[GUI Plugin] Reading List

[noahkiss]

Hey Kiwidude, thanks again for this plugin!

I'd like to make a request:

Shortcut for "toggle on[list] list", so that clicking the same shortcut will remove the book if it is currently on the list.

[Lily7]

Hello, having an issue that I can't seem to figure out where I'm going wrong.

I installed this plugin a while back and it's been working exactly as it should so far, including updating my custom Kobo Shelves column when I add/remove books on the reading list.

I am trying to change it so that it updates the default tags column instead, in the configure plugin settings under "Column Update Options", I changed the column to the tags column, but it's not updating said tags, even when I add new ones to the reading list. How do I fix it? Thanks!

Edit: Now it's not adding to the Kobo Shelves column either, after I switched it back. I deleted it from Calibre entirely and re-installed it, and that did not solve the issue.

UPDATE: I figured out the issue, in case anyone searches this forum because they are having the same issue: I forgot to fill in the value for the tag column. Entirely my fault lol

[igorius]

Hello!
I installed reading list a while ago, but didnt use it. Now i wanted to give a try, due to the "auto send to device". So i added my books to a new created reading list, which resulted that every single metadata.opf was touched. So far so ... good?
But then things got strange. I added a new book to calibre and added the book to my reading list. And i saw that every single metadata.opf was touched again.
Here my question: Is that a bug or is it part of the game? When its intended, so why every .opf? That seems to be unnecessary.
How i saw this? I am backing up the library via rsync, so i noticed the change of the files. And as a bad side-effect its extremely slow, so changing all .opf needs round about 2 days. Because only between 10 and maybe 30 files are touched within 3 to 5 minutes. I have a script which is starting the rsync now every 5 minutes (i started with 90 seconds and then in several steps changed to the mentioned 5 minutes.) But the amount of files which get touched doesnt grow with higher pause times.

So at the moment i removed reading list from my installation to clear up that behaviour.

So please could the maintainer of the plugin clear that up?
Thanks a lot!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by igorius

Hello!
I installed reading list a while ago, but didnt use it. Now i wanted to give a try, due to the "auto send to device". So i added my books to a new created reading list, which resulted that every single metadata.opf was touched. So far so ... good?
But then things got strange. I added a new book to calibre and added the book to my reading list. And i saw that every single metadata.opf was touched again.
Here my question: Is that a bug or is it part of the game? When its intended, so why every .opf? That seems to be unnecessary.
How i saw this? I am backing up the library via rsync, so i noticed the change of the files. And as a bad side-effect its extremely slow, so changing all .opf needs round about 2 days. Because only between 10 and maybe 30 files are touched within 3 to 5 minutes. I have a script which is starting the rsync now every 5 minutes (i started with 90 seconds and then in several steps changed to the mentioned 5 minutes.) But the amount of files which get touched doesnt grow with higher pause times.

So at the moment i removed reading list from my installation to clear up that behaviour.

So please could the maintainer of the plugin clear that up?
Thanks a lot!

How do you know that the metadata.opf files are being touched by the Reading List plugin? How are they being touched? Is something being added to the contents? If so, what is it?

I've just added and removed some books from my default list and not a single metadata.opf belonging to those books was touched. The time/dates are the same as before using Reading List. Also, I've looked at the contents of some and I see nothing added to the contents.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by igorius

How i saw this? I am backing up the library via rsync, so i noticed the change of the files. And as a bad side-effect its extremely slow, so changing all .opf needs round about 2 days. Because only between 10 and maybe 30 files are touched within 3 to 5 minutes.

Perhaps kiwidude will contradict me, but to the best of my knowledge, and confirmed in some basic testing, a book's metadata.opf file on disk is only touched by RL when changing a Reading List also updates updates a column for that book.

And Reading List doesn't queue up any background processing or anything--if it was RL touching all those files that slowly, it would be hanging.

Are you sure it wasn't Calibre's Full Text Search or the Library maintenance function 'Backup metadata files'?

Unrelatedly, kiwidude, I noticed while looking at this that the default list name is explicitly shown in the RL menu for most options, but not Remove:

            std_name = _('Add to default list')
            unq_name = 'Add to default list'
            if is_default_list_manual:
                self.add_action = create_menu_action_unique(self, m, _('Add to %s list') % default_list_name,
                                                      image='plus.png', unique_name=unq_name,
                                                      shortcut_name=std_name, favourites_menu_unique_name=std_name,
                                                      triggered=partial(self._add_selected_to_list, default_list_name))

# ...

            std_name = _('Remove from default list')
            unq_name = 'Remove from default list'
            if is_default_list_manual:
                self.remove_action = create_menu_action_unique(self, m, std_name, # XXX no default_list_name XXX
                                                         image='minus.png', unique_name=unq_name,
                                                         shortcut_name=std_name, favourites_menu_unique_name=std_name,
                                                         triggered=partial(self._remove_selected_from_list, default_list_name))

Is that difference intentional?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by igorius

Hello!
I installed reading list a while ago, but didnt use it. Now i wanted to give a try, due to the "auto send to device". So i added my books to a new created reading list, which resulted that every single metadata.opf was touched. So far so ... good?
But then things got strange. I added a new book to calibre and added the book to my reading list. And i saw that every single metadata.opf was touched again.
Here my question: Is that a bug or is it part of the game? When its intended, so why every .opf? That seems to be unnecessary.
How i saw this? I am backing up the library via rsync, so i noticed the change of the files. And as a bad side-effect its extremely slow, so changing all .opf needs round about 2 days. Because only between 10 and maybe 30 files are touched within 3 to 5 minutes. I have a script which is starting the rsync now every 5 minutes (i started with 90 seconds and then in several steps changed to the mentioned 5 minutes.) But the amount of files which get touched doesnt grow with higher pause times.

So at the moment i removed reading list from my installation to clear up that behaviour.

So please could the maintainer of the plugin clear that up?
Thanks a lot!

It was probably caused by creating a custom column.

[igorius]

To clear up: Since the removement of reading list the library-folder is quiet. I didnt have that changes of the .opf before. The reading list was created last week, i told that i think the changes were done by creating the list. After the first creation of that list i added books and didnt add them to the reading list, everything was quiet. But at teh moment i added 2 books to the reading list, everything began changing again.
I dont have Full text search option activated, so thats not the cause. Full text search is activated with another library, there nothing was added or removed.
I cant tell what was changed at the .opf, i didnt look before and after in this files.

[kiwidude]

@igorius - others have already pointed out what your problem most likely was which you havent mentioned - custom columns. Reading List doesn't do things that change the opf files across your library - but manipulating custom column values will. And if you setup a rule about setting some column value when adding to a reading list then you will undoubtedly see a change resulting - but at that point it will only for the books being added to the list.

Reading List is not to "blame" here.

@JimmXinu - I will take a look at that, can't answer off top of my head but thanks for taking a look. Im not even sure what that defaultListName stuff is now (might even have been a DavidFor thing or just in long past I can't remember)

[Comfy.n]

I won't be able to describe clearly how this happened, unfortunately, but I remember vaguely I've had a similar experience where I may have clicked inadvertently the button "Queue all books for backup" in menu Library -> Library Maintenance -> Library metadata backup. Picture this happening on a large library: that can run for days and it seems there's no way to stop it.

One has to be very inattentive to hit such a far down button in the menu structure, but sometimes I can be very scatterbrained. Or maybe it was just me changing some custom columns and that can trigger the metadata backup process?

If I recall correctly, I had to use a metadata.db backup to have Calibre running fine again. This happened about 4 months ago. Also, one thing I'm sure is that I wasn't fiddling with RL plugin at that time.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

I won't be able to describe clearly how this happened, unfortunately, but I remember vaguely I've had a similar experience where I may have clicked inadvertently the button "Queue all books for backup" in menu Library -> Library Maintenance -> Library metadata backup. Picture this happening on a large library: that can run for days and it seems there's no way to stop it.

One has to be very inattentive to hit such a far down button in the menu structure, but sometimes I can be very scatterbrained. Or maybe it was just me changing some custom columns and that can trigger the metadata backup process?

If I recall correctly, I had to use a metadata.db backup to have Calibre running fine again. This happened about 4 months ago. Also, one thing I'm sure is that I wasn't fiddling with RL plugin at that time.

Note that you can speed up the process by using calibredb backup_metadata [options] when calibre isn't running. This command updates the OPF files at disk speed instead of 1 OPF every 2 seconds or so. For example, on my system a full OPF backup of a 75000 book library took 11 minutes

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by chaley

This command updates the OPF files at disk speed instead of 1 OPF every 2 seconds or so. For example, on my system a full OPF backup of a 75000 book library took 11 minutes

That's good to know, thanks. I had never noticed OPF updating in the background until that day, really, so I presume I did something wrong at that time.

[igorius]

@kiwidude: Thanks for clearing up the facts! I didnt want to "blame", whatever it means. I am sorry, that wasnt my intention!

@Comfy.n: Greatest tip ever!!!! I added the metadata-backup to my script as option for future changes of columns, everything goes right now.

@chaley: "This command updates the OPF files at disk speed instead of 1 OPF every 2 seconds or so. For example, on my system a full OPF backup of a 75000 book library took 11 minutes"
Thanks too for your info!

The whole internal backup after changing the column seems it wasnt finished even after 2 days...

Everything answered by you!

[BetterRed]

FTR: the GUI version of metadata backup will run across multiple calibre sessions, and you can use the command version to finish off what was started in the GUI.

BR