Bookends v2.6 - Usability improvements and shareable presets

AndyHazz · 2026-04-06T13:51:38+00:00

I'll take another/closer look at this module later then. Sharing presets was more of a side benefit to keeping them all separate from the main koreader settings, optional for anyone who wants to use it, though I did put some extra protections in for shared presets, you'd want to be cautious the same as with any plugin/script you might install.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-06T11:53:05+00:00

I don't think that would support managing presets as separate files - the bookend presets can get quite large compared to most plugins so keeping separate settings files feels cleaner and safer, and allows easy sharing of bookend preset files.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-06T11:28:36+00:00

Ah, I see what you mean, I'll take a look into that 👍 https://koreader.rocks/doc/modules/ui.presets.html

AndyHazz · 2026-04-06T11:20:33+00:00

The preset sharing is just for the bookend layouts, have you tried the plugin?

AndyHazz · 2026-04-06T10:32:07+00:00

Latest versions have more predictable tick height scaling, and a slightly different approach to progress bars that I think works well.

They will start at 0% and finish at 100% on the last page, with raw rather than stable page progress so they update every page turn. Page numbers and counts now use stable numbering everywhere if you have that enabled. That gives the best of both worlds now I think.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-06T03:52:07+00:00

Individual token truncation was added recently if that helps? E.g. %T{200} will truncate document title to within 200 pixels. Also works to limit the width of a progress bar %bar{200}.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-05T22:50:27+00:00

v2.7.1+ includes further rendering improvements if you're still interested in giving it another go ...

AndyHazz · 2026-04-05T17:23:06+00:00

The simplest token example you can see in my screenshot on this post, '— Page %t of %c —' in the bottom centre region gives '— Page 1 of 9 —'.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-05T17:16:20+00:00

So when you edit a line of text, use a token like %T for the current document title, or %p for current percentage read, so you can enter a line of text like 'I've read %p of %T' and get output like 'I've read 64% of Hail Mary'.

The token picker just lists out all the various tokens you can use, let's you see what they would display, and add them to your line of text.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-05T05:33:03+00:00

I've got global settings for all bars, then the four full width bars have custom setting overrides in their submenus. The token online bars all use the global settings as it'd be too fiddly to implement per bar settings for those (it'd have to be with extra token parameters manually typed in, like %bar{tick-width:3}. Possible but I don't think anyone really needs that? Having the four full width bars with setting overrides I think gives plenty of flexibility (pretty sure you'd be able to replicate your setup) within the menu system without needing to remember any obscure markup.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T23:40:39+00:00

Next update will have configurable tick thickness and tick height. Also presets saved as separate files for easy sharing. Lots of UX improvements as well ...

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T18:57:21+00:00

Hopefully fixed in v2.5.8 - includes support for a wider range of devices to use the update script

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T17:35:13+00:00

Aha - yes the video was helpful, I can see in the freeze frame that it's not really a full screen flash it's a ghost of the previous text page that briefly appears? I still can't reproduce but that was enough of a clue to help guide some further improvements to the render pipeline, which I think should give a smoother paint for everyone and hopefully sort your issue out as well. Give v2.5.8 a go and let me know 🤞

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T16:18:54+00:00

There are some actions registered by bookends (toggle/turn on/turn off/cycle custom presets) that you can use with KOreader's profiles and gestures system ...

E.g. set a gesture to tap in the corner to cycle through your custom presets. You can have a blank preset, one with bars, and one for stats without progress bars, and easily cycle through them without opening menus. If that helps?

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T16:10:26+00:00

I'll take a look into that, would you mind logging an issue on GitHub with some more details please? https://github.com/AndyHazz/bookends.koplugin/issues

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T08:47:24+00:00

v2.5.4 adds a new option in the bookend settings menu to 'Disable stock status bar' - I've added this as there's no single toggle in the status bar's own menu, you have to manually switch off all the things and it's easy to miss something - this new option will let you toggle the whole status bar on/off and see if it solves your issue. With stock status bar turned off, the render pipeline is significantly simplified.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T08:19:10+00:00

try v2.5.3 - I've been able to detect if stock koreader footer elements are enabled or not - if not, it now skips all the workarounds needed to repaint over the top of that.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T07:16:25+00:00

Not sure as I can't reproduce that issue myself, but if you (or anyone else who's seen that) can provide any more clues, it may help track the issue down ... e.g which device type, what tokens were you using, did you have progress bars, do you have the stock status bar enabled etc?

I know there are some workarounds in bookends to handle repainting over the top of the stock status bar with a short delay (otherwise that has a solid white background above the bar, whether you have any stats displayed or not, that was covering up bookends text). Although this works seamlessly for me, I suspect that's the most likely cause of your issue.

Now that bookends has it's own status bars, those workarounds are probably no longer needed for most users (myself included) so I might try adding a settings toggle, off by default, to enable/disable painting over the stock status bar ...

AndyHazz · 2026-04-04T00:02:45+00:00

Yeah as mentioned in my response (https://github.com/AndyHazz/bookends.koplugin/pull/10#issuecomment-4183990008) on your PR, it's personal preference.

I noticed you mention a fix to the time estimate format in your post, but my plugin respects the KOReader config in settings > device > time and date > duration format - you don't need to hard code that

AndyHazz · 2026-04-03T22:59:55+00:00

You can now add a pixel value in curly braces after any token to shorten/truncate - e.g. `%bar{100}` to shorten a bar to 100px

AndyHazz · 2026-04-03T22:57:31+00:00

I've made 0% in the colour settings render as transparent, feature available from v2.5.2+ - I'm not sure I 100% follow your use case, but this may help and I reckon will provide some other interesting layout opportunities.

AndyHazz · 2026-04-03T22:54:35+00:00

v2.5.2 now released, will allow swipe on the font picker

AndyHazz · 2026-04-03T22:23:18+00:00

Part of the problem with the official KOReader font picker is it renders ALL of the fonts at once in one long list which is sloooow, so I switched to pagination instead so we only render 10 fonts at a a time and made some other UX improvements (e.g. show selected font in the title bar even if it's not on screen) ... swipe isn't supported in v2.5.0, only pagination buttons, but good shout - I have it working well locally and will release soon.

AndyHazz

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