see some KOreader appreciation here on tildes. If any of you have had the experience of fast battery drain with a Kobo ebook reader (mine is KOBO LIBRA H2O) + KOreader AND succesfully...
Nice to see some KOreader appreciation here on tildes.
If any of you have had the experience of fast battery drain with a Kobo ebook reader (mine is KOBO LIBRA H2O) + KOreader AND succesfully solved it I would absolutely LOVE hearing from you.
I loved KOreader, but it wasn't useful in practice since it drains 8-10% a day while idle. There were a some posts about it on an ebook forum but none of the suggestions solved it for me.
Does this effectively take you out of the Kobo eco-system? I know according to the Mozilla Foundation's privacy rating Kobo products got a "privacy not included rating" as "may sell your online...
Does this effectively take you out of the Kobo eco-system?
I know according to the Mozilla Foundation's privacy rating Kobo products got a "privacy not included rating" as "may sell your online identifiers and information about your online activity.
I had been looking at other E-readers that have better privacy. Pocketbook seemed like a good option, though it looks like there is only one seller for these in the USA.
If this helps opt me out of the Kobo eco-system this is a much cheaper and faster option.
I got an Onyx Boox Page a few months back, and have been very happy with it. It is basically an Android tablet in 7 inch e-ink form. You can install whatever you want from the Google play store,...
I got an Onyx Boox Page a few months back, and have been very happy with it. It is basically an Android tablet in 7 inch e-ink form. You can install whatever you want from the Google play store, or sideload apps, use F-droid, whatever. I have KOReader and eInkBro on mine.
Battery life has been excellent and the device is smart enough to automatically stop a bunch of background shit that would ordinarily eat battery life on a normal Android device.
Some might have privacy concerns with Onyx being a Chinese company.
For those book lovers out there that prefer using e-ink ereaders, I stumbled across KOReader recently, which I will be installing on my kobo soon. Immediately after that, I found this (VERY recent) blog post about understanding KOReader and configuring it to your tastes. This seems to be very much a 'powerusers' tool. It also integrates very well with Calibre, which is another tool I'm considering setting up for myself in the near future.
My recommendation would be to open the post in your browsers reader mode though... the font the author chose is not to my liking.
I genuinely thought the HTML was broken at first because the font spacing and shape was so off, like there were special characters that didn't transfer well when pasted into an editor. I popped open the inspector and everything before finally zooming in to a comfortable reading size and realizing it was just a font choice. The lowercase t was throwing me off hard.
Oh, must have missed your comment or started typing mine before you hit "post".
But, yeah same experience for me on my phone.
Same. Found it difficult to read purely because of the goofy font choice.
As someone that currently uses KOReader on my phone but was planning to buy a basic kobo reader soon, what makes KOReader preferable to the default kobo software?
For me the main thing is the ability to use regular folders to sort files. For the life of me I don't understand why none of the mainstream e-readers let me just use folders to sort books (they all want you to manually add everything to collections).
Other than that it's nice to be able to launch an SSH server to remotely transfer files. And the reading stats are pretty thorough. Also, although it's kind of niche, when reading manga with a bunch of volumes, KOReader will give you an option to open the next volume once you finish the current one, rather than needing to go back to the file explorer and manually find the next one. Oh, and KOReader will give you an option to discard the embedded style in a book if you don't like it (which I often have to do since certain books have weird indentation/paragraph styles).
Basically it's just a bunch of little QOL things that add up.
As the owner of a (somewhat old) Kobo, I'm also curious. The stock software seems fine for the most part, but maybe I just haven't bumped into its weaknesses yet.
The only thing that I find weak is the "experimental" web browser, which struggles with things like the various sites my uni uses for online textbooks. If there's anything I wish that could be replaced, it's that.
For what it's worth, I use KOReader on my clara HD with no problems, although I only use it to read ebooks. With only a bit of initial setup I've got it just how I want it, and I can't see myself going back to the stock software.
I am not sure what is going on with the font on that blog, but on my phone it is unreadable to me.
I thought it was my browser but both Firefox and Vivaldi render the T in a very odd way. The scaling also doesn't work.
Also not using TLS in this day and age is a bit odd.
Sorry it is a bit off topic, but it prevented me from actually reading the post right now. But the author explicitly mentions they they are proud of the fonts they use for readability reasons. Maybe for people that have dyslexia this is the case, for me it was a big distraction.
Firefox's read focus thingy does help but then the images are missing.
Yeah, I thought the comments were exaggerating but that font by itself makes the article unreadable, thankfully Firefox has a decent reader view to strip all of it easily.
The "t" is missing the right side, the kerning is abysmal and variant without reason, the heights of letters are not standardized, and its just a mess of a font of various styles grouped together.
There is one word in there that exemplifies nearly every issue with the readability of the font, and its quite literally the word "readability"– go do a search for it on the page and zoom in, its all over the place.
I don't think you're missing anything w.r.t the images. Just bog standard "this is how it looks" pics.
Consider doing the combo version with Plato + KOreader. Plato feels faster/more responsive and is worth a try too.
Plato feels much more like what an e-reader should be like. The fact that KOReader can do everything is nice, but the UX is quite poor.
i really like KOReader, but i have the same experience with Plato being a bit better with some things. The options in these apps should be standard with the Kobo. i like landscape, two columns, etc.
Any links on this?
Also how does the combo version work? Is it Plato ux with some KOreader functions under the hood?
I'm new to changing out the OS on my e-reader.
Kobo readers have a UX called Nickel. You keep Nickel and then when you boot into Nickel there’s a hamburger menu in the bottom right and you can switch to KOreader or Plato. If you want to switch back, you exit whichever you’re using and fall back to Nickel and can stay in Nickel or pick the other.
Here’s the only link anyone would probably need to make it happen: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=314220
awesome! thanks for the info ^__^
Agreed with everyone else here that the author's font is hilariously unreadable. But like the author mentioned KOreader does allow any and all font and view customizations.
KOreader is an amazing tool. After getting used to it a few years ago I can't go back to any other reading UI. I like the swipe shortcuts to adjust day/night modes, warmth and backlight intensity. It has a lot of neat features like: pulling down RSS news feeds, word dictionaries (to keep up my Spanish), Calibre integrations, reading history and statistics, etc.
Recommend it to anyone that loves their e-reader and doesn't mind tinkering with power user tools.
ohhhhh man, I can use KO as my RSS feed reader??? That's expedited my plans, it's getting put on my Kobo by the end of the weekend. I much prefer using it to using my phone
Sadly we only have Kindle here in Brazil.
Depending on the age of your kindle you can jailbreak it and put KO reader on it.
My Kindle now doubles as an ssh client.
I already checked. It's relatively new. No chance.
Keep an eye out. Every couple of years someone finds a good one.
Alternatively, pick up some ancient ones used. Mine is from 2013 and is working just great.
Nice to see some KOreader appreciation here on tildes.
If any of you have had the experience of fast battery drain with a Kobo ebook reader (mine is KOBO LIBRA H2O) + KOreader AND succesfully solved it I would absolutely LOVE hearing from you.
I loved KOreader, but it wasn't useful in practice since it drains 8-10% a day while idle. There were a some posts about it on an ebook forum but none of the suggestions solved it for me.
Does this effectively take you out of the Kobo eco-system?
I know according to the Mozilla Foundation's privacy rating Kobo products got a "privacy not included rating" as "may sell your online identifiers and information about your online activity.
I had been looking at other E-readers that have better privacy. Pocketbook seemed like a good option, though it looks like there is only one seller for these in the USA.
If this helps opt me out of the Kobo eco-system this is a much cheaper and faster option.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217160
see: registration bypassing
That plus using calibre-web is enough for my privacy needs.
I got an Onyx Boox Page a few months back, and have been very happy with it. It is basically an Android tablet in 7 inch e-ink form. You can install whatever you want from the Google play store, or sideload apps, use F-droid, whatever. I have KOReader and eInkBro on mine.
Battery life has been excellent and the device is smart enough to automatically stop a bunch of background shit that would ordinarily eat battery life on a normal Android device.
Some might have privacy concerns with Onyx being a Chinese company.