2019-11-10 - Kobo Redux, a reply -------------------------------- No sooner had I posted the last than I saw the Prosthetic Conscience post about Kobo[1], and, more directly, KoReader, and there's just one or two items I want to address. First of all, as with all such things, you do you, Jim, and nothing I offer here or in the past is *declarative*. If Nickel suits you fine, then use Nickel. Now, that said, onto some of the pros and cons of Koreader ;3 Fonts: This is why I use an alternative to Nickel. I have no idea whatsoever what Kobo/Rakuten have done, but they sure aren't using FreeType2. Font rendering on the base kobo is awful. This alone would make me want to use an alternative reader. Configurability: Yes, the kobo can be configured. One of the issues I have with koreader is that its *too* damned configurable, so I stupidly set something and forget about it, and now can't find it to change it back. This leads me onto one of Jim's primary complaints - that the configuration isn't saved. It can be! The saving of it, however, is a bit of a dark art, in that it is done by *long-pressing* on the option. When you do that, a little star appears next to the option, letting you know this is saved. Now that will be the default for all books you are reading. The why of this is lost to time, but it appears to be to address the "problem" I referred to above - that one setting which needs to be tweaked *for this one book*, but which would ordinarily not be your preference, and which you will *never* find again afterwards. Catalogue view: Jim feels the lack of catalogue, and he's right, the file structure imposed by Nickel/Calibre is not conducive to cataloguing using a linux file structure. I worked around this by simply stopping using calibre to upload books to the kobo, now I just use Midnight Commander instead. I use the calibre program for ripping and cataloguing, sure, but I have a workflow where I can put the books I want into a folder, which is tidied by an incron method, and then I move the books onto the kobo. Simples. Footer: Kobo Nickel's footer drives me to distraction. Taking up huge expanses of the screen with a pointless progress meter is deeply annoying. I use a mini-meter in koreader, which is set to show me how many pages remain in this *chapter*. Given that I usually read either in bed or in my car when waiting for something (or someone), this is invaluable. Given all of the above, I realise I may sound like i'm grousing, believe me, I'm not. Until I found koreader, I really didn't realise how much the foibles of Nickel had been annoying me. Until that point, I was willing to accept them all, because Nickel really is just that good. Koreader, however, is superior to Nickel in these particular spheres:- - Configurability - Font Rendering - Hyphenation - PDF display - DidI mention the fonts? On their own, any of the above would be motive enough to try koreader. Together, they form a perfect storm of usability, one which I am happy to adjust my "upload books" workflow to accomodate. I recommend it to all users of Kobos (and Pocketbooks, BQ Cervantes, Kindles and the utterly MASSIVE range of android e-ink devices now available). [1]: gopher://jfm.carcosa.net/0/blog/life/ereader.txt