Getting My eBook Act Together - Finally

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Around line 1388 for the dbversion and around line 1445 for USB IDs in the driver used in calibre 7.4.0.

Do you want a detailed tutorial on how to make the changes as well?

Thanks. I'll have a look and see how I get on.

[John F]

Originally Posted by John F

I guess it depends on what you consider "break". Maybe not calibre itself, but when a new model Kobo comes out, doesn't the plugin need to be updated to get the full plugin functionality?

Originally Posted by DNSB

Nope. If you check the Attempt to support newer firmware box on the Metadata, on device & advanced tab for either Kobo driver, you should be okay. If there are any issues seen, you would see posts about them well before the firmware gets to public release.

Originally Posted by DNSB

No. The USB ID goes into calibre and you will need to update calibre to support it. The other option is to run your calibre from source and manually add the USB ID.

So say, the new Sage 2E goes public with a release date of April 1, 2024. The USB ID will be requested and likely added to a calibre release before that date.

At one time, davidfor who was the last maintainer for the Kobo driver and KoboUtilities plugin backported several newer Kobo devices for calibre 3.48 but since he passed in August, 2022, that is not likely to be repeated.

Personally, I think it would have been more helpful to state from the beginning, that if a new model comes out, and you want to use that new model with the Kobo plugins, you will need, at a minimum, to upgrade some Kobo plugins. If you have a previous model Kobo, checking "... support newer firmware ..." verbiage is very likely to work for older models.

IMO.

[Quoth]

I was confused. The Checkbox is for updated versions of same ID, not an absolutely new model. I've had to check the box occasionally.

But in nearly 8 years and seven models of Kobo (not all for me personally) I've not had a problem. There have been ID updates since the brilliant davidfor became unfortunately unavailable.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I was confused. The Checkbox is for updated versions of same ID, not an absolutely new model. I've had to check the box occasionally.

But in nearly 8 years and seven models of Kobo (not all for me personally) I've not had a problem. There have been ID updates since the brilliant davidfor became unfortunately unavailable.

Well, with more then 8 years of using calibre and at least 9 Kobo models, I've had "problems*" every time I've purchased a new Kobo (going from memory): I've needed to update the plugin(s) each time, and sometimes (at least once), calibre, python and the DRM tools.

*depending on one's definition of "problem".

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

Personally, I think it would have been more helpful to state from the beginning, that if a new model comes out, and you want to use that new model with the Kobo plugins, you will need, at a minimum, to upgrade some Kobo plugins. If you have a previous model Kobo, checking "... support newer firmware ..." verbiage is very likely to work for older models.

IMO.

The changes are made in the Kobo driver code not in a plugin. If you are keeping calibre up to date, you are unlikely to see any issues. Far more people are liable to run into the database version since that will affect anyone who updates the firmware so the database version exceeds the max dbversion.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

Well, with more then 8 years of using calibre and at least 9 Kobo models, I've had "problems*" every time I've purchased a new Kobo (going from memory): I've needed to update the plugin(s) each time, and sometimes (at least once), calibre, python and the DRM tools.

*depending on one's definition of "problem".

The only three Kobo related bits of calibre that could be described as plugins and related to a new Kobo model would be the KoboTouch and KoboTouchExtended drivers and the KoboUtilities plugin. Looking at the changes for the KoboTouch driver, other than bumping the max dbversion and adding new USB IDs, very few changes have been made in quite a while. For the KoboUtilities plugin, again you can see the list of changes in the spoiler and most of the last batch done by davidfor were related to QT6 while the later changes don't seem to have much to do with new Kobo models.

As previously mentioned, unless you are running from source, you would need to install an updated calibre to add/modify the USB IDs or max dbversion which also updates the drivers and Python.

May I ask why you are not using the Python supplied with calibre so any updates would be applied with a calibre update?

[John F]

Originally Posted by DNSB

...

May I ask why you are not using the Python supplied with calibre so any updates would be applied with a calibre update?

I don't know if I'm using the python supplied with calbre. I remember starting by using the DRM tools and python before I started using calibre.

I think I've only upgraded python once when I needed to due to calibre.

And now I'm at a loss as to what I've been upgrading? I believe I've upgraded calibre maybe 3 or 4 times, and the plugins more times due to using new Kobo models. But I must be mistaken, since you mention drivers being updated with each new model, so I must be installing drivers also?

[DNSB]

The KoboTouch driver is part of the basic calibre install. And calibre does install it's own Python by default so no need to install Python separately though I do have a couple of Python installs for other purposes. If you are using the KoboTouchExtended driver, that is a separate install as is the Kobo Utilities plugin but either should be part of the updated plugins dialog as needed.

OTOH, if you are into fun (well, for certain meanings of fun) and are running Linux, try a distro install without Python with a Python 3.12 install.

[cpegg]

Originally Posted by leebase

I've been terrible about consistently using Calibre to organize my ebooks.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum. As soon as I download a book it goes into Calibre to be liberated and is tagged every which way including the name of the store, the price, date purchased, series name, genre, various other tags and my custom shelves column. I can't not do this.

Yes. I should probably be on medication.

Regarding Calibre breaking, I don't regularly upgrade. If it ain't broke for me, I don't try to fix it.

[DNSB]

Whereas for me, when I get a book, it goes into calibre, gets the metadata updated including the cover image. OTOH, I do not use any tags other than a custom his/her column. The other metadata I keep are series, publisher, published and subtitle. I also have custom page/word count and Kobo reading progress/status columns. The only custom collection I have is called Finished where books are moved when I finish reading on my Kobo.

I really don't care where I purchased the book nor the price (given the number of books I go through in a year, not something I want to be reminded about). I want to read the books on my ereader not sit there going through calibre and asking myself why the bleep did I spend $14.99 Cdn on that PoC.

I do regularly update calibre and since I run from source, that means I often update when Kovid Goyal posts one of his "Fixed by: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...39962ad608b6ca" messages.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by leebase

Do you have a better alternative? I'm all ears

Goodreads plugin works much better for series than the calibre default. That is good enough for me. I had to manually edit metadata a lot more before.

There are always going to be some things to fix, nothing is perfect.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I do regularly update calibre and since I run from source, that means I often update when Kovid Goyal posts one of his "Fixed by: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...39962ad608b6ca" messages.

Page not found.
Apache

[DNSB]

I just used the URL as shown in a message and not the full URL. The full URL is below:

The full URL is https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...39962ad608b6ca

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I just used the URL as shown in a message and not the full URL. The full URL is below:

The full URL is https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...39962ad608b6ca

Thank you.
Apache

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by leebase

I've been terrible about consistently using Calibre to organize my ebooks. Mostly I've used it just for liberating my Amazon books. Which is frustrating with it "works, breaks, works, breaks" over the years. I have it working again - but I'm finally moving past that.

One of the things I desire most is to have my ebubs organized into Series. The default "download metadata" doesn't do a good job. Thanks to ChatGPT, I learned there is a GoodReads plugin.

So I set the metadata download to JUST update the series and to use Goodreads - and it's working nicely.

I'm also using multiple libraries. I have a "clean things" library where I work on whatever set of files until I'm happy. Then I merge those books into my master library.

Of course, this assumes my computer remains stable. I hope it will. I don't plan on upgrading it for years.

Have a look a the Discworld series on Goodreader. It's a total disaster. I don't know why the librarians allow such a mess. It really needs to be cleaned up.

This is what's in the series for The Colour of Magic. Discworld (#1), Discworld - Rincewind (#1), Kolekcja Świat Dysku (#10), Wielka Kolekcja Terry Pratchett (#10)