Kobo new kepub.epub support

Bug #1058912 reported by osamu
18
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
calibre
Fix Released
Undecided
David Forrester

Bug Description

New firmware (Version 2 or later, I think. I have 2.1.1 r42411, 12/08/24 here) supporting Japanese seems to come with 2 rendering engines for epub format. The simple .epub format files are treated as previous (web-kit?).

But files with kepub.epub used for Japanese contents distributed by Kobo (now a subsidiary of Japanese e-marketer Rakuten) seem to be using new NetFront(TM) BookReader v1.0 EPUB Edition (C) ACESS(TM) rendering suites with CJK font supports instead. This new rendering engine has capability handle Japanese vertical display with rubi etc. The choice of rendering engine is just relying on a file extension only.

EPUB files generated by web downloads of calibre currently use simple epub extension. These epub files cause display with boxes instead of proper Kanji due to default font missing those if such page contain non-latin characters. Of course we can display such epub by forcing fonts supporting such characters.

I think it will be nice if Calibre support option to select between simple epub and kepub.epub for the file extension when transferring from PC to Kobo for such auto generated contents.

Also, when I add a new file with kepub.epub extension via calibre, calibre automatically generate file name with simple epub. At least this kepub extension should be preserved for such case so such files are rendered correctly.

I can rename calibre generated epub files containing japanese to kepub.epub and move them via file manager of my Debian wheezy. Then such files are displayed properly by Kobo without any additional font selecion.

FYI: New version 2 series firmware were released after Rakuten introduced Kobo touch to Japan.

Debian version = 0.8.64+dfsg-1 used here. It is based on 0.8.64.

Tags: kobo-driver
Revision history for this message
Kovid Goyal (kovid) wrote : Re: calibre bug 1058912

Changing the component for this bug.

 assignee timlegge
 tag kobo-driver
 status triaged

Changed in calibre:
assignee: nobody → Timothy Legge (timlegge)
status: New → Triaged
Revision history for this message
John Bakkeren (johannes-bakkeren) wrote :

Please note that the new KOBO software version on the english KOBO has a database format that is not recognised by Caliber.
I can not read the book list that is in the main and the memory card in my KOBO.
The KOBO it self works fine and I can delete books on the reader it self but there is no access to the content via Caliber to delete any of the books. Please note: adding books to the main memmory or the SD card has no problems.
This problem is existing after the latest software update for the KOBO about two month ago.
Looking forward to have it fixed.
John Bakkeren <email address hidden>

Kovid Goyal (kovid)
Changed in calibre:
assignee: Timothy Legge (timlegge) → David Forrester (davidfor)
Revision history for this message
David Forrester (davidfor) wrote :

John,

The problem you are reporting has no relationship with the problem reported here. When you added this comment, bug #1024983 was open about the problem you are seeing. Since then an updated driver has been included in 0.9.1.

David

Revision history for this message
David Forrester (davidfor) wrote :

As to the original problem...

That is something new I didn't know about the Kobo readers. I just tested it with an epub randomly picked from my library, added ".kepub" as part of the name and put it on my Touch. And, yes, it opened with the kepub reader instead of the epub.

So, adding support for "kepub.epub" would be a good thing for Kobo users. But, I'll have to investigate how to do this without breaking anything else.

In the meantime, there is a workaround. If you change the save template you are using to include ".kepub" as part of the name, it will do what you want. As an example, I changed mine to be:

{author_sort}/{title} - {authors}.kepub

So that will create files like:

Francis, Dick/The Danger - Dick Francis.kepub.epub

The only issue I had with this is that the Touch didn't generate a cover for the two samples I tried. I'll have to see if I can work out why. Hopefully the books you have will have covers generated properly as they were originally .kepub.epub.

The only other thing with this is that it will name all books you put on the device like this. You could change the template to only put the ".kepub" for certain books. If the metadata has something that could be selected on, this can be done. The language might be a good choice. I'm not an expert in the template language, so I suggest you ask in the calibre forum for suggestions on how to do it.

Lastly, this might have changed with firmware 2.1.4. The".kepub.epub" are still handled in the manner you describe, but the epub reader might now handle Japanese correctly.

Revision history for this message
osamu (osamu) wrote : Re: [Bug 1058912] Re: Kobo new kepub.epub support

Hi,

Thanks for reply. (I am still not familiar with Ubuntu web bug
interface. So reply in mail but please consider this public info which
you can paste to BTS. If you think moving this discussion to Debian BTS
based on mail interface, I am fine. Hmmm... maybe with this address, it
get to web OK.)

On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 03:13:14AM -0000, David Forrester wrote:
> As to the original problem...
>
> That is something new I didn't know about the Kobo readers. I just
> tested it with an epub randomly picked from my library, added ".kepub"
> as part of the name and put it on my Touch. And, yes, it opened with the
> kepub reader instead of the epub.

Yah, it comes with 2 broweres :-)

> So, adding support for "kepub.epub" would be a good thing for Kobo
> users. But, I'll have to investigate how to do this without breaking
> anything else.

Very good point which I am still pondering.

> In the meantime, there is a workaround. If you change the save template
> you are using to include ".kepub" as part of the name, it will do what
> you want. As an example, I changed mine to be:
>
> {author_sort}/{title} - {authors}.kepub
>
> So that will create files like:
>
> Francis, Dick/The Danger - Dick Francis.kepub.epub
>
> The only issue I had with this is that the Touch didn't generate a cover
> for the two samples I tried. I'll have to see if I can work out why.
> Hopefully the books you have will have covers generated properly as they
> were originally .kepub.epub.
>
> The only other thing with this is that it will name all books you put on
> the device like this. You could change the template to only put the
> ".kepub" for certain books. If the metadata has something that could be
> selected on, this can be done. The language might be a good choice. I'm
> not an expert in the template language, so I suggest you ask in the
> calibre forum for suggestions on how to do it.

as I experiment with Kobo more with Japanese content, maybe keeping
mostly original behavior may be what is needed except when we import
.kepub.epub file. Now it seems to drop kepub resulting to use older
rendering engin. The older engin has some goods over newer one but the
older one lacks supporting ruby character properly.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character

> Lastly, this might have changed with firmware 2.1.4. The".kepub.epub"
> are still handled in the manner you describe, but the epub reader might
> now handle Japanese correctly.

Most simple horizontally written japanese like web articles renders OK.
The problem is vertical old book with ruby-characters.

Osamu

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> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1058912
>
> Title:
> Kobo new kepub.epub support
>
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Revision history for this message
Joel Goguen (jgoguen) wrote :

I've been writing a driver plugin for Calibre to enable the extended features. The code is on Github at https://github.com/jgoguen/calibre-kobo-driver and known issues are on the Github bug tracker there. If desired, I can move the changes into the KoboTouch driver and submit a patch here (once I've fixed the remaining problems I know about) instead of leaving it as a plugin.

Revision history for this message
Kovid Goyal (kovid) wrote :

@David: It's up to you if you want to merge these features or not.

Revision history for this message
David Forrester (davidfor) wrote :

I'm torn. In one way, I want to grab it, but in another I'm not sure. I'll have a look at it later in the week.

Revision history for this message
Joel Goguen (jgoguen) wrote :

I've since pushed a branch (https://github.com/jgoguen/calibre-kobo-driver/tree/release-2.0.4) that has the database code removed. It doesn't actually have any lasting effect right now, and won't unless/until someone figures out how to selectively stop the Kobo from processing new content on startup.

Revision history for this message
Joel Goguen (jgoguen) wrote :

I realized I picked a bad branch name, it's now at https://github.com/jgoguen/calibre-kobo-driver/tree/no-database for the plugin without the code to update the SQLite database on upload.

Revision history for this message
David Forrester (davidfor) wrote :

Joel has release his extended Kobo driver on MobileRead. It will satisfy this request.

Kovid Goyal (kovid)
Changed in calibre:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
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