[Old Thread] Calibre + Dropbox = unclouded happiness

[rcuadro]

Originally Posted by dpierron

Maybe it's because none of your file paths contain spaces ?

Oh they do but, thanks to your little writeup it has now been possible to use the iPhone/Stanza integration I have enjoyed with the Kindle/iPhone/Amazon
I will take what I can get for the time being and I will patiently wait for the issue to be resolved

[kjk]

Originally Posted by mores

What are "cron jobs"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron

Basically scheduled tasks that run to take care of stuff automatically.

[rcuadro]

Originally Posted by tlrowley

Forgive me you already know this, but the newer versions of the Calibre server detect the mobile browser of the Kindle. I'm able to download all my non-Amazon books (I also store the Amazon ones, too), directly to my Kindle. Searching/sorting all works - it's fabulous!!

It's not Dropbox, since you have to keep your own computer running, but it works great. I do use Dropbox, too - I keep my library on my laptop synced (via Dropbox) to the iMac that we use as our server.

I am used to putting my iMac to sleep after I am done using it so the server solution does not work for me.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by mores

What are "cron jobs"?

Unixism...

The cron daemon is a long-running process that executes commands at specific dates and times. You can use this to schedule activities, either as one-time events or as recurring tasks.

[Devon]

Thank you for the DropBox info. I set up my Calibre file in DropBox and it works great syncing my two macs. The Problem I have is while the files sync, Calibre doesn't. Is there a way to refresh the book list so it shows the new files?

[cklammer]

Originally Posted by mores

What are "cron jobs"?

cron jobs are a way of starting programs and shell command scripts/ batch scripts on (originally) Unix and Linux operating systems and (now also) Windows environments like CygWin or U/Win. Windows though has it's own tools like that since about Windows NT 3.5 - they are called the Windows Scheduling service ...

And I hope you don't mind me saying: Google before you ask ...

cklammer

[mores]

Originally Posted by cklammer

And I hope you don't mind me saying: Google before you ask ...

I hope you don't mind me making you feel stupid by informing you that I already knew the answer to the question you spent so long answering.
I was trying to support dpierron's assessment that not everyone knows what a cron job is, let alone how to set one up. That's what the semi-hidden sentence underneath was for, the one you edited out when you quoted me.

Can I give negative charma?

Thanks to the other guys answering the question without bitching.
And I apologize for the question - I seem to have wasted a lot of resources across the globe with this failed attempt at humor.

[dpierron]

Guys, guys, peace on Earth...

I think that scheduling cron jobs is a bit ahead of a lot of people, with or without Google's explanations...

That was the point I was trying to make with Kovid, to convince him that it would be better to automate this within the Calibre GUI.

But, back to the original subject, Devon I'm sorry but I don't understand your question clearly enough to answer ; would you be so kind as to reformulate it, please ?

[Ortep]

For the people that don't use Dropbox, this is also possible with Microsoft Live Mesh ( www.mesh.com ). Simply sync the Calibre library folder on all PC's in your mesh and everyting is available everywhere within seconds. You can also find your data on any PC with an internet connection.

It is a free service with 5 Gig of webspace. That should be enough for a couple of books.

[stustaff]

can anyone help?

im on a mac and wondering if i can use my .mac account to do something similiar but i dont really understand whats happening? but teh end result sounds good.

I have a .mac account an iphone and numerous macs and one PC

i know I can have a public area on my .mac account that I can link to??

Make it public.
iDisk includes a Public folder that makes working with others easy. Just add the files you want to share and your friends and coworkers can access them using any web browser. They can download any file in your Public folder to make changes and post their own files, too.

Share large files.
Sharing files too big to email as attachments is a snap with iDisk. Just upload what you want to share, choose your recipients, and iDisk sends them an email with a link to download the file. You can assign a password to keep your files secure and even set the number of days the download link is available.

Space available.
Your MobileMe membership includes 20GB of storage space for all your email, photos, files, and more. Put in perspective, 20GB of space is enough to store nearly 7000 high-quality photos. You can tell MobileMe how much of your 20GB to allocate to Mail and how much to your iDisk. However you split it up, rest assured you’ll have plenty of space to store what’s important to you.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by stustaff

can anyone help?

im on a mac and wondering if i can use my .mac account to do something similiar but i dont really understand whats happening? but teh end result sounds good.

I don't know about .mac, but dropbox is free - so you wouldn't need to use your .mac account.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by dpierron

I'm pretty sure a lot of people here know Dropbox, the (free at first) file sharing and synchronization service...

I use it to sync the files on my two Macs, and my work PC ; it's a very easy to use and efficient service.

Recently, I began syncing my Calibre library, so the books I edit/add/remove on either machine would be available on all the others ; Calibre is a multi-platform marvel, so this syncing makes a lot of sense.

And I thought of something : if I generate the stanza.xml file from the Calibre database (using the calibre-db command), maybe it could be automatically accessible from my iPhone, now that the whole Calibre library is synchronized and available on my Dropbox account ?

Guess what ? It works ! Unfortunately, it's still a manual process, but I'm pretty sure it could be possible for our generous Kovid to change it into something automatic...

Briliant idea! I've already had my db file in my dropbox account for a while - now I only need an iPhone

[halljames]

I can get this to almost work. I can browse my catalogue, but no images appear and I can't download any of the books either?

I am only using calibre 0.6.13 as I didnt want to upgrade to the latest version because of it supposedly breaking the stanza thing.

[dpierron]

halljames : that's because the links in the stanza.xml file are broken, Calibre uses a function called urlencode to convert special characters in these links, and Stanza does not understand all of them (I'm pretty sure it's a Stanza bug). You need to manually edit the file, and replace all occurences of '%28' with '(' and '%29' with ')' (with no quotes, obviously), given that you use a version anterior to 6.0.24 (which breaks this, unfortunately, due to my bad explanation of the problem to Kovid, sorry)

stustaff : I'm not sure about Mobile Me, but I guess that if you can share the files in a folder of your Mac to a public directory of your iDisk, then all you need is to find out the (public) URL (address) of your stanza.xml file, and replace the DropBox addresses in my explanation with it. Feel free to email me privately if you want some help (dpierron at gmail dot com)

[halljames]

Thanks for your help.

I have upgraded to calibre 0.6.23 but it still wouldnt work, and I was manualy editing the fille to replace the brackets.

However, I have got it working perfectly with all images and book downloads and it turned out that the problem was in my batch file. I change the original command you gave in your post to the following :

calibredb list --output-format stanza --prefix http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/788541/calibre_library > stanza.xml

Notice I removed the single quotes from arround the http link. That was causing it to fall over as the href produced in the xml file had extra single quotes in it.

Well done though, what a fantastic way of getting a mobile book library.