Breaking Title Displays Across Multiple Lines

[register512]

I am trying to format the display of the titles on my Kobo Touch to incorporate the series information, but I have so far been unable to get it to look the way I want. The problem is that I want to insert a line break between the actual title of the ebook, and the series/serial portion, to end up with something like:

__________________________________________________ ____
This is the author's name
This is the Title of the Book
Here is the Series Name[sequence]

Read status | Format | size
__________________________________________________ ____

I have searched through all kinds of forums, read through the Calibre manual, and tried everything I can think of, so far without luck. I have everything in place that I want, but I just can't figure how to get the line break. Putting a \n combination doesn't do it, as the title just displays \n in the middle of it. I'm sure there must be some magic incantation to achieve this, but I have not been able to find it.


Any hints?

Thanks
Norm

[davidfor]

Don't bother doing that. From firmware 2.2.0, the series information is supported. What you show is roughly the format used. They are still tweaking it. 2.3.2 has the format you have except the series info grey.

If you want to keep trying, the things I can think of are:

- \r\n
- <br> or <br />
- &lb;

I don't expect any of these to work as there are too many things processing the title. If you edited the database directly, one of these might work.

[register512]

I'm dealing with my wife's new Glo, which has firmware version 2.3.1. I've been trying various wys to get the series information handled, but can't seem to hit on the correct incantation.

I tried the "Create New Bookshelf" approach, but did not want the dozens of bookshelves that got created. I haven't been able to get the series information to appear other than via the title editing that I described.

What does one have to do to get the Calibre/Touch combination to automatically handle the series information, and display it in some useful fashion?

[davidfor]

What version of calibre are you using? From 0.9.8 (I think) it supports the series information on Kobo devices. See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...94#post2323894 for the details. You need to make sure the books have series info, enable the option in the driver configuration and then connect the device. If that doesn't get the series information onto the device, then there is a problem and I will look at it.

[register512]

Well, unless I'm seriously missing something, then there appears to be a problem. I am using a new Glo with firmware 2.3.1, and Calibre 0.9.11 (64-bit), with a library of about 150 books (all epub format, all sideloaded, no DRM, no Adobe involvement). The "Set Series information" option is turned on for the device.

Sequence of operations was:

1. Wipe the Glo clean, deleting all content (using Calibre).
2. Eject the Glo, let it wipe its databases. It reports "You have no books".
3. Restart Calibre (for good measure).
4. Connect the Glo to USB port, touch "Connect", let it be recognized by Calibre.
5. Select all books in Calibre, do a "Send to Device->Main memory" (there is no SD card on the Glo)
6. Calibre sends all the books. Click "Device->Eject".
7. Unplug the Glo, wait while it "Processes content".
8. Check the list of books on the Glo, randomly a few, verify that all is well.
9. Restart Calibre, again for good measure.
10. Connect the Glo, touch "Connect".
11. Calibre sees the Glo, synchronizes library against the device, and lists all books as being on "Main memory".
12. Do a "Device->Eject". Unplug the Glo, wait while it "Processes content"
13. Library display is exactly as it was before: Author, Title, various status info (read/not read, type, size). There is no series information displayed anywhere, including under "Show Details".
14. Redo steps 9-13 with the same results (leading into the definition of insanity).

I followed all the instructions in the link you provided in your last message, and cannot see what might be wrong. Suggestions?

Norm

[davidfor]

What you did should work and is what I do all the time. There appear to be two problems.

Firstly, point 12 is a problem. If you didn't send any new books to the device when it was connected, the "Processing" shouldn't have happened. This generally means that one of the books you put onto the device in step 5 wasn't processed correctly in step 7. When that happens, the device stops processing more books and none of them appear in the library list on the device. When you reconnect the device and open calibre the books are shown as on the device. The next time you disconnect the device, it tries to process the books again and when it reaches the bad one, it stops again.

The only fix for this is to remove the bad book and try again with the others. Unfortunately, finding it can be a pain. I believe the books are processed in alphabetical order by the full file path of the file. Finding and removing the first book that isn't shown when using the device, should solve it. Hopefully, there isn't another one.

The above might be causing the problem with the series information, but it shouldn't be. To see what is happening, I need more information in the form of a debug log. To do this:

- Open calibre
- Go to the device configuration screen. At the bottom is a field "Title to test when debugging". In the field, put the name of a book already on the device that has series information in calibre.
- Save the changes.
- Restart calibre in debug mode. Do this by right-clicking the preferences button and selecting "Restart in debug mode".
- Calibre will restart and display a message about debug mode and a log.
- Connect your Kobo Touch.
- When calibre finishes the sync ("Jobs" in the bottom right shows zero and the icon stops) close calibre.
- The debug log will get displayed in the editor. Post the contents of that or PM them to me.

The log will give me an idea of what is happening and hopefully how to fix it.

[register512]

It seems that you've hit one nail on the head as far as a bad book goes. I haven't searched for it yet, but I did notice a discrepancy between the number of books selected in Calibre, and the number that were actually on my Kobo.

For the latest round of tests, I reduced the number of books to 45, and they all got sent to the Glo. After the Glo had processed them, re-connecting and disconnecting did not result in another "Processing Content" screen.

Unfortunately, neither did it result in the series data being displayed. Calibre finds all of the books on the device without trouble, but none of the series data seems to end up on the Glo.

I have created a debug log as you described, and have sent it to you in a PM. Hopefully you can make some sense of it.

Thanks for all your help on this.

Cheers
Norm

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by register512

It seems that you've hit one nail on the head as far as a bad book goes. I haven't searched for it yet, but I did notice a discrepancy between the number of books selected in Calibre, and the number that were actually on my Kobo.

For the latest round of tests, I reduced the number of books to 45, and they all got sent to the Glo. After the Glo had processed them, re-connecting and disconnecting did not result in another "Processing Content" screen.

Good that you have it sorted out. I hate this "feature" on the device. It is good that they don't add "bad" books, but there isn't a clue about which book it didn't like. There should be a log file somewhere. If you work out which book it is, can you send me a copy? I have rarely seen this, so I am interested to see if I can work what is wrong.

A while ago, I had a look at how to display this in the device list. Unfortunately, it needs some work elsewhere in calibre. I'll have to talk to Kovid about it again.

Unfortunately, neither did it result in the series data being displayed. Calibre finds all of the books on the device without trouble, but none of the series data seems to end up on the Glo.

I have created a debug log as you described, and have sent it to you in a PM. Hopefully you can make some sense of it.

One glance at the log and I knew what was wrong. And I have no idea why I didn't think of it before

To let calibre update the device database, you need to have "Metadata management" set to automatic on the "Sending books to devices" page of the preferences. You probably have it set to manual. This isn't mentioned in the post I pointed to, but it is mentioned in the general set-up but only with reference to shelves. I'll have to update that.

[register512]

Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing!

That was the problem. I set Metadata Management to Automatic, connected the Glo, let Calibre synch up, then ejected. All the series data was there. I love it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I will do my best to track down the bad book that seems to be screwing things up. Since it's my wife's library it's quite a bit smaller than mine, so that will help narrow it down.

Thanks again for all your help.

Cheers
Norm

[register512]

Well, thanks to your tip about the bad e-books, I reloaded my wife's library in chunks and managed to track down the culprits. It turns out that there were several bad books, all from the same series, so I guess I just managed to find a badly done collection, or had a bunch of downloads go awry.

I used the built-in e-reader in Calibre to verify the books, and it reported the invalid state on each one. I know now to use this approach in future, whenever I have books of dubious quality.

If you're still interested, I can send the books to you, but I think it's likely to be a waste of your time.

Cheers
Norm

[davidfor]

Glad it was so easy. If the calibre viewer didn't like them, they must be in a bad shape. I'm interested in the books that other devices and calibre don't have a problem with.

For these, it might be worthwhile doing an epub->epub conversion and seeing if that fixes them. Or opening them in Sigil. It has error checking that might help you fix them.