Thanks man. You know I'm really bad about not posting links. I was reading that page when I posted the first comment!
I've been playing around with it a bit more. There are settings in the config file that allow you to redirect the shop channel.
The file looks something like this: (It varies depending upon where you purchased the device and what version you have)
=====================
[General]
EulaURL=http://www.borders.com/online/store/BordersMediaView_ebookstermsandconditions
ImageHandlerURL=http://ecimages.kobobooks.com/Image.ashx
LastSyncTime=@Variant(\0\0\0\x10\0%x\xfb\x4OL\a\0)
LastWebSyncTime=@Variant(\0\0\0\x10\0%x\xfb\x4U\x92\x1\0)
PartnerProxyHandlerURL=https://mobilepartner.kobobooks.com/mobileRequest.ashx
PasswordRetrievalURL=https://www.borders.com/online/store/MobilePasswordResetView
PurchaseURL=https://partner.kobobooks.com/checkout.html
RegistrationPageURL=https://www.kobobooks.com/mobilesupport/createaccount.html
RequestURL=http://mobile.kobobooks.com/mobileRequest.ashx
StaticSpacePercentage=75
ThankYouURL=http://www.kobobooks.com/mobilesupport/thankyou.html
Version=0.1
WebsiteURL=http://www.kobobooks.com
WebstoreProxyURL=https://partner.kobobooks.com
WebstoreURL=http://webstore.kobobooks.com
cookies="@ByteArray(NID=50=DWybJA3aVdk9ShCtb6s0JIDH6xS742pfIl1EuodMb5nMFzZo1EqgPOnPR_e2-2M-P_Ma_R09YEs2869NQhnAnABmEiWpTIi44SwRDPr72T6DDLuQ3YT5PxxXzMxEWqVo; HttpOnly; expires=Tue, 28-Feb-2012 23:08:57 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(PREF=ID=9cb255a07423b138:U=4425a8b210b723dd:FF=0:TM=1314659268:LM=1314659470:S=7NPOQzLdkqMT6PgH; expires=Wed, 28-Aug-2013 23:11:10 GMT; domain=.google.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(wsa=BordersUS; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(wsuid=f9ec57c2-5715-460b-a1bd-04b648d8f06e; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(pwspid=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000210; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(pwsav=1.9; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(persistent=culture=en; expires=Wed, 28-Sep-2011 23:12:23 GMT; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(ASP.NET_SessionId=lalk1g45jkkjktfdlzbtbavv; HttpOnly; domain=webstore.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(wscf=kxml; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(wscfv=2.0; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(__utmz=1.1314659545.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); expires=Tue, 28-Feb-2012 11:12:25 GMT; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(__utma=1.1421490188.1314659545.1314659545.1314659545.1; expires=Wed, 28-Aug-2013 23:12:25 GMT; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(__utmc=1; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(__utmv=1.|1=d=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000210=1; domain=webstore.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(2=a=Kobo=1; domain=webstore.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(3=customerid=f9ec57c2-5715-460b-a1bd-04b648d8f06e=1; domain=webstore.kobobooks.com; path=/)", "@ByteArray(__utmb=1.1.10.1314659545; expires=Mon, 29-Aug-2011 23:42:26 GMT; domain=.kobobooks.com; path=/)"
last_wifi_state=true
readingFontFace=0
readingFontSize=4
showBookCoverWhenOff=true
showBookCoverWhenSuspended=true
useDaylightSavings=true
================================
You can change the "WebstoreURL" part you any url you like and it will load it just fine. The reader will overwrite your setting if you choose to update the store or sync though. This can be bypassed though if you remove all of the kobo related settings so that the device doesn't know where to get it's store data.
It is unknown exactly which ones you have to remove though.
But basically it runs a version of QT to access the webstore, so it will render webpages, even ones with scripting, pretty well.
So a more universal method might be to make a special webpage that can be locally hosted or hosted on a website. I've been playing around with such a method for mamehooker's display files but my html/scripting isn't good enough to do what I want.
Basically what I want to make is a webpage that does a re-direct to a webpage that is essentially a image of the display file. (That part is easy, just a simple redirect). I also want the page I'm browsing to constantly check if that redirect URL has changed, and refresh the page if it has. That part is a bit more difficult as constantly refreshing an image or the page causes errors.
Anybody know how to have a webpage constantly check a txt file for a URL and navigate to the URL only if it's different from the previous URL? Really fancy scripting isn't going to work as it needs to run on mobile devices.
It would also be nice if we could do really fancy things like screen rotation and image resizing on the html end of things, but I know how complex that could get.
I think this could be applied not only to generic instruction card images, but to controls.dat viewers as well. Users could make a webpage with their control panel and generic labels and the viewer could update the label text in the html.