Questions 902 Pro

[Roos]

It is maybe a silly one, but i still asking it

I cant seem to find a way to sort the library files on for example writers name, they stay stubborn on title, displaying book title or filename. Is there no other sorting options?

I know, i can use file browsing, and yes calibre puts them nicely in author folders and series sub-folders and such, but library browsing is a lot more comfortable then file browsing, as one very long column.

Phew i hope there is a way, it is heck of thing if the reader that holds your books has no decent way to sort them differently!

[Hypernova]

I think you can just put everything in the same folder? You can set calibre up that way (Try Preference->Sending books to device).

[Roos]

That is not what i meant, and no real use when browsing for example the 1000 + books that come with the reader.. *those are gone now.

my structure = /Books/(author)/(series name)/(series name)-(series nr)-(Title)

But when dealing with more then 200 authors it gets real tedious pressing down 150 times to find a writer.

Especially since in library it makes tabs for every x nr of books, end that makes navigation a lot more pleasant.

[Zetmolm]

How about something like this:
my structure = /Books/(1st letter of author)/(author)/(series name)/(series name)-(series nr)-(Title)

You can also set that up in Calibre.

[Roos]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

How about something like this:
my structure = /Books/(1st letter of author)/(author)/(series name)/(series name)-(series nr)-(Title)

You can also set that up in Calibre.

That would be better as i have it now, when i swap my 4GB for the new 8GB one i will try to get it like that. But it does still not answers my question, why no sort options, and when there are, WHERE??

Don't get me wrong, i like the reader, a lot even, but it kinda irks me that such a simple function is not in there?!

[fjtorres]

Why?
Oh, that's easy to answer.
Because the library datastore is the actual filesystem of the device, not a database.
Kobo stores its books in a database.
(See its reviews and forum for the downside of using a database as an ebook library. )
Basically it comes down to performance: you can either use the filesystem as a datastore and have total control over how to organize your books or use a flatfile database that gives you some sorting and tagging but dumps all the books in the same location. Either will give decent performance. Try to run a full, flexible database and performance will tank. Plus the books will be hidden from the outside.

Guys, we're talking 533MHz ARM cellphone processors in these things; not GHz-class intel Core with a GPU on the side.

[Roos]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Why?
Oh, that's easy to answer.
Because the library datastore is the actual filesystem of the device, not a database.
Kobo stores its books in a database.
(See its reviews and forum for the downside of using a database as an ebook library. )
Basically it comes down to performance: you can either use the filesystem as a datastore and have total control over how to organize your books or use a flatfile database that gives you some sorting and tagging but dumps all the books in the same location. Either will give decent performance. Try to run a full, flexible database and performance will tank. Plus the books will be hidden from the outside.

Guys, we're talking 533MHz ARM cellphone processors in these things; not GHz-class intel Core with a GPU on the side.

Ok, i buy that for the moment, but (hey, seen that one coming eh?) the library browses on book title, that is not a file name, that is a epub internal piece of data, so why not use also the other internal pieces as options?

[Dulin's Books]

Use "Favorites" to sort further. Its like using tags

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...57&postcount=6

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Roos

But when dealing with more then 200 authors it gets real tedious pressing down 150 times to find a writer.

I'm thinking of getting a 902 so I don't know how navigation is, but you can't use 'next page' or something similiar to get thru the author list? It sounds like you can only highlight them one by one which doesn't sound too good to me.

[Roos]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I'm thinking of getting a 902 so I don't know how navigation is, but you can't use 'next page' or something similiar to get thru the author list? It sounds like you can only highlight them one by one which doesn't sound too good to me.

Not when browsing in file modus, there seems to be something possible with favourites but i have not yet found out how to do that. When browsing the book library you get pages, works great, but sorts only by title, would be more then happy when they did file browsing the same..
Alas, i have to scour the web for hints and tips to get all my books organised in a favourite list, seems like not that much of a problem, will let you know, if you like, how it went
Also letting calibre make a directory tree that looks like this:
/Books/A/Alexander, Alma/World Weavers/Alma Alexander-World
Weavers 01-Gift of the Unmage.epub
etc is not to hard.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I'm thinking of getting a 902 so I don't know how navigation is, but you can't use 'next page' or something similiar to get thru the author list? It sounds like you can only highlight them one by one which doesn't sound too good to me.

It depends on the display mode and on the Theme (at least on the PB360).
Check the screencaps in the Themes thread.

In list mode or easy mode you can scroll down a page or flip pages side to side. Easy mode allows 28 book listings per screen on the PB360 so a 200 book list only takes 6-7 screen flips. Hardly onerous.
Now, Easy mode is not available with all themes (I favor "FIVE", myself, because it hides all but the 5 key icons and maximizes the "recently Read" list on the home screen.)

As for sorting by title, that is achieved by *substituting* the metadata title string for file name in the listing. You get to choose one or the other and it is done in the compilation of the display screen. If you look carefully, the reader is oh-so-very-slightly slower in building up a booklist when its enabled. It would be nice to be able to sort by all the various metadata tags. But we might not like the price for it...

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It depends on the display mode and on the Theme (at least on the PB360).
Check the screencaps in the Themes thread.

In list mode or easy mode you can scroll down a page or flip pages side to side. Easy mode allows 28 book listings per screen on the PB360 so a 200 book list only takes 6-7 screen flips. Hardly onerous.
Now, Easy mode is not available with all themes (I favor "FIVE", myself, because it hides all but the 5 key icons and maximizes the "recently Read" list on the home screen.)

Thanks - I didn't think it could be that bad. So you have to have a theme installed to have a decent book listing? and can they be used with folders so like in the example Roos had you can still have the authors come up in a list?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Thanks - I didn't think it could be that bad. So you have to have a theme installed to have a decent book listing? and can they be used with folders so like in the example Roos had you can still have the authors come up in a list?

It might not be that bad with the 902 model, it has a 9.7" screen, meaning that the surface will be almost 4 times bigger than the 5" 360 model that fjtorres talks about.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

So you have to have a theme installed to have a decent book listing? and can they be used with folders so like in the example Roos had you can still have the authors come up in a list?

Whoa!
There *is* a list mode in the default theme for the older Pockebooks(The PB360 comes with 3 themes on it if I recall correctly).
It's just that the denser list (easy mode) is not an option on that one.

So you don't *have* to install a theme, just change the view mode to "LIST" which, BTW, is the mode in the videos from the trade show demos. The default theme features LIST, thumbnails, and Cover views.

Cover view presents nine tiles with the cover of the ebook (Most of the time--some ebook covers don't display properly) and some metadata underneath.

Thumbnails offers strips with a thumbnail on the left and the metadata on the right.

Easy mode just presents a single-line list with Title, author, and plus tiny icons for book type, opened, finished, etc. The Title scrolls if its too long for the available space. It's very nice. The moment I saw it I adopted it. Other folks prefer the thumbnails or the covers or find the text in easy too small. Its mostly a matter of preference.

Edit: A picture being worth a thousand words, check the screencap of easy mode here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...3&d=1271319310

From Kacir's excellent PB360 review (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61908) this, is the normal list view:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...9&d=1258049965

This is thumbnails view:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...0&d=1258054803

And this is the covers/tiled view:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...9&d=1258054803

And yes, the view modes have no effect on your chosen folder structure. You can still organize the file system anyway you want.

View modes also apply to the "Favorites" link structure.
Of note, in "Favorites" (which is a collection of links, so you can link to the same book in multiple locations) you can link to specific files or to *folders* in the file system, as well as creating Folders in the favorites hierarchy.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Whoa!
There *is* a list mode in the default theme for the older Pockebooks(The PB360 comes with 3 themes on it if I recall correctly).
It's just that the denser list (easy mode) is not an option on that one.

So you don't *have* to install a theme, just change the view mode to "LIST" which, BTW, is the mode in the videos from the trade show demos. The default theme features LIST, thumbnails, and Cover views.

And yes, the view modes have no effect on your chosen folder structure. You can still organize the file system anyway you want.

Sorry, I was just going by the post from Roos saying paging couldn't be done when browsing in file mode which is how I thought was how you browse thru folders of books in your folders. I guess when you don't have a product in hand, it's easy to misunderstand, and I couldn't find any screenshots that showed folders of books in a folder.

Originally Posted by Roos

Not when browsing in file modus, there seems to be something possible with favourites but i have not yet found out how to do that. When browsing the book library you get pages, works great, but sorts only by title, would be more then happy when they did file browsing the same..