Watch How I Upload Custom Templates to My reMarkable

Hi everyone! Off and on over the last year I’ve been meaning to make a video showing my custom template process. I figured no time was like the present and created this hoping it would help make the entire process simpler for you. Hope it helps you upload, and maintain, your own custom templates! Below you'll see the chapters and below that I link to all the blog posts mentioned in the video. If you want a full transcript with even more links check out my accompanying blog post here (on December 29, 2021): www.simplykyra.com/2021/12/29...
Hope you're having a really great day!
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
01:09 - Overview
02:34 - Organization and Reasoning
06:35 - Bash Script: Creation, Execution, and Contents
12:45 - SSH Connection
16:27 - Sleep Screens Overview
17:21 - Navigation and Images
18:40 - Backup Templates File
19:38 - Editing the Script
20:19 - Running the Script
22:47 - JSON Code Snippet
24:53 - Restart Device
25:29 - Templates Shown
26:04 - Error: No Templates Found
26:46 - Templates Not Officially Supported
30:41 - Conclusion: Thanks for Listening
Here are the blog posts mentioned in the video!
Learn How to Access Your reMarkable Through the Command Line: www.simplykyra.com/2021/02/03...
Switch Out Your reMarkable’s Sleep Screen… Plus Easily Back it Up: www.simplykyra.com/2021/02/10...
How to Make Template Files for Your reMarkable: www.simplykyra.com/2021/02/24...
Script Part One - Quickly Generate a JSON Template Code Snippet for Your reMarkable: www.simplykyra.com/2021/03/31...
Script Part Two - Quickly and Easily Upload Template Images to Your reMarkable: www.simplykyra.com/2021/04/07...
My reMarkable2 Updated! This Is What I Did Next: www.simplykyra.com/2021/04/14...
Update Sept 2023:
I've since come out with a couple more posts. One that explains which version (PNG or SVG) is used when emailing the template (www.simplykyra.com/which-vers...) and the other is a compilation of all the frequently asked questions I've seen around (www.simplykyra.com/frequently...)
If you just want a general list of my reMarkable related posts you can find them here: www.simplykyra.com/tag/remark...
The template creation tool I mentioned was NoTeTo: noteto.needleinthehay.de/

[@youcrockyvence]

This tutorial is the best out there! Perhaps the only tutorial out there!

[@pradeepviv3672]

wow Kyra, you are very clever and thanks for sharing this video. I am not brave enough to try this on my new remarkable device yet (only 4 days old), but will definitely try it in a few months time. You should do an App and sell it to us. I will be your first customer.

[@jkfocusproductions2427]

Ok had some front end coding experience and php but never been in terminal before - couple update notes and also a question. First off, my templates remained even after running an update, and it never give me any trouble regarding TRUST. (I am merely had to re-enter my password as normal since I do not have the keychain script that you’ve done and instead I only put it in manually and it works great, 👏 now the question I have is regarding a folder named with a single dot that has been created inside the templates not sure why but its taking up a slot in top bar, how can I remove it? Alt how do i just using the backup revert back and try again if that’s easier ? Thanks a ton for this video and Amazing work talking neewbies through 🙏🏼

[@SimplyKyraBlog]

That’s awesome your templates haven’t been overwritten yet. I’ve noticed some updates (minor ones I’m assuming) don’t overwrite it while the other ones do. As to the folder name with the single dot that’s the current directory. There’s also a double dot one to go up a directory. You can learn more about it here: superuser.com/questions/37449/what-are-and-in-a-directory#37451 Hope you have a good week.

[@jkfocusproductions2427]

@@SimplyKyraBlog ah yeah I figured, but for some reason that dot folder was showing up in the top of my remarkable templates bar (pushing my other folders into the radio button) so I wiped and re-did the process (since I'm not as good as you so quite ill equipped to troubleshoot haha) and this time it came out looking stellar. THANK YOU!! Say, have you had any success adding an "expanding" (when scrolling down) template? wondering if that's where the svg's come in...

[@SimplyKyraBlog]

@@jkfocusproductions2427 Oh gotcha. Missed where the folder was showing up. Glad you got it working. For next time it's based on your category in the JSON file. Haven't really played around with templates since the last update when they've allowed expandable pages so can't answer your other question but awhile back I created a template with different images for the svg and png to experiment with which was shown. The post can be found here: www.simplykyra.com/which-version-of-the-remarkables-templates-are-emailed-out/

[@jkfocusproductions2427]

@@SimplyKyraBlog oooooh that makes sense that it was a json bug, in truth I'd just gone through the motions to test and had been way too sloppy in file naming etc so reset was the better move but next time I'll go haystack needle hunting haha. the expandable templates / svg experiment will have to wait for another day... it's already such an upgrade to have my templates -- you're amazing, can't thank you enough !!

[@kaylapink9951]

Well. That wasn't easy to follow 😂 thanks for going indept but hard for someone just starting. For a device that is so expensive they really should provide this feature easier

[@TaiwanNationStatusQuo]

Hi Kyra, I found your blog post and that led me to this video. Well done! I do have one question for you. I am wondering do these templates / suspended-dogsleeping.png need to be reuploaded everytime where there is a firmware upgrade? I have to (and tired of) reuploading my custom fonts (in this case, Chinese fonts, for reading Chinese ePubs) everytime, if I invest time in doing what you did, do I need to repeat that every now and then when a new SW version is released? Thanks for your answer.

[@SimplyKyraBlog]

Hi. I’m so glad you found this helpful. And yes, every time reMarkable does a software update the custom templates and sleep screen image(s) are removed/reverted while the templates.json file is reset. In another blog post I created a bash script that uploads all the png files I have stored in a directory to my reMarkable and generates the JSON script. Thus when my remarkable resets I can run the script, ssh into the remarkable, paste the new json snippet in, and restart. Still takes time so depends if the changes are worth it for you. I didn’t even think if having to reupload custom fonts too. I wonder, if you create a script, if that could be a part of it to make it simpler. If you’re just doing a couple images I’ve found that the directories/folders and images I add in the home directory don’t reset. You could store the files there for a simple cp command but, if doing templates, you’ll still need to update the template.json file.

[@TaiwanNationStatusQuo]

@@SimplyKyraBlog thanks for the reply. I just scp the files back everytime when there is an update. I hope they can keep part of the /usr/share/ directories intact with different mounting points during upgrade...

[@SimplyKyraBlog]

Quick addition. I just remember someone on one of my posts saying that they keep a copy their suspended.png image in the same directory as the suspended.png image so when an update happens they can simply SSH in and copy the file back over the suspended.png without having to upload anything. I've also kept some files on the home directory without losing them on updates. Thus maybe only some sub-directories like `templates` (and wherever you save the fonts) gets affected.

[@TaiwanNationStatusQuo]

@@SimplyKyraBlog thanks for the update. Yeah saving the files in home directory helps, but if ssh is still needed, It's not different from an scp as it takes no time to transfer the files.