found a couple of bugs (I think) ;-)

N13L5 · 09-17-2010, 09:40 AM

Hi!

I just stumbled over Calibre, and it rocks! It beats my hodgepodge of ABC Amber converters and all those other labour intensive utilities by such a distance, I just wish I had found it sooner...

Some smart programming there, and I'm not even using half of the features so far... Just being able to download meta info and cover art from the internet is way cool.

Both bugs I found are actually related to the download function.

1) For downloading meta data, there is no way to enter the key for ISBNDB first, so, if the google books search times out / fails for any reason, the search box exits without an opportunity to put in the key.

Easiest fix would seem to let people enter their ISBNDB keys somewhere in the preferences dialog?

2) When downloading book covers, there appears to be a condition under which a download or connect failure is not handled, and so the Edit Meta Information Dialog box hangs with the spinning download symbol in the center. There is no way to get the application's attention to tell it to cancel the download. It hangs unrecoverably and after letting Windows 7 close it, you lost any info entered for that book.

Note: this error does not seem to occur in the download meta data function.

With either download function, it would be nice if the user could actually cancel out of them.

Got a question too, is there a way to have the ISBN show up in a column in Calibre's list view?

What language is this written in, btw? From the looks of things, its seems like you made it nicely modular

PS: using Calibre 0.7.18 on Windows 7

desertgrandma · 09-17-2010, 10:03 AM

Welcome to MobileRead, N13L5

kovidgoyal · 09-17-2010, 11:11 AM

you cn enter the isbndb key in Preferences->plugins->metadata download plugins by customizing the isbndb plugin

the cove download has a hang check timer, so it should be automatically canceled if the download takes to long.

calibre is written in python

N13L5 · 09-17-2010, 09:03 PM

Hi, thanks for the answers!

What is the timeout duration before it should return with the error message that the download has stalled and one should try again later?

I imagine your time-out for the book cover download is something less than 10 minutes though? If you click on either the "Edit Meta Information" window during the download attempt, there is no response while its still attempting the download, but if you come back after ~10 minutes and click on the window, it goes straight into "not responding" mode.

I've manually updated about 180 books, and while mostly, the covers download fine, or prompt me to try again, it hangs often enough to where I save my freshly entered meta info first and then come back for the cover.

When I tried to have it fetch meta data for all books overnight, it failed, that's why I was looking for an ISBN column, so you can enter the ISBN number for a lot of books and then download all the meta data in one shot. Because in my manual fetching, finding anything without ISBN is a less than 50% chance, hence my overnight attempt stalling out.

I found your info on setting up Bazaar, but I'm still learning Python, even though I've been in software development for many years, was always just responsible for the UI design...

kovidgoyal · 09-17-2010, 11:06 PM

Can you post the ISBNs of a couple of books that cause the hangs.

N13L5 · 09-24-2010, 02:47 AM

ugh, I wrote an answer to this days ago, it must have failed to go through...

All the isbn's I had trouble with eventually did download, so I'm at a loss to remember which ones they were.

But I will write down and post whatever isbn's cause a lockup in the future.

jkcoder · 09-25-2010, 09:35 AM

i'm using mekk calibre code to automatically get isbn number.

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mekk.calibre/1.0.4

Pretty cool. This is automated, so i think you can give this a try. But still you would need to download the metaata after that with the isbn.

N13L5 · 10-01-2010, 09:11 PM

oh nice! thank you very much for that!

I've been doing that manually either from the book or by running a google search...

Saw some other interesting scripts at the site you linked too. Does Open Office make cleaner RTF files than MS Office? I know there's that one direct conversion plugin for Open Office, which I guess makes it worth getting anyway. Just installing 2 full office packages on one computer seemed a bit over the top, but I might anyway, cause I need to find a good way to hand-edit epubs with lots of pictures in them, which mostly don't auto-convert as well as pure text books.
So converting to RTF to edit seems like a plausible route...

09-17-2010, 09:40 AM	#1
N13L5 tenjooberrymuds Posts: 58 Karma: 12 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Android	found a couple of bugs (I think) ;-) Hi! I just stumbled over Calibre, and it rocks! It beats my hodgepodge of ABC Amber converters and all those other labour intensive utilities by such a distance, I just wish I had found it sooner... Some smart programming there, and I'm not even using half of the features so far... Just being able to download meta info and cover art from the internet is way cool. Both bugs I found are actually related to the download function. 1) For downloading meta data, there is no way to enter the key for ISBNDB first, so, if the google books search times out / fails for any reason, the search box exits without an opportunity to put in the key. Easiest fix would seem to let people enter their ISBNDB keys somewhere in the preferences dialog? 2) When downloading book covers, there appears to be a condition under which a download or connect failure is not handled, and so the Edit Meta Information Dialog box hangs with the spinning download symbol in the center. There is no way to get the application's attention to tell it to cancel the download. It hangs unrecoverably and after letting Windows 7 close it, you lost any info entered for that book. Note: this error does not seem to occur in the download meta data function. With either download function, it would be nice if the user could actually cancel out of them. Got a question too, is there a way to have the ISBN show up in a column in Calibre's list view? What language is this written in, btw? From the looks of things, its seems like you made it nicely modular PS: using Calibre 0.7.18 on Windows 7 Last edited by N13L5; 09-17-2010 at 09:48 AM. Reason: added Calibre version I'm using

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09-17-2010, 10:03 AM	#2
desertgrandma Enjoying the show.... Posts: 14,270 Karma: 10462841 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Arizona Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir	Welcome to MobileRead, N13L5

09-17-2010, 11:11 AM	#3
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,850 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	you cn enter the isbndb key in Preferences->plugins->metadata download plugins by customizing the isbndb plugin the cove download has a hang check timer, so it should be automatically canceled if the download takes to long. calibre is written in python

09-17-2010, 09:03 PM	#4
N13L5 tenjooberrymuds Posts: 58 Karma: 12 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Android	Hi, thanks for the answers! What is the timeout duration before it should return with the error message that the download has stalled and one should try again later? I imagine your time-out for the book cover download is something less than 10 minutes though? If you click on either the "Edit Meta Information" window during the download attempt, there is no response while its still attempting the download, but if you come back after ~10 minutes and click on the window, it goes straight into "not responding" mode. I've manually updated about 180 books, and while mostly, the covers download fine, or prompt me to try again, it hangs often enough to where I save my freshly entered meta info first and then come back for the cover. When I tried to have it fetch meta data for all books overnight, it failed, that's why I was looking for an ISBN column, so you can enter the ISBN number for a lot of books and then download all the meta data in one shot. Because in my manual fetching, finding anything without ISBN is a less than 50% chance, hence my overnight attempt stalling out. I found your info on setting up Bazaar, but I'm still learning Python, even though I've been in software development for many years, was always just responsible for the UI design...

09-17-2010, 11:06 PM	#5
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,850 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Can you post the ISBNs of a couple of books that cause the hangs.

09-24-2010, 02:47 AM	#6
N13L5 tenjooberrymuds Posts: 58 Karma: 12 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Android	ugh, I wrote an answer to this days ago, it must have failed to go through... All the isbn's I had trouble with eventually did download, so I'm at a loss to remember which ones they were. But I will write down and post whatever isbn's cause a lockup in the future.

09-25-2010, 09:35 AM	#7
jkcoder Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: ipad	i'm using mekk calibre code to automatically get isbn number. http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mekk.calibre/1.0.4 Pretty cool. This is automated, so i think you can give this a try. But still you would need to download the metaata after that with the isbn.

10-01-2010, 09:11 PM	#8
N13L5 tenjooberrymuds Posts: 58 Karma: 12 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Android	oh nice! thank you very much for that! I've been doing that manually either from the book or by running a google search... Saw some other interesting scripts at the site you linked too. Does Open Office make cleaner RTF files than MS Office? I know there's that one direct conversion plugin for Open Office, which I guess makes it worth getting anyway. Just installing 2 full office packages on one computer seemed a bit over the top, but I might anyway, cause I need to find a good way to hand-edit epubs with lots of pictures in them, which mostly don't auto-convert as well as pure text books. So converting to RTF to edit seems like a plausible route...

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