[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[theducks]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That's not a typo. That's bad English. And one of the reasons I am a programmer.

YOU have an excuse (programmer ). What about all those 'Authors' that get it wrong (Words I discovered out of context, as being incorrect. I am not counting some words that might be correct for local usage)

Thanks for all your efforts (with or without proper spelling)

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by theducks

YOU have an excuse (programmer ). What about all those 'Authors' that get it wrong (Words I discovered out of context, as being incorrect. I am not counting some words that might be correct for local usage)

There's a reason I think of our province's main newspaper as the Chronically Horrible:



Not like that's a front-page headline, guys!

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That's not a typo. That's bad English. And one of the reasons I am a programmer.

Now if we used the IPA for written English, all these petty irrelevances would be exposed for what they are - /tuː/ unimportant /tuː/ worry about

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Now if we used the IPA for written English, all these petty irrelevances would be exposed for what they are - /tuː/ unimportant /tuː/ worry about

Sorry, for me, IPA is a kind of beer

[ownedbycats]

Really? I thought it was the International Polka Association.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Sorry, for me, IPA is a kind of beer

India Pale will do if a dark Ale is not on tap

[ownedbycats]

By the way, now that the Edit ToC function is in place, updating my fanfics goes pretty smoothly. Here's my method:

1. When finished an in-progress fanfic, stop on the last page and return to the menu. Connect Kobo and run Mark as Read on Device action chain:
   • Template to increment #kobobookmark by one and reset spans.
   • Set #read:true and #percentread:100
   • Restore bookmark (including reading status) to Kobo.
   This marks it as read on the device.
2. Fanfic is updated! Hooray! So now I run the Send to Device action chain:
   • Check that #fanficstatus is 'in-progress' and #percentread is 100. If it is, set #percentread:99%.
   • Either send to device or add to the 'send to device' reading list.'
3. When the book is on the device, then run the Update Fanfic on Device action chain:
   • Update ToC for book.
   • Update reading status so it appears as currently reading on device.
   • Re-upload covers (mostly because I re-generate covers based on the fanfic status).

When this is finished, I can open up my updated fanfic and it'll start on the new chapter.

Aside from accidentally trying to run my chain while the book is still in the process of sending I've had no problems with it.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

By the way, now that the Edit ToC function is in place, updating my fanfics goes pretty smoothly. Here's my method:

1. When finished an in-progress fanfic, stop on the last page and return to the menu. Connect Kobo and run Mark as Read on Device action chain:
   • Template to increment #kobobookmark by one and reset spans.
   • Set #read:true and #percentread:100
   • Restore bookmark (including reading status) to Kobo.
   This marks it as read on the device.

For me, I leave the book on the last page, and then remove it from the home screen. It will show up in the "Reading" list on the device, but, not occupy space on the home screen.

You could also just set the percent read to 100 and restore that. That should have it open to the last page if you do open it.

1. Fanfic is updated! Hooray! So now I run the Send to Device action chain:
   • Check that #fanficstatus is 'in-progress' and #percentread is 100. If it is, set #percentread:99%.
   • Either send to device or add to the 'send to device' reading list.'

Have you considered doing the #bookmark update here as part of this? Doing it in the previous change seems to be premature. You don't know that the book will be updated but yet you have set the current chapter to the next one and that doesn't exist. Doing it here means that it is a valid location to read from.

1. When the book is on the device, then run the Update Fanfic on Device action chain:
   • Update ToC for book.
   • Update reading status so it appears as currently reading on device.
   • Re-upload covers (mostly because I re-generate covers based on the fanfic status).

Aside from accidentally trying to run my chain while the book is still in the process of sending I've had no problems with it.

I have updated the ToC updater to give an error if there is a device job running. And I will be adding it to other functions where that could cause a problem. I think that will include the reading status restore.

Checking this isn't hard. The code the plugin calls is:

self.gui.job_manager.has_device_jobs(queued_also=True)

I haven't looked at the Actions Chains plugin enough to know if the above would be accessible. It probably needs a template function.

And I was sort of thinking of adding a "set reading location to first new chapter" for FFF produced books. But, something like what you are doing should work well.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For me, I leave the book on the last page, and then remove it from the home screen. It will show up in the "Reading" list on the device, but, not occupy space on the home screen.

I use the "currently reading" filter in My Books on my device, so I prefer to hide it entirely.

Originally Posted by davidfor

Have you considered doing the #bookmark update here as part of this? Doing it in the previous change seems to be premature.

If I do, it'll also affect in-progresses that I've only partially read. I've done this for a while now and the only issue is re-opening the book on the device early just jumps back to the beginning.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I use the "currently reading" filter in My Books on my device, so I prefer to hide it entirely.

I can understand that. If I don't think are going to be finished, I complete them so they disappear.

If I do, it'll also affect in-progresses that I've only partially read. I've done this for a while now and the only issue is re-opening the book on the device early just jumps back to the beginning.

I meant just the change in bookmark location. Setting the percent read to 100 at that point I understand. But, it looks like you are updating it to a chapter that does not exist, and might never exist. At least, that is what I think "Template to increment #kobobookmark by one and reset spans." means. As you push that back to the device, if you open the book, it will probably open at the start. Which loses your location. It is not that much of a worry as you send the reading status after the book is updated, it just feels premature.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I meant just the change in bookmark location. Setting the percent read to 100 at that point I understand. But, it looks like you are updating it to a chapter that does not exist, and might never exist.

Yes that's a risk. I have 15 in-progresses on my device that are waiting on their next update.

Originally Posted by davidfor

At least, that is what I think "Template to increment #kobobookmark by one and reset spans." means. As you push that back to the device, if you open the book, it will probably open at the start.

Here's the template specifically:

program:
	input = field('#kobobookmark');
	a = re(input, '^OEBPS/file(\d{4})(\.xhtml.*$)', '\1');
 	strcat('OEBPS/file', format_number(add(a, 1), '04d'), '.xhtml#kobo.1.1')

So OEBPS/file0009.xhtml#kobo.1132.2 will become OEBPS/file0010.xhtml#kobo.1.1 even if chapter 10 doesn't exist yet.

If I open the book again before it's updated, it will open the book at the beginning. But I rarely need to do that; if I want to reference the fic again I tend to just use ebook-viewer for that.

I don't run this when updating the ToC because I have some in-progresses that get updates when I'm still only partway through them. So I put it into the specific "I am waiting for the next chapter of this fanfic" mark as read on device chain. (I don't need to run the chain for regular books. I can just finish them normally on the device.)

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, for some reason calibre wasn't seeing the books. There might have been an error that was being trapped and not raised higher. Whatever the cause, the log would have told me what was happening, so I might have been able to see where it was going wrong. And sometimes I'm just curious to see what is happening.

It happened again that calibre lost sync with my Kobo Clara HD. This is what the communication error reported:

Spoiler:

[Errno 22] Invalid argument

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 89, in run
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 545, in _sync_booklists
File "calibre\devices\kobo\driver.py", line 978, in sync_booklists
File "calibre\devices\usbms\driver.py", line 457, in sync_booklists
File "calibre\devices\usbms\driver.py", line 455, in write_prefix
File "calibre\ebooks\metadata\book\json_codec.py", line 139, in encode_to_file
OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument

Thereafter I did a debug calibre session and got the attached output (minus WIPED parts). Perhaps it makes some sense.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

It happened again that calibre lost sync with my Kobo Clara HD. This is what the communication error reported:

Spoiler:

[Errno 22] Invalid argument

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 89, in run
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 545, in _sync_booklists
File "calibre\devices\kobo\driver.py", line 978, in sync_booklists
File "calibre\devices\usbms\driver.py", line 457, in sync_booklists
File "calibre\devices\usbms\driver.py", line 455, in write_prefix
File "calibre\ebooks\metadata\book\json_codec.py", line 139, in encode_to_file
OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument

Thereafter I did a debug calibre session and got the attached output (minus WIPED parts). Perhaps it makes some sense.

That is an interesting spot to have an error. It is not actually in the Kobo related code, but where calibre is writing the "metadata.calibre" file. And, if I have the meaning of Errno 22 correct, there is no data to write. And I do not see how that could happen without an earlier error.

When this error does not happen, how big is the "metadata.calibre" file on the device?

[DrChiper]

Firstly, I discovered that the problem is in the USB-connector on the Clara. I obviously used it too much (connecting/disconnecting cables) and now it fails most of the time. That's the reason for the spurious communication errors, even when calibre is not involved.

That said, when the connection is ok, calibre still refuses to find (and sync) the books on the Clara (Clara DB is OK, calibre DB is ok), which is strange.

Originally Posted by davidfor

When this error does not happen, how big is the "metadata.calibre" file on the device?

It is about (at this moment) around 368Kb

I did a complete factory reset and placed a minimal set of books on the Clara to see what happens during a communication problem. Calibe reports that communication error, but never is able to resync: also when explicitly using the "Refresh the list of books on the device" option. I tried to remove "metadata.calibre" file to let it regenerate itself, still no books "on device" according calibre. Well at least in most cases because once in a while it finds and reports some books on the device, but not all.

When I add (after a communication error) a new book to the Clara, it is reported as "on device". Is there a new communication problem, that newly added book is also not reported "on device" anymore.

I can understand that when writing a book to the Clare and a communication error happening can lead to loosing that books registration. But the out of sync also happens just when connected to calibre without updating actions (or is meta data then written to the Clara DB?)

Anyway, IMHO I can understand that new updates during communication errors will fail and will fail to be reported on the device. I cannot understand that other (untouched) books are also failing to be found.

[DrChiper]

Ok, I discovered that the USB connection also produced EventID 51 warnings on my Windows 10 machine, with: "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\DR66 during a paging operation." This is an indication of a possible failing disk within the Clara.

I did had a clone image of the original microSD, and replaced that with a different microSD: no success, same errors. So perhaps the internal circuitry is failing. Connecting an USB cable makes the display now also flicker with "device detected". It is getting worse, and beyond my capabilities.

As the Clara still is under warranty, I did send it back for "repairs". We will see what they come up with