I use a Kobo Clara BW eReader running KOReader (basically exclusively, I almost never use the built-in Nickel reader at all).
Because I don't use the built-in Kobo reader software at all, I have the "Kobo Reader Device Interface" and "KoboTouch Calibre plugins disabled (these plugins will mutate the epub a bit on upload and I don't want that). Instead, I use the "User Defined USB driver" Calibre plugin.
90% of ebooks I read are downloaded with the FanFicFare Calibre plugin, from a variety of online fanfic and fiction websites. Notably, many stories I am reading are in-progress/incomplete, and I later re-download/update the epub and replace the existing .epub file on my ereader. This causes various minor issues with KOReader.
I use the KOReader calibre plugin to download KOReader metadata back to my computer, mostly reading status (completed and abandoned books). In theory, this also acts as a backup of all my sidecar data (untested).
I upload my entire library of a few thousand books to my eReader, and need some tools to search through all the books. I use the Project:Title KOReader plugin, using the list view mode with covers hidden. (Most books downloaded with FanFicFare don't have covers anyway. And the list view is better for navigating a long list of books.) I organize books by the following Calibre file path save tempate: {#genre}/{series:'series_sort()'}/{title} - {authors} (where #genre is a custom column for coarse grained sorting of books).
Below is the list of customizations I have applied to tweak KOReader to my needs and preferences, plus a bit of context as to why I use each of them.
A complete redesign of the KOReader file browser/coverbrowser.
2-projecttitle-page-count-override.lua by @igarizio
Project:Title requires your ebooks to have a metadata field containing the page count (usually generated from a Calibre plugin).
This userpatch exclusively uses the automatic KOReader-generated doc_pages page count instead. Note: this page count is only available/generated when the book is opened at least once (unopened books will have no page count).
Why?
- I did not want to regenerate this metadata for all my existing epubs
- I download (and redownload) books with FanFicFare and didn't want additional friction in this process
- This seems simpler to me anyway.
Set/unset reading status to "complete" (finshed) automatically if percent_finished is 100%
- Will also remove complete status from books if they are not at 100%
percent_finished - Abandoned/on-hold status should be ignored and not modified.
- This status probably won't persist to the sidecar (but might, no promises).
Implemented as a patch to DocSettings.readSetting() for the key summary.
Why? I want books marked finished automatically. Also this feeds into
2-projecttitle-progressbar-visiblity.luawhich is conditional on reading status.
Automatically fake-add books to collections based on first path component (folder name)
e.g. put /mnt/onboard/foo/bar/baz.epub into collection "foo" if home_dir is /mnt/onboard/
This is a complete hack and may have/cause bugs. It doesn't actually add books to collections, but patches ReadCollection:isFileInCollection() to lie and says they're in one.
Why? This is good enough for History filtering by category (folder name). I mostly don't want to manage these collections manually.
TODO: I think koreader/koreader#13336 can replace this, but I haven't tested it.
Minimal progress bar. I think there are better userpatches online, I'll probably switch to one of them instead.
Patch for Project:Title to show progress bars how I want:
- Show progress bar always, even if
hide_file_info == false(when showing file dates or sizes) - Except, hide the progress bar if new/finished/abandoned (only show if reading)
Works well with 2-projecttitle-page-count-override.lua
Why? Mostly personal preference, but:
- This makes in-progress books very distinct from other books (only these books have progress bars)
- I often switch to a date modified sort after uploading new books from Calibre, and want to see file info dates... and progress bars at the same time.
2-reset-bookinfo-if-book-mtime-newer.luaclears the reading status for (FanFicFare) updated books, and this makes those books more distinct visually.- Less visual noise for completed and on-hold books, hide the progress bar entirely for these.
Sort books in random order.
BUG: I think this gets really slow on large folders, but I haven't noticed any issues in a while.
BUG/FEATURE?: The sort is not stable. Every time you reopen the file browser, the books will re-randomize.
If a book file is newer than it's sidecar, the book was updated and may have new chapters. Reset a book's status to new and no percent read if detected.
Implemented as a patch to BookList.getBookInfo() which is in-memory only (does not modify sidecar) and is cached.
Why? When I re-download books with FanFicFare, this makes all the updated books show as unread. Otherwise they may incorrectly show as finished or with previous reading progress.
Adds "Search by author" to the long-press file dialog.
When tapped, triggers a file search from the KOReader home directory using the book's (first) author name as the search string. (This only works because I include author name in filename, and it still has false positives.)
TODO: maybe search by Calibre metadata instead, but it has a less pretty the KOReader search results UI.
Replace the inserted placeholder CSS when editing book-specific style tweaks.
(Other users could customize this as desired.)
Show title and author in TOC instead of "Table of Contents" header.
TODO: There are better userpatches from other users to do this, I will switch to one of them instead.
I normally set KOReader to have no gap between paragraphs and use a text indent. This styletweak does the opposite for blockquotes though: don't indent and skip lines between paragraphs instead.
Why? Many FanFicFare-downloaded books include author notes using blockquotes, and this reads clearer. And many author notes are a single paragraph anyway.
Many books use a centered line of symbols like * * * as a section break between paragraphs (technically known as a "dinkus").
However, many books downloaded with FanFicFare do not style these symbols to be centered. (Often they are not centered at all on the original website, this is not a bug in FanFicFare.)
This styletweak includes many common patterns, but if I need an additional one, I configure it on the fly with the template from 2-styletweak-sample-css.lua.
This uses a KOReader private CSS syntax to match paragraphs containing specific text strings. There's not a lot of docs on this but see koreader/koreader#11323 and koreader/koreader#11533.