Two Mac User Areas One Calibre Library?

Neil · 03-19-2012, 12:18 AM

I thought this would be easy but no luck trying to do it. On my iMac my wife has a new user area and I have a user area. I have Calibre installed in both areas and I wanted to use the existing Calibre library in both user areas. I copied my Calibre library to a new Users/Shared/Calibre Library. I then pointed the Calibre in my user area to that and had no problem. But then I started up the Calibre in my wife's new user area and when I run the set-up Wizard I can see the Users/Shared/Calibre Library and even choose it but the NEXT button stays unlit. Thinking it was a permissions error I did Get Info on the Calibre Library and saw that the permissions for Everyone were set to read only. I tried changing that to read and write. Calibre (wife's area) then saw the folder, let me choose it and the NEXT button was lit but that resulted in a long error message about trying to write a read only database. I give up. Anyone have any ideas? Right now I am running two separate copies of the same Calibre library but that is a pain to keep up. Thanks.

kovidgoyal · 03-19-2012, 12:25 AM

You have to change the permissions not just on the containing folder but all files and folders inside the containing folder as well. And then you have to ensure that new files created inside those folders have correct permissions. I could tell you how to do that in linux, but OS X I'm not that familiar with.

Neil · 03-19-2012, 12:29 AM

Hi Kovid --
Wow, I have over three hundred interior folders. Ouch. Maybe I can find a script somewheres to do that. One question -- do you happen to know if Calibre would WRITE the proper permissions if the folder was in that Shared area or would I have to manually keep changing? By the way, thanks for the quick reply!!!

kovidgoyal · 03-19-2012, 12:48 AM

I have no idea, I dont use OS X, try it and see. calibre does not have any code to choose permissions when it creates files, it uses whatever your OS's default policies are.

PeterT · 03-19-2012, 07:38 PM

I thought OS X was BSD based. It's more than likely that the chown command might work

http://ss64.com/osx/chown.html

and this can and do all files / folders recursively.

Mind you; I am NOT an OS X user; so play at your own risk

Xenophon · 03-20-2012, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterT

I thought OS X was BSD based. It's more than likely that the chown command might work

http://ss64.com/osx/chown.html

and this can and do all files / folders recursively.

Mind you; I am NOT an OS X user; so play at your own risk

chown will certainly work to reset permissions after the fact. The best way to ensure that calibre sets the right permissions to begin with is to change the default umask (as you would on any other Unix system). This thread at apple's discussion forums covers a variety of ways to do this. Probably the easiest is to use TinkerTool.

Happy reading & umask setting...

Xenophon

03-19-2012, 12:18 AM	#1
Neil Addict Posts: 226 Karma: 10932816 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: iPad Mini 6, iPad Air, Kindles HD 8, HD 10, Oasis 3, Scribe, PB Color	Two Mac User Areas One Calibre Library? I thought this would be easy but no luck trying to do it. On my iMac my wife has a new user area and I have a user area. I have Calibre installed in both areas and I wanted to use the existing Calibre library in both user areas. I copied my Calibre library to a new Users/Shared/Calibre Library. I then pointed the Calibre in my user area to that and had no problem. But then I started up the Calibre in my wife's new user area and when I run the set-up Wizard I can see the Users/Shared/Calibre Library and even choose it but the NEXT button stays unlit. Thinking it was a permissions error I did Get Info on the Calibre Library and saw that the permissions for Everyone were set to read only. I tried changing that to read and write. Calibre (wife's area) then saw the folder, let me choose it and the NEXT button was lit but that resulted in a long error message about trying to write a read only database. I give up. Anyone have any ideas? Right now I am running two separate copies of the same Calibre library but that is a pain to keep up. Thanks.

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03-19-2012, 12:25 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	You have to change the permissions not just on the containing folder but all files and folders inside the containing folder as well. And then you have to ensure that new files created inside those folders have correct permissions. I could tell you how to do that in linux, but OS X I'm not that familiar with.

03-19-2012, 12:29 AM	#3
Neil Addict Posts: 226 Karma: 10932816 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: iPad Mini 6, iPad Air, Kindles HD 8, HD 10, Oasis 3, Scribe, PB Color	Hi Kovid -- Wow, I have over three hundred interior folders. Ouch. Maybe I can find a script somewheres to do that. One question -- do you happen to know if Calibre would WRITE the proper permissions if the folder was in that Shared area or would I have to manually keep changing? By the way, thanks for the quick reply!!!

03-19-2012, 12:48 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	I have no idea, I dont use OS X, try it and see. calibre does not have any code to choose permissions when it creates files, it uses whatever your OS's default policies are.

03-19-2012, 07:38 PM	#5
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,167 Karma: 73448616 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Nexus 7, Clara, Touch, Tolino EPOS	I thought OS X was BSD based. It's more than likely that the chown command might work http://ss64.com/osx/chown.html and this can and do all files / folders recursively. Mind you; I am NOT an OS X user; so play at your own risk

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