Gargoyle port for Kindle Touch, Paperwhite & Voyage

Technical Development Interpreters
1

Hi, just a heads up for those owning a Kindle Touch, Paperwhite or Voyage: There is a gargoyle port for these Kindle models. Requirement: the device must be jailbroken. Here are the links:

fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/

Main forum thread:
mobileread.com/forums/showth … p?t=223455

I use it on my Paperwhite 3. The newer model has a better (= more precise) touchscreen, which means the virtual keyboard works really good for me.

2

This is fantastic!

It’s also quite old. How did I not know about it before now?

3

If this ever happens for Kobo e-readers (not their Android tablets) such as the Touch, I’d love to hear about it.

4

A port to Kobo e-readers is unlikely, since AFAIK Kobo e-readers only provide the qt-embed GUI libraray, whereas Kindle provides GTK 2.0, on which the LINUX variant of gargoyle is currently based on.

FYI: A Z-Machine interpreter for Kobo e-readers seems to exist: mobileread.com/forums/showth … ?p=2711142

5

I updated the Kindle port of gargoyle with these patches / features:

  • New: Double tap word to add to input line (github.com/RedHatter/granite)
  • New: Glulxe 0.5.4 & Git 1.3.5 interpreter update
  • Tads version 3.1.3 update
  • @salty-horse’s fix for image display problems from mainline gargoyle (e.g. Leadlight Gamma now doesn’t crash anymore after initial graphics)

Current build tested with PW3 and firmware 5.8.7.

Binary download:
mobileread.com/forums/showp … stcount=86

Github:
github.com/poker335/garglk

6

This is great! Any word if Is the desktop Linux is going ot get a release soon?

7

I can’t tell you that, I am not one of the maintainers of the main gargoyle project. I did however submit the git & glulxe update merges as github pull requests, whether the maintainers will accept them or not, I can’t tell.

8

Is Geas 0.4 working OK on arm with this? As on Android I’m having near immediate crashes.

9

Hi,

I tried to post the following message to the garglk-dev google groups mailing list, but for whatever reason my 2 postings (posted 1 and 2 weeks ago), didn’t show up, that’s why I post this here trying to reach the maintainers:

I maintain this repo: github.com/poker335/garglk, that contains the gargoyle port for Kindle Touch, Paperwhite, Oasis & Voyage.

The changes to garglk master are:

  • Kindle Port based on patches from: fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/ . Uses different GTK 2 UI elements for dialogs (the standard gtk2 dialogs don’t work well on the Kindle’s low resolution screen). Configures gargoyle to start in fullscreen mode. I integrated these Kindle changes, so that the Kindle specifics can be selected at build time, by specifying -sKINDLE=true.
  • Kindle Port incorporates a fixed (fixes: work in progress) version “double click/double tap on word to insert” patch from: github.com/RedHatter/granite
  • Kindle Port maps swipe up / down on touchscreen to page up / page down in the text window.
  • Planned features (especially since the Kindle’s on-screen keyboard doesn’t offer any cursor and/or control/alt keys): Enable positioning input cursor by tapping/clicking on input line.

I consider these changes sensible for any smaller resolution touch device.

Would you consider to integrate this port into the main gargoyle repo? Or should I continue to maintain it as a fork?

I currently also supply the binaries for the most recent firmware (5.8.9), as well as for older models running on older firmware versions (Touch & Paperwhite 1).

Very best wishes

10

I don’t see any reason why the Kindle port shouldn’t be part of the main repo.

At the moment we’re stumbling toward a new release, so I don’t want anything potentially breaking to go in, but if the Kindle stuff is self-contained (i.e. only built when the Kindle port is being built), then there’s no harm in getting it in earlier rather than later. Feel free to submut a pull request in that case.

11

Changes to upstream gargoyle (github.com/garglk/garglk):

New version now supports these in-game touch screen gestures:

  • One finger single tap on input line: place cursor
  • One finger double tap on word in input line: place cursor after tapped word
  • One finger double tap on word in game text to insert it into input line at cursor position (based on patch from: github.com/RedHatter/granite)
  • One finger swipe up: page up
  • One finger swipe down: page down
  • One finger swipe left: move cursor left
  • One finger swipe right: move cursor right
  • Two finger single tap on left side of the game screen: delete character right of cursor (= DEL key)
  • Two finger single tap on right side of the game screen: clear input line
  • Two finger single tap on middle-top of the game screen: command history: previous (= key “cursor up”)
  • Two finger single tap on middle-bottom of the game screen: command history: next (= key “cursor down”)

Github: github.com/poker335/garglk
Binaries: mobileread.com/forums/showp … ostcount=1

Kindle port based on patches from: fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/

12

Cool, got to try the new update today. Is there a way to exit the app? The only way I could figure out was to type “quit” into the story engine.

13

Right now entering quit at the prompt is the only way.

14

Cool. Any thoughts on how to code it so the “top touch” brings up the normal Kindle top-menu? Perhaps as an optional setting?

15

No, unfortunately I don’t know of any native GTK App that achieved this on Kindle. The standard Kindle framework runs in (some ancient) Java, and accessing that framework and its features is not well documented at all.

What could be done without much effort is to implement a context menu, that opens when you do a “touch & hold” gesture, like kterm implements it, screenshot: http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-terminal/ (kterm = terminal emulator for Kindle).

KOReader for Kindle has something similar to the Kindle’s top-menu, but it is an implementation they did themselves, and they use a different programming language and possibly GUI framework.

I was rather focusing on things that could be done easily, and that enhance my personal usability experience, so I focused on “glueing” touch gestures offered by the used Xorg touch driver to already existing gargoyle functions. Without that, I found editing the input line to be a pain, because the Kindle’s on-screen keyboard lacks any ctrl-keys and cursor keys, nor does the GUI framework support exact touch based cursor positioning (like the magnifying glass in iOS).

What I was also looking into, but didn’t find any info about (yet), is this:
mobileread.com/forums/showt … p?t=283918

I would like to use this for word suggestions, but the on-screen keyboard’s API is not open (as could be expected).

Still, I am now quite happy for my personal use. Next step would be to clean up the implementation to be able to send a pull request to the main gargoyle project. Only after that would I look into more features.

16

perhaps we could come up with some gesture and a “are you sure?” prompt to exit/kill the app? Even some odd sequence like touching all 4 corners in under 10 seconds. Then there would be no need to deviate in the visual side from what is there now.

17

Hi all,

I updated the Kindle port with more screen-tap gestures for cursor movement/placement, fixed a crash, and updated to latest gargoyle sources:

mobileread.com/forums/editp … id=3526963

Supported in-game touch screen gestures in newest version:

  • One finger single tap on input line: place cursor
  • One finger double tap on word in input line: place cursor after tapped word
  • One finger double tap on word in game text to insert it into input line at cursor position (based on patch from: https://github.com/RedHatter/granite)
  • One finger swipe up: page up
  • One finger swipe down: page down
  • One finger swipe left: move cursor left
  • One finger swipe right: move cursor right
  • Two finger single tap on top-left side of the game screen: clear input line
  • Two finger single tap on middle-left side of the game screen: delete characters left of cursor until first whitespace
  • Two finger single tap on bottom-left side of the game screen: move cursor to the beginning of the word to the left
  • Two finger single tap on top-right side of the game screen: delete character right of cursor (= DEL key)
  • Two finger single tap on middle-right side of the game screen: delete characters right of cursor until first whitespace
  • Two finger single tap on bottom-right side of the game screen: move cursor to the beginning of the next word
  • Two finger single tap on top-center of the game screen: command history: previous (= key “cursor up”)
  • Two finger single tap on bottom-center of the game screen: command history: next (= key “cursor down”)