[Android App] Coming: Android app to connect as a device to calibre using wifi

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Hondo1

I do have one question abut connecting to the device: will the connection only be available with a USB cable, or is wifi/bluetooth a possibility?

The app requires a local network connection from the smart device (your nexus 7) to the computer running calibre. Our assumption is that people will normally use wifi because this is the easiest to set up. Bluetooth PANs should also work, although I have never set one up on an android phone.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Looking forward to this and happy to beta test as well between iMac, Air, SIII and Galaxy Tab 7.7.

[Gunnerp245]

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

..., I've got a fairly large collection of Android devices to test on (including a Honeycomb tablet!) so we'll be able to make sure it's compatible with all devices running one of those versions. ... Thanks all for your interest in the app!

I have an Entourage Edge (EE) with the last 'unofficial' release (2.2).

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by chaley

We are at the point where the messy real world is impinging on my sanitized view of reality.

Question 1: would you prefer that we released ASAP a version that connects as a device but has uno support for the content server, or instead that we wait for a release that supports both device and content server connectivity in the initial version?

+1 for Asap please. Just got my sweet Galaxy Tab 2 a week ago, and a 32gb microsd card yesterday. So I'm all in the mood. Lol
(Speaking of which, will the app let us do this with the microsd card ok? Running into a bugger with some apps.)

Question 2: are any of you running calibre on a traveling computer such as a laptop that connects to public wifi networks that should be considered as not secure?

Not I.

Question 3: do any of you have more than one computer running calibre to which you might want to connect your smart device?

Not I

Thanks in advance.

NB: if the first release is device-only, content server support would be provided later as a free upgrade.

Thank you!

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Hondo1

I have the new Nexus 7 and I'm currently using it on my Mac laptop, which is my main computer, but I'm also running Calibre on an iMac, which I occasionally like to access books from. My database resides on Dropbox, so I'm not sure how that might affect things regarding your new app.

If you are using Dropbox for your Calibre library, then you might want to look into using Calibre2opds as a way of having a Dropbox hosted catalog that does not require Calibre to be running.

[Hondo1]

Originally Posted by itimpi

If you are using Dropbox for your Calibre library, then you might want to look into using Calibre2opds as a way of having a Dropbox hosted catalog that does not require Calibre to be running.

The reason I'm not using Calibre2opds is because I have been reading that that if you put books into the Dropbox public folder (which I believe is where they need to be when using Calibre2opds) that have had DRM in any way stripped, Dropbox will cancel your account. See here for more info:
http://calibre2opds.com/2012/04/30/d...re2opds-users/
I don't have any pirated books in my Calibre library but I do have books that have been stripped of DRM so I can use them on different devices.
If you have any more info on this, could you pass it along?
Thanks.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Hondo1

The reason I'm not using Calibre2opds is because I have been reading that that if you put books into the Dropbox public folder (which I believe is where they need to be when using Calibre2opds) that have had DRM in any way stripped, Dropbox will cancel your account. See here for more info:
http://calibre2opds.com/2012/04/30/d...re2opds-users/
I don't have any pirated books in my Calibre library but I do have books that have been stripped of DRM so I can use them on different devices.
If you have any more info on this, could you pass it along?
Thanks.

I believe that the reason Dave Pierron had trouble was that as well as having copyrighted books in his public folder, he had also widely posted the URL that could be used to access his library. If he had not done that I would be extremely surprised if he had problems. It was this public visibility that resulted in Dropbox being served with DCMA takedown notices, and thus Dropbox deciding to cancel his account.

If you are going to be paranoid, then you should not have copyrighted books ANYWHERE in your DropBox folders - not just the public ones. If you carefully read the Dropbox tems of service the limitation is not just to your Public folder. However if you do not give out your URL for your public folder then it is unlikely that anyone will care.

Calibre2opds also has an option to 'obfusticate' file names for the catalog files so that it would be much harder to 'guess' them. This means even if someone guessed the base URL for your Public folder they would find it difficult to find the catalog files.

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by chaley

We are at the point where the messy real world is impinging on my sanitized view of reality.

Question 1: would you prefer that we released ASAP a version that connects as a device but has no support for the content server, or instead that we wait for a release that supports both device and content server connectivity in the initial version?

Question 2: are any of you running calibre on a traveling computer such as a laptop that connects to public wifi networks that should be considered as not secure?

Question 3: do any of you have more than one computer running calibre to which you might want to connect your smart device?

Thanks in advance.

NB: if the first release is device-only, content server support would be provided later as a free upgrade.

Very Nice... Answers to your questions from my point of view are...
1) Device only is fine for me.
2) Yes. My operating mode was to take my Kindle, and now my Nexus 7 with me while traveling (frequently...) so I use Calibre on both my home and my corporate laptop. While traveling, I am occassionally connected to public networks, but more commonly to hotel networks, which I consider only marginally safer than public networks.
3) Yes, as noted in answer 2.

Many thanks for your efforts on this!

[chaley]

Thanks to all of you who have responded. We very much appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

We are making excellent progress. Our app reliably connects on demand, can add and delete books, and can invoke reader apps. We are now working on UI details, book/folder routing features, etc; and on error handling. What a joy error handing is in networked environments where the connection can disappear at any inconvenient moment.

Regarding laptops and security: we decided to do two things:

1) The calibre smart device driver can be easily started and stopped without going to calibre's device plugin customization. There is now a line in calibre's connect/share menu to do this. Reason: to ensure that no user has the smart device driver running without explicitly enabling it. For this reason the driver ships in the "off" state. It must be turned on, something that is easy to do. When the app fails to find calibre, it will give instructions for how to turn on the calibre driver.

2) If the app finds more than one connection-enabled calibre library (e.g., in an airport), it asks the user which one to use, displaying the name of the computers accepting connections.


Some more info related to security:

• Users who are permanently on networks considered safe can tell calibre to start the driver when calibre starts. From then on, no intervention in calibre is required.
• Users who travel or who are paranoid can start and stop the driver when desired. Doing either one takes 4 clicks.
• The device/calibre connection can optionally be password protected. If calibre has a password, then the user of the app must supply that password.

[Katie1]

When I got my Android Tablet I thought Calibre already worked on it Boy was I wrong! IF You get thei working & it works for my Coby [2.3 OS] I be a Happy Tablet owner! Good-bye PC!

[n7of9]

thank you, i am VERY excited about this...as a user with an 800+ title Calibre library, i was very disappointed when i realised calibre cannot connect to MTP devices

i have some thoughts, if i may?

-paid apps often have greater success when they also have a free counterpart...if you can figure out a way to disable some functionality for a free version and get people using the app, you may find that more will upgrade to the full version...it would also bode well if your app shows 50,000+ free installs as opposed to only 150 paid installs

-metadata - when syncing calibre to a proper ereader (like a Sony) any changes made in calibre after the book was added would also be updated and synced...currently, with no syncing capability for MTP devices, books with changes need to be converted over themselves (i.e. epub to epub) so any metadata changes are saved and visible on the android device...is this something your app may be able to address?

-Aldiko - you mentioned aldiko...though of course it is a very popular android reader app, i would be surprised if many who use calibre would prefer aldiko...when i last tested it, upon importing my books into aldiko it messed up ALL my tags and added a lot of superfluous crap...anyway, that's just an observation and quite off topic

your questions
...Question 1: would you prefer that we released ASAP...
ASAP, always asap content server functionality would be a great added bonus, but this is already achievable via other means*, whereas syncing is not (*i currently have a no-ip setup and access my library via a standard http address, or via my ereader app as a 'net library' - that's just one example)

...Question 2: connects to public wifi ...
no

...Question 3: more than one computer running calibre...
no

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by n7of9

it would also bode well if your app shows 50,000+ free installs as opposed to only 150 paid installs

You may be right but if 50,000 calibre users are willing to try a free version I bet 45,000 will be willing to buy it out right knowing it was created by one of calibre's developers.

Originally Posted by n7of9

-metadata - when syncing calibre to a proper ereader (like a Sony) any changes made in calibre after the book was added would also be updated and synced...currently, with no syncing capability for MTP devices

If I recall correctly there is no syncing for any ereader other than Sony devices (maybe a kobo or two) and I believe chaley was the programmer behind the Sony device integration success. It would be great if that feature could somehow be replicated with one of the reader apps.

Originally Posted by n7of9

books with changes need to be converted over themselves (i.e. epub to epub) so any metadata changes are saved and visible on the android device...

FYI until there is another solution you can use the Modify ePub plugin to update the metadata in a book, a full conversion is no longer the only method to embed the metadata.

[n7of9]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

FYI until there is another solution you can use the Modify ePub plugin to update the metadata in a book, a full conversion is no longer the only method to embed the metadata.

thanks, i'll check that out

[chaley]

Originally Posted by n7of9

-paid apps often have greater success when they also have a free counterpart...if you can figure out a way to disable some functionality for a free version and get people using the app, you may find that more will upgrade to the full version...it would also bode well if your app shows 50,000+ free installs as opposed to only 150 paid installs

We have looked hard at this, over and over. We always end up with the same three thoughts.

1) There aren't very many places where functionality can be limited and still be useful. That leads to the problem that if the base (free) functionality isn't reasonably complete, we will get zillions of 1-star reviews complaining about it. These reviews will do much more harm than not having a limited-function free version.

2) Having a free version that *does* have enough functionality to avoid the negative reviews will turn the paid version into donate-ware. That is not a place we want to be. My son, who is developing the android half of this system, makes his living doing android programming. At this point he can't afford to give away his time.

3) This isn't an app that someone will drive by, see, and try. A person who tries it has a specific problem for which this app is a solution, and there is a good chance that the user will know in advance from the description whether it solves the problem. Furthermore, the app is easy to test within the refund period, which provides a 'sort-of' try before you buy.

-metadata - when syncing calibre to a proper ereader (like a Sony) any changes made in calibre after the book was added would also be updated and synced...currently, with no syncing capability for MTP devices, books with changes need to be converted over themselves (i.e. epub to epub) so any metadata changes are saved and visible on the android device...is this something your app may be able to address?

This is reader app integration. Calibre directly modifies the book database on Sony readers, some Kobo readers, and indirectly the database in iTunes. Our app would need to understand how to do the same thing: directly update the reader app's database or whatever it has that is equivalent, or using any automation interface the reader app might have.

Aldiko has a database that is reasonably simple, which is why it was mentioned as a possibility. We don't know yet what other possibilities we might have. I have spent a little time looking at FBReader's files and haven't yet found anything that would allow us to update a book's metadata apart from updating the book.

Dwanthy's point about modify-epub is a good one. In addition, calibre automatically updates metadata to the extent that it can when a book is sent to the device. For epubs, normally calibre can do a lot, especially when combined with plugboards. Unfortunately neither of these choices permit updating metadata without resending the book, but we can't do anything about that unless we can modify the information that reader app keeps.

Edit: our app will get updated metadata from calibre, which will be used by the app whenever it displays anything. To the extent that our app can serve as a 'director' for a user in place of a reader app, then the user will get many of the benefits of updated metadata. For this to work well, our app would need a good search interface, something that probably won't be in the first release. We would need a "collections" capability, which we haven't yet considered doing. I don't think our app will ever support eye candy like 'wooden bookshelves', and that might be a showstopper for some people. Finally, we will never be able to tie into a book purchase ecosystem such as Amazon's or B&N's.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Comments embedded below and still can't wait to buy this.

Originally Posted by chaley

We have looked hard at this, over and over. We always end up with the same three thoughts.

1) There aren't very many places where functionality can be limited and still be useful. That leads to the problem that if the base (free) functionality isn't reasonably complete, we will get zillions of 1-star reviews complaining about it. These reviews will do much more harm than not having a limited-function free version.

One possibility, although not sure of practicality, would be to limit the number of books that can be synced. Something like 5 would be enough to test and validate functionality, but not enough that your target audience wouldn't want to pay up.

2) Having a free version that *does* have enough functionality to avoid the negative reviews will turn the paid version into donate-ware. That is not a place we want to be. My son, who is developing the android half of this system, makes his living doing android programming. At this point he can't afford to give away his time.

Business realities always have to be a factor and these are valid points.

3) This isn't an app that someone will drive by, see, and try. A person who tries it has a specific problem for which this app is a solution, and there is a good chance that the user will know in advance from the description whether it solves the problem. Furthermore, the app is easy to test within the refund period, which provides a 'sort-of' try before you buy.

Despite my suggestion on a way to limit the app, I think your point is very valid. This is a very specific app with a very specific target audience. It's not likely to attract "drive by" adopters. The refund mechanism is probably sufficient and your suggested price point is low enough to not be a barrier to purchase. I think the bottom line is that if a user needs this, they will buy it and a limited free version might not have much market .

This is reader app integration. Calibre directly modifies the book database on Sony readers, some Kobo readers, and indirectly the database in iTunes. Our app would need to understand how to do the same thing: directly update the reader app's database or whatever it has that is equivalent, or using any automation interface the reader app might have.

Aldiko has a database that is reasonably simple, which is why it was mentioned as a possibility. We don't know yet what other possibilities we might have. I have spent a little time looking at FBReader's files and haven't yet found anything that would allow us to update a book's metadata apart from updating the book.

Dwanthy's point about modify-epub is a good one. In addition, calibre automatically updates metadata to the extent that it can when a book is sent to the device. For epubs, normally calibre can do a lot, especially when combined with plugboards. Unfortunately neither of these choices permit updating metadata without resending the book, but we can't do anything about that unless we can modify the information that reader app keeps.