My Custom Kobo Configuration

What is this?

This repository helps you set up your Kobo just like I set up mine, which includes some power user features, and also some useful features. For example, support for screensavers and an easy dark mode toggle for when you're reading. Take a look!

Tweaked tabs

Less store, more of your books and stuff.

• My Books and My Notebooks are now Books and Notes.
• The Activity tab is now also visible as Stats.
• Notes and Discover tabs are hidden by default, but can be re-enabled.

Custom menu items

Power user stuff for typography lovers.

• Screensaver: Toggles the screensaver by moving the .kobo/screensaver folder. The repository comes with a nice moon screensaver, but you can add your own.
• Screenshots: Toggles taking screenshots with the power button. After taking screenshots, take care to remember to turn this back off...
• Auto USB: Toggles automatic USB connection. Helpful if you connect to your computer frequently, and don't want to keep approving the connection.
• Legibility Status: Shows the current status of the legibility toggle.
• Legibility Toggle: Toggles the experimental WebKit rendering feature, which enables rendering of ligatures. Since this causes issues w/ justified text rendering in kepubs this is a toggle. This will also briefly reboot your device!
• IP Address: If connected to WiFi, displays your IP address.
• Invert & Reboot: Inverts the colors of the entire display and reboots the device.
• Sleep: Does the same as pressing the power button.
• Reboot: Does the same as pressing the power button for a few seconds.

Reader & menu

• In the reader menu, a Dark Mode toggle has also been added. You can press the ... (ellipsis menu) to see this option when reading. (You no longer need to dig into settings to toggle this!)
• Added customized fonts.

Installing NickelMenu

NickelMenu must be installed for all of these changes to work correctly.

First, install the latest version of NickelMenu. Keep in mind that you will need at least version 0.6 of NickelMenu installed in order to have customized menu items.

To install NickelMenu, copy .kobo/KoboRoot.tgz to the .kobo folder on your Kobo, and let your e-reader reboot. (It should tell you that it's installing an update and reboot.)

Quick Setup (Mac)

Once NickelMenu is installed, you can use the script I've added to the repository. Connect your Kobo to your Mac via USB, then run:

./copy_mac.sh

This will copy over .adds, .kobo, and fonts (if the fonts folder on the device is empty), clean up macOS resource fork files, optionally set ExcludeSyncFolders (for KOReader/Calibre users), and eject the device.

Manual Setup

Before you begin, make sure to show hidden files and folders in your file manager, because the .adds and .kobo folders are hidden by default.

Installing menu items

Copy the .adds directory to the root of your KOBOeReader volume. This is the configuration for NickelMenu.

Fonts

Copy the fonts directory and any extra fonts you like over.

If you like what you're seeing, you can find more fonts in my other repository.

(I recommend getting the Kobo Core fonts, since this repository only includes a Kobo-optimized version of Readerly.)

Screensaver

You can copy the screensaver from .kobo/screensaver into the same folder on your Kobo device.

You can also add your own screensavers. If you add any additional .png or .jpg files to the .kobo/screensaver folder, you will randomly get an image each time you put your device to sleep. Nice, right?

You can toggle this feature via the Tweak tab (the custom NickelMenu tab at the bottom of the home screen), which lets you swap between viewing the book cover or the custom images you want. Useful for when you like seeing only your favorite covers...

Tip

Keep in mind that you need to have the setting to display a book cover on. You can check it via More > Settings > Energy saving and privacy > Show current read, which must be set to "On".

Additional tweaks

Separating Kobo and KOReader libraries

You tend to have the best experience if your Kobo doesn't scan certain directories! Important if you want to use KOReader or store other files that you don't want to appear in your library as "books".

To do this, add the following block to the .kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf file:

[FeatureSettings]
ExcludeSyncFolders=(calibre|\\.(?!kobo|adobe|calibre).+|([^.][^/]*/)+\\..+)

After doing this, disconnect your device and reboot it to apply this configuration tweak! After rebooting, you can copy over files to the calibre directory.

(This particular configuration ensures that a root-level calibre folder won't be scanned by Kobo's operating system. This essentially keeps the Calibre books separate from the Kobo books. Great when using KOReader.)

KOReader

If you want an alternative reading experience, this is the way to go, and a great combination with Calibre.

Install the latest release of KOReader. You can download it here.

Follow the instructions carefully. You will also need to add a new item to .adds/nm/items to launch KOReader via the Tweak menu!

Custom patches

In my screenshot above, I've disabled the 3rd row on the homescreen. This is accomplished via a custom patch to the system software.

You can usually find a zip with patches on the MobileRead forums. You can search for "Patches for Firmware" and then the version number of your firmware. (At the time of writing this, for example, this is the latest thread for the Libra Color, Clara BW and Clara Color, but you should always use patches for your Kobo's version number.)

A few important notes:

• Unlike the other tweaks, I recommend double checking everything here. Keep reading why.
• You must first note what operating system version you are using.
• You can then download a copy of the software via the kobofirmware page kindly set up by Patrick Gaskin.
• Make sure to download the correct version for your device, or you risk bricking your device!
• You can then apply patches via the patcher. For up-to-date instructions, use the readme.txt from the zip you got from MobileRead.
• If you upgrade your system software (which may happen automatically) you will need to fetch the updated patches zip from MobileRead, and re-apply those patches again.

If you're curious about what tweak I use... For example, the kobopatch.yaml config file can look like this:

overrides:
  src/nickel.yaml:
    Remove footer (row3) and increase cover size on new home screen: no
    Remove footer (row3) on new home screen: yes # <--- I changed this!

To get the result in the screenshot above -- the removed third row, all it takes is modifying that single line and applying the patches.

After adjusting the overrides, you can copy the firmware file to src and run the script.

Again, please follow the up-to-date instructions in readme.txt. Once KoboRoot.tgz has been successfully generated, you can copy it to the .kobo folder on your device and those patches will be applied.