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Old 10-05-2013, 01:06 PM   #1
testrider
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Calibre Companion - can I edit tag?

Hi,
I'm wondering if there is a way to edit the tag of a book on the device and then sync it back to Calibre?

The reason I ask is (may be I'm wrong, as I'm new to Calibre):

my work flow is:

1) put all my ebooks in a single directory
2) add these books to Calibre
3) send these books to CC on the Android
4) read on the Android

5) when I get a new eBook, add it to the directory in (1)
5a) send all books in (1) to device again to get the new book(s) on the device (easier to send all, instead of pick and choose the new ones)


What I can't figure out is how do I keep track which ones I finished reading and therefore sync back to Calibre? I like to be able to see which ones I read in Calibre. So what I thought is to add a tag 'Read' in CC after I'm done with a book, then next time when I sync it back, these books will have a tag 'Read' on Calibre's side. Does this make sense? If not, how do I keep track of finished books? (Let's say I put 100 books on my device, take it on vacation, read 40 of them and I like to tag these 40 as 'Read' in Calibre when I come back home?)

Thank you!
mike

PS: I use Moon+ Reader to read. I changed the tag in M+R but it did not get sent back to Calibre
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Old 10-05-2013, 01:15 PM   #2
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What I did was create a new Library "Books Read" .
After I have read a book in Calibre Library I send it to "Books Read" and at same time delete it from my main library.
Hope this helps.
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Old 10-05-2013, 01:59 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bompa65 View Post
What I did was create a new Library "Books Read" .
After I have read a book in Calibre Library I send it to "Books Read" and at same time delete it from my main library.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply. It sounds like you read in Calibre. I read on the Android device with Moon Reader and I'm not sure how to sync them back to Calibre so I know which I finished... (I'm assuming I read a lot of books on the Android before I go back to Calibre so I can't do it one by one)
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Old 10-05-2013, 08:07 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by testrider View Post
I'm wondering if there is a way to edit the tag of a book on the device and then sync it back to Calibre?
Not currently. Though the ability to mark a book read in Calibre Companion and have that update calibre upon connection of the device to calibre my be something being worked on by the developer.

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Originally Posted by testrider View Post
5a) send all books in (1) to device again to get the new book(s) on the device (easier to send all, instead of pick and choose the new ones)
This might be fine when you have a dozen books but sending all of the books will quickly become insane. Use the Reading List plugin. You can add new books to the default list and the next time you connect your device these new books will be sent automatically to your device.

Quote:
Originally Posted by testrider View Post
What I can't figure out is how do I keep track which ones I finished reading and therefore sync back to Calibre? I like to be able to see which ones I read in Calibre. So what I thought is to add a tag 'Read' in CC after I'm done with a book, then next time when I sync it back, these books will have a tag 'Read' on Calibre's side. Does this make sense?
It does make sense but calibre currently doesn't work that way so there is a lot of behind the scenes coding that would need to be done in calibre and in Calibre Companion. As indicated I do believe this functionality is on CC's developers To Do list.

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Originally Posted by testrider View Post
If not, how do I keep track of finished books? (Let's say I put 100 books on my device, take it on vacation, read 40 of them and I like to tag these 40 as 'Read' in Calibre when I come back home?)
Currently you open calibre, select the 40 books, open edit metadata and add the Read tag to all 40 books at once. The next time you connect to CC the books will be updated to include the Read tag.

I use a custom column and when I open the book details page in CC there is a checkmark indicating the book has been read. Also I can view all Read or unread books in a group by making a group from a custom column in CC (look in settings).

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Originally Posted by testrider View Post
PS: I use Moon+ Reader to read. I changed the tag in M+R but it did not get sent back to Calibre
I use Moon+ Reader too. There is no integration between Moon+ and calibre.

Last edited by DoctorOhh; 10-05-2013 at 08:11 PM.
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Old 10-06-2013, 12:01 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorOhh View Post
Not currently. Though the ability to mark a book read in Calibre Companion and have that update calibre upon connection of the device to calibre may be something being worked on by the developer.
I sure hope so

Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorOhh View Post
This might be fine when you have a dozen books but sending all of the books will quickly become insane. Use the Reading List plugin. You can add new books to the default list and the next time you connect your device these new books will be sent automatically to your device.
I d/l and installed the Reading List plugin and played with it a little bit. I'm still not sure how to make use of it...


Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorOhh View Post
It does make sense but calibre currently doesn't work that way so there is a lot of behind the scenes coding that would need to be done in calibre and in Calibre Companion. As indicated I do believe this functionality is on CC's developers To Do list.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorOhh View Post
Currently you open calibre, select the 40 books, open edit metadata and add the Read tag to all 40 books at once. The next time you connect to CC the books will be updated to include the Read tag.

I use a custom column and when I open the book details page in CC there is a checkmark indicating the book has been read. Also I can view all Read or unread books in a group by making a group from a custom column in CC (look in settings).
It's this step that I thought there ought to be some automated way. Otherwise, after I got home, I have to:

- open Calibre
- run M+Reader on the device. List all books that were tagged with 'READ' while I was on vacation
- visually and manually checked off one by one in Calibre
- then either send these newly 'tagged' books back to CC (so CC will get the new tag) or have Calibre removed them from the device. Again, manually and carefully because there are other books in Calibre that were previously tagged with 'READ' that are not part of this batch

See how tedious it is? This is what I like to avoid doing manually

Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorOhh View Post

I use Moon+ Reader too. There is no integration between Moon+ and calibre.
I thought when I used MR to read a book and changed its tag, the tag went back into the metadata in the same epub file that CC keeps, then when CC sent metadata back to Calibre, Calibre would get it. I tried it and it did not happen.



Thank you for your comments. Appreciate it.
mike
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Old 10-06-2013, 02:20 AM   #6
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No changes made by a reading app to an ebook will make it back to calibre companion. CC ignores the metadata inside the book, instead getting the metadata from calibre.

You can tell Reading List to send books on a list to a device when that device connects. Instead of sending all books every time, you would add new books to RL's send-to list when you add them to calibre and let it remember for you.

DoctorOhh is correct, we are working on adding a "Read" checkbox to CC to compliment the already-existing read date. There will be a way to sync that checkbox with a calibre yes/no custom column, handling the "changed on both sides" problem probably by saying that changes on calibre win. CC's read date will be connectable to a calibre date-type custom column. I haven't yet decided if this will handle the both-sides problem or whether the CC date will always overwrite the value in calibre. I expect that these features will be part of the next prerelease cycle that I expect will start in November. General availability will depend on feedback from the tests.
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Old 10-06-2013, 02:43 AM   #7
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I know I wrote a response to post 5 a couple of hours ago. I guess I should have clicked on the submit button.

Quote:
Originally Posted by testrider View Post
then either send these newly 'tagged' books back to CC (so CC will get the new tag) or have Calibre removed them from the device.
FYI, there is no need to resend books to update the metadata in CC. When you connect CC to calibre any new metadata (such as tags) gets sent to CC automatically.

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Originally Posted by testrider View Post
I thought when I used MR to read a book and changed its tag, the tag went back into the metadata in the same epub file
You thought wrong. Moon+ Reader does not update the metadata in the book only in its database.

Good news. As chaley pointed out a solution to your request is in the works.
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Old 10-06-2013, 09:54 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chaley View Post
No changes made by a reading app to an ebook will make it back to calibre companion. CC ignores the metadata inside the book, instead getting the metadata from calibre.

You can tell Reading List to send books on a list to a device when that device connects. Instead of sending all books every time, you would add new books to RL's send-to list when you add them to calibre and let it remember for you.

DoctorOhh is correct, we are working on adding a "Read" checkbox to CC to compliment the already-existing read date. There will be a way to sync that checkbox with a calibre yes/no custom column, handling the "changed on both sides" problem probably by saying that changes on calibre win. CC's read date will be connectable to a calibre date-type custom column. I haven't yet decided if this will handle the both-sides problem or whether the CC date will always overwrite the value in calibre. I expect that these features will be part of the next prerelease cycle that I expect will start in November. General availability will depend on feedback from the tests.
Thank you Chaley, things are becoming clearer for me now. I start to have an idea of the workflow . I just started to use Calibre more seriously a few days ago and bought CC 2 days ago (while I had Calibre for a long time but I used it only as a tool to convert between book formats, not as a book management tool).

I'm not aware of the 'read date'. Is this on CC's side? I'll check it out.

May be you just let CC freely changes any metadata and sync them all back to Calibre?

I can't wait for the new features.
Thank you again!

mike
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Old 10-06-2013, 11:00 AM   #9
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I'm not aware of the 'read date'. Is this on CC's side? I'll check it out.
Yes, it is on CC's side. It is set whenever you use CC to open a book with a reader app. You can sort by it to see the library in read-date order.
Quote:
May be you just let CC freely changes any metadata and sync them all back to Calibre?
If I could do it that simply I would. Unfortunately there are many complications ranging from changing calibre to permit it (currently its design does not permit devices to change metadata) through handling and syncing simultaneous change to coming up with an acceptable UI given the various calibre metadata types. Our current plans are to do only the read checkbox.
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Old 10-06-2013, 12:46 PM   #10
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Thank you Chaley. I knew it couldn't be that easy or you already implemented it :-)
We'll be happy to have just the 'read' box.
Mike
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:06 PM   #11
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May be you just let CC freely changes any metadata and sync them all back to Calibre?
Quote:
Originally Posted by chaley View Post
If I could do it that simply I would. Unfortunately there are many complications ranging from changing calibre to permit it (currently its design does not permit devices to change metadata) through handling and syncing simultaneous change to coming up with an acceptable UI given the various calibre metadata types. Our current plans are to do only the read checkbox.
I know this is a bit of a topic necro but since I'm commenting on the desirability of a hard-to-implement feature that's probably not going to happen, I figure it's not worth its own new thread. I am sadly aware that "Gosh I wish you would do [very hard thing] because it would be awesome" isn't the sort of feedback that makes software designers feel warm and fuzzy. But even so:

Gosh I wish it were possible/practical/reasonable to implement remote editing of metadata into the Calibre/CC ecosystem.

I have used Calibre to manage my ebook library since I got my very first 2nd-gen Kindle a rather long time ago. It's awesome. However I only just now got gifted a mobile device (Kindle Fire) that's capable of using Calibre Companion. It was the first app I bought, because it's an obvious necessity for my purposes.

And of course I love it. But my overall workflow in dealing with ebooks is that I tend to have lots of them hanging around in Calibre at any given time that need a ton of work on their metadata. Whereas I use my tablet during "dead time" in public (hospital waiting rooms and such) to read and goof off. But if I had an app that let me connect to my content library and do the equivalent of "edit metadata individually" I could work on improving my metadata during all that "out in public" time.

I know that CC is not currently that app, and I understand it probably can't become that app until and unless Calibre is changed to accept remote input (which is self-evidently a big ball of worms). I'm not enough of a programmer to contribute materially to those efforts. So I'll have to content myself with the not very useful "that's a feature that would be awesome".

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Old 12-19-2015, 05:16 AM   #12
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@Forkbeard: bad news and good news.

The bad news is that all of the original issues with letting CC edit metadata are still there, plus the ones that come from the cloud connection. I am not going down this road.

The good news is that Kovid has been working for months on a read/write interface to the calibre content server, providing a much more calibre-like user experience. This new interface should let you edit book metadata to your heart's content without fear of DB corruption, the consistency problems that come with delayed update, or the performance problems that would come with a device-driver implementation. Once updated via the content server you could either download the book/metadata from the content server or later connect as a wireless device to update what is in CC.

To my knowledge Kovid doesn't have a planned release date for the new content server. He is actively working on it and has said that it will be in "calibre version 3", so I suspect that we won't wait years.
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Old 12-25-2015, 10:09 AM   #13
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Chaley, thanks!

I am in awe of the tireless updates Kovid and collaborators have been providing for so many years. This one sounds very much worth the wait.

I appreciate your feedback. Keep up the great work!
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