Challenge: can anyone develop a simple booklist generator? - Page 2

terencek · 12-21-2011, 03:57 AM

After a couple of hours' experimenting my conclusion so far is that Karen's Directory Printer comes closest to doing the job, for those without the skills to roll up their programming sleeves and get down and dirty with DOS commands.

By excluding all but the file info and search subfolders options in it, and by excluding some of the other irrelevant details, you can indeed end up very very quickly with a complete just-heat-and-eat booklist of only titles and authors. The only downside seems to be that the result has to be in that order, i.e. title - author, rather than the more desirable author - title, but that seems a small price to pay given that the list is still actually in alphabetical author order, by folder -- or it is in my case, given that this is how my master book directory and subdirectories are structured. (Genres/author/title).
A quick find and replace can then remove the unwanted .mobi extension (ditto .pdf).

I downloaded the suggested JR Directory Printer but it crashed consistently on my Win7 installation.

Plugging the Kindle in did certainly enabled Calibre to very quickly list its contents (though this would not work if you wanted to see the contents, say, of a master book folder on the PC). But I was unable to go any further to actually print or save a list from this display. Is there a technique I'm missing?

I could not get the suggested Command Prompt string to run but will keep trying.

gdvbel · 12-21-2011, 07:03 AM

The resulting list will be sorted by author's name (Cornwell)
if the filenames on the Kindle show the following characteristics
in Windows Explorer :
Cornwell, Patricia - Modus Operandi.mobi

If however the name of the file is :
Modus Operandi - Cornwell Patricia.mobi
then the book will be alphabetically filed under Modus....

Connect your kindle via usb to your computer
(I'm on Windows 7, Kindle DX graphite)

Open command prompt
If the drive letter of your kindle is H, type :
cd /d H:\Documents
Then type :
Dir /ON /S /B > H:\nie.txt
The resulting file is H:\nie.txt on your Kindle
Open with notepad
And choose "Edit", and Replace
In the "find what" field, you type
H:\Documents\
In the "replace with" field, you type nothing.
Click "replace all"

The resulting file contains the books author + title + extension .mobi or stg else
To trim the extension : with Edit, Replace and ".mobi" in the "find what" field,
and nothing in the replace field, you can trim the extension

TurtleTots · 03-12-2012, 09:09 AM

It's not a kindle solution but.....
If you use Calibre you don't have to do anything but select the "Convert Books" menu then select "create a catalog of the books in your calibre library". You can select the fields to include, the format of the catalog, and the destination directory. ie: just highlight author and title
Adding books to Calibre is very simple....if you have the file on your computer you can drag and drop the files (multiples also) and they copy over.

terencek · 03-14-2012, 09:25 AM

As far as I can see there is unfortunately one problem with the Calibre solution above, unless I'm missing something.

Calibre will only load books it can 'see' directly. So if your (large) collection is housed in author folders, nested within genre folders, then you would be reduced to locating and loading them one by one -- which would be a serious pain.

So far I'm still inclined to go the ultra-simple route of Karen's Directory Printer. I can have a complete .txt booklist of my 1,600-book collection with just a little tweaking in about 10 minutes, which is perfect, then pretty it up a little in MSWord. Only slight disadvantage is that I cannot get it to list alphabetically as author - title, only the other way around. But I can live with that.

12-21-2011, 07:03 AM	#17
gdvbel Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: kindle dx	In a command prompt on windows The resulting list will be sorted by author's name (Cornwell) if the filenames on the Kindle show the following characteristics in Windows Explorer : Cornwell, Patricia - Modus Operandi.mobi If however the name of the file is : Modus Operandi - Cornwell Patricia.mobi then the book will be alphabetically filed under Modus.... Connect your kindle via usb to your computer (I'm on Windows 7, Kindle DX graphite) Open command prompt If the drive letter of your kindle is H, type : cd /d H:\Documents Then type : Dir /ON /S /B > H:\nie.txt The resulting file is H:\nie.txt on your Kindle Open with notepad And choose "Edit", and Replace In the "find what" field, you type H:\Documents\ In the "replace with" field, you type nothing. Click "replace all" The resulting file contains the books author + title + extension .mobi or stg else To trim the extension : with Edit, Replace and ".mobi" in the "find what" field, and nothing in the replace field, you can trim the extension Last edited by gdvbel; 12-21-2011 at 07:12 AM. Reason: forgotten something

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12-21-2011, 03:57 AM	#16
terencek Groupie Posts: 170 Karma: 1010944 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The African bush Device: Kindle 3	After a couple of hours' experimenting my conclusion so far is that Karen's Directory Printer comes closest to doing the job, for those without the skills to roll up their programming sleeves and get down and dirty with DOS commands. By excluding all but the file info and search subfolders options in it, and by excluding some of the other irrelevant details, you can indeed end up very very quickly with a complete just-heat-and-eat booklist of only titles and authors. The only downside seems to be that the result has to be in that order, i.e. title - author, rather than the more desirable author - title, but that seems a small price to pay given that the list is still actually in alphabetical author order, by folder -- or it is in my case, given that this is how my master book directory and subdirectories are structured. (Genres/author/title). A quick find and replace can then remove the unwanted .mobi extension (ditto .pdf). I downloaded the suggested JR Directory Printer but it crashed consistently on my Win7 installation. Plugging the Kindle in did certainly enabled Calibre to very quickly list its contents (though this would not work if you wanted to see the contents, say, of a master book folder on the PC). But I was unable to go any further to actually print or save a list from this display. Is there a technique I'm missing? I could not get the suggested Command Prompt string to run but will keep trying.

03-12-2012, 09:09 AM	#18
TurtleTots Member Posts: 19 Karma: 24 Join Date: Dec 2011 Device: iphone	It's not a kindle solution but..... If you use Calibre you don't have to do anything but select the "Convert Books" menu then select "create a catalog of the books in your calibre library". You can select the fields to include, the format of the catalog, and the destination directory. ie: just highlight author and title Adding books to Calibre is very simple....if you have the file on your computer you can drag and drop the files (multiples also) and they copy over.

03-14-2012, 09:25 AM	#19
terencek Groupie Posts: 170 Karma: 1010944 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The African bush Device: Kindle 3	As far as I can see there is unfortunately one problem with the Calibre solution above, unless I'm missing something. Calibre will only load books it can 'see' directly. So if your (large) collection is housed in author folders, nested within genre folders, then you would be reduced to locating and loading them one by one -- which would be a serious pain. So far I'm still inclined to go the ultra-simple route of Karen's Directory Printer. I can have a complete .txt booklist of my 1,600-book collection with just a little tweaking in about 10 minutes, which is perfect, then pretty it up a little in MSWord. Only slight disadvantage is that I cannot get it to list alphabetically as author - title, only the other way around. But I can live with that.

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