Nook 1st Edition

Installing: Install on the Nook 1st Edition.

GZreader also runs on Barnes & Noble's first Nook (2009): a 6" e-ink page with a small colour touchscreen under it. This is a test build: it runs on a real Nook (firmware 1.0.0 with nookDevs' Softroot 2.5.1): the setup guide, Home, the colour screen's controls, Wi‑Fi, downloading books, updates over Wi‑Fi, and a GZreader icon in the Nook's app list. Try it on a Nook you're prepared to restore, and send back what happens (what to send).

How it works: the Nook's processor is the same family as a Kindle 3's, but its kernel has the floating-point unit switched off and stops programs that read unaligned memory, so the Nook gets its own build of KOReader's programs (gzreader-nook-1st-edition-<version>.zip: floating point in software, no unaligned reads), plus what the Nook's Android 1.5 lacks (a Linux C library and BusyBox, from Debian 7). A start script pauses the Nook's own software while GZreader runs and resumes it when you exit. It also wakes what Android had put to sleep: the colour screen, its touch panel and Wi‑Fi. Nothing on the Nook's system is changed for good: the script's changes are undone by exiting or restarting the Nook.

Both screens

• The e-ink page shows GZreader as on a Kindle 4, refreshed the way Android does it, through the Nook's kernel: moving the selection, menus, the clock and other changes refresh just the part that changed, without a flash. A full refresh (with a flash, which clears the ghosting) comes when GZreader asks for one, as on a Kindle: every few page turns, and when a full-screen view opens or closes. After a tap or a button press GZreader waits until the screen has stopped changing (a fraction of a second) and refreshes once. Sending updates straight to the e-ink controller froze the Nook every time it was tried, so GZreader doesn't. If the screen doesn't keep up with what you do (a menu that doesn't appear until the next flash), go back to a full refresh every time (as up to 1.26.6) with adb shell touch /data/gzreader/eink-flash and start GZreader again; adb shell rm /data/gzreader/eink-flash undoes it.
• The colour touchscreen is what you drive it with, and it changes with what you're doing:
  • Controls (Home, menus, lists): ▲ ▼ ◀ ▶ and OK (the Kindle 4's 5-way), Back, Menu (the quick panel), Home, ◀◀ ▶▶ (page back / forward) and ••• (the next panel).
  • Reading info (in a book): title, chapter, page, a progress bar, the time, battery and Wi‑Fi. Or Cover: the book's cover with its title, author and progress. Touch it to get the controls for a while.
  • Keyboard (typing: search, Notes, connecting): letters, numbers and symbols on the colour screen, so the page isn't covered by an e-ink keyboard. Done swaps it for the controls (▲ ▼ to reach the dialog's buttons), the ⌨ button brings it back.
  • Swipe left or right on it to turn pages; up or down for its next panel.
• The page buttons on both sides turn pages; n (under the colour screen) is Home; power puts the Nook to sleep and wakes it.

Settings → Interface → Colour screen chooses what shows when: while reading (reading info, cover, controls or nothing), elsewhere (controls, clock or nothing), when typing (colour keyboard, or the e-ink keyboard with the arrows), whether a touch brings up the controls and for how long, swipe to turn pages, how long until it goes dark (a touch lights it again; the first touch only lights it), its brightness, and a touch test with mirror / swap switches in case the touch is the wrong way round on your Nook.

Wi‑Fi: GZreader uses the networks saved in the Nook's own settings. When Android has switched Wi‑Fi off (it does when its screen goes off), the start script switches it on and connects as Android would, and switches it off again when you exit GZreader. It also turns the Wi‑Fi chip's power saving off while GZreader runs: with it on, the chip naps between packets, loses some, and sign-ins time out. (GZ_NOOK_WIFI=off leaves Wi‑Fi alone.)

Not in the test build: audiobooks and read aloud (the Nook has a speaker, but GZreader plays audio with the Kindle's player), and switching Wi‑Fi on and off from GZreader's menus.