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Old 02-12-2011, 06:46 AM   #167
kiwidude
calibre/Sigil Developer
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Posts: 4,601
Karma: 2092290
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kindle Oasis
Here's my feedback on 1.3.2 after I at last had a chance to try this myself.

I had a fair number of issues but I think it is very much the case that many were not the fault of the plugin but more all the "layers" of complexity that coexist in Calibre. When you consider all the variables of book metadata, send to device template, metadata plugboard template and Kindle device plugin configuration sitting underneath, this plugin has to balance very precariously on top of the lot. I am not surprised that others have had issues, and I am sure an awful lot more will in future. Again I repeat that none of the major issues I had had were the fault of the plugin at all, nor were they bugs in Calibre. It was just ignorance on my part on knowing exactly how to get all the parts in sync for it to work.

So what did I have go wrong?
- I changed the "Send to device" template, as I was previously using a different collection manager which relied on specific names of folders to generate collections. However while I changed this in Preferences -> Sending books to devices, there is also another value I discovered stored in Preferences -> Plugins -> Device Interface Plugins -> Kindle 2/3 Device Interface. In the meantime I had doubled up books etc.
- When I first created collections I had more collections than I "expected". However I traced this down to a metadata plugboard override I had previously setup for authors, to shorten the author name to surname and initial. So the plugin created collections created for both the full author name and the shortened name.

In the end to get it working I decided to rip out that metadata plugboard override of author, delete all the books on my Kindle, restarted then resent all the books to the kindle, then ran the collection manager again. With all the ducks lined up it did exactly what was advertised which is great.

Does anyone else find it takes several minutes before Calibre starts responding again when they connect or eject? (Even with only a handful of books on the Kindle)?

My couple of plugin specific things I noted:
(1) If you go into the configuration screen for the plugin when the Kindle is not connected I note it doesnt list anything in the grid. You can change (or seem to) the checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog. Left me a bit confused and concerned about making changes. If you can't configure the grid then some sort of visual messages about requiring the Kindle to be connected to view and change would help. It just looked like it had lost my settings when you see an empty grid.
(2) When I deleted all collections on my Kindle, restarted then rang the plugin I got several "error" messages about how no json file was found in two different dialogs lpus the report. Seeing a file not found in an error dialog makes me think it has/will fail - when in fact it just means you have no collections on your Kindle to start with. As this appears to be informational rather than terminal/error I think it shouldn't be thrown in the user's face quite so much or at least explain in a less "critical" fashion.

Much credit and thanks to meme for the plugin. Once I eventually got sorted I now have exactly what I want without having to run external tools against the Kindle.
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