Subshelves/subcollections request (changes in firmware and also in Calibre drivers)

[arspr]

Hi, first of all sorry if this issue has been already posted, discussed or suggested. I've made a fast search and I haven't found anything (and I haven't spent much time, truth be said ).

I've just moved from my old good PRS-650 to a brand new Kobo Aura HD and I really miss one handy feature available within Calibre and Sony devices.

In Calibre "Preference > Tweaks" there's Specify renaming rules for SONY collections (ID: sony_collection_renaming_rules) which is pretty handy to get your books completely categorized in the Sony devices through collections.

As example I have this setting used in this way (just a summary, I've got more custom columns also used...):

sony_collection_renaming_rules = {'tags': 'Books by Tags', 'series': 'Books by Series'}

sony_collection_name_template = '{category:|>|.}{value}'

In this way I got a lot of collections in the device in this way:

>Books by Series.The Lord Of The Rings
>Books by Series.Discworld
>Books by Series.Belvilacqua
....
>Books by Tags.Romance
>Books by Tags.War.WWII
>Books by Tags.War.Spanish Civil War
>Books by Tags.Whatever

(And also >Books by Language, >Books by Original Language, and more).

This can seem a whole mess but using PRS+ subcollections feature makes my Sony eReader content nearly as classified and categorized as inside Calibre. This PRS+ subcollections feature allows Collections with dots in their name being treated like subcollections, (in a similar way to hierarchical items inside Calibre). So if I want to browse books by Tags content it's pretty straightforward, and these Tags collections/shelves are not mixed with other collections/shelves derived from series, language or whatever.

But I cannot do the same procedure with my brand new Kobo.

So my requests would be:

1. We need support for Subshelves (subcollections with the new name given in FW 2.10.0) >>> Request for Kobo.
2. Then we need support in KoboTouch (or KoboTouchExtended) driver for that subcollections. I mean the Driver needs to translate the hierarchical items within Calibre into those new subshelves/subcollections in the device. >>> Request for davidfor and/or jgoguen.
3. Lastly, it would be great if the both drivers used the Sony collections tweaks within Calibre. I mean, if I want to add the ">Books by whatever" prefix, I could currently build auxiliary custom columns, but the method available with the Tweaks is much neater and cleaner. >>> Another request for davidfor and/or jgoguen.

What do you think about all these suggestions?

(If "power users" find them feasible, I'd update my personal future firmware request thread).

[speakingtohe]

I think your suggestions are fine although I would have to put them in the flying pigs category.

And what would the user base be of people who would go to this much trouble to categorize their books?

I use hierarchical tags, but I bet if I entered a room full of ereading people and shouted hierarchical less than 1% would know what I was bellowing about. Less than 5% would know what a tag was.

Helen

[Terisa de morgan]

I miss the feature too, a lot, but I don't think we're going to get it.

[brudigia]

I think it can be explained better so that people could understand, it would be an extremely interesting feature. Booken ereader users are accustomed to this feature (or similar) which I still miss, too.
Being able to organise ebooks in a couple of levels would make the repository look tidier.
Bookeen used just to read the file system, and give us the ebooks within the folders with the hierarchical level of these folders. One would think it should not be that hard. I heard they have a new interface, but I do not know what it is like now.
I used to organise by genre and then by author. A personal choice, but it could be different.
So I would fully support the request, with the caution that it would probably be useful more to people with a lot of ebooks on their reader. If you just have 20-30 ebooks, probably it is not worth the while.

Bruno

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I think your suggestions are fine although I would have to put them in the flying pigs category.

And what would the user base be of people who would go to this much trouble to categorize their books?

I use hierarchical tags, but I bet if I entered a room full of ereading people and shouted hierarchical less than 1% would know what I was bellowing about. Less than 5% would know what a tag was.

Helen

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by brudigia

I think it can be explained better so that people could understand, it would be an extremely interesting feature. Booken ereader users are accustomed to this feature (or similar) which I still miss, too.
Being able to organise ebooks in a couple of levels would make the repository look tidier.
Bookeen used just to read the file system, and give us the ebooks within the folders with the hierarchical level of these folders. One would think it should not be that hard. I heard they have a new interface, but I do not know what it is like now.
I used to organise by genre and then by author. A personal choice, but it could be different.
So I would fully support the request, with the caution that it would probably be useful more to people with a lot of ebooks on their reader. If you just have 20-30 ebooks, probably it is not worth the while.

Bruno

Probably more people than I think eh

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by brudigia

I think it can be explained better so that people could understand, it would be an extremely interesting feature. Booken ereader users are accustomed to this feature (or similar) which I still miss, too.
Being able to organise ebooks in a couple of levels would make the repository look tidier.
Bookeen used just to read the file system, and give us the ebooks within the folders with the hierarchical level of these folders. One would think it should not be that hard. I heard they have a new interface, but I do not know what it is like now.
I used to organise by genre and then by author. A personal choice, but it could be different.
So I would fully support the request, with the caution that it would probably be useful more to people with a lot of ebooks on their reader. If you just have 20-30 ebooks, probably it is not worth the while.

Bruno

What you're explaining have a very simple and common name: folders.

[arspr]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

What you're explaining have a very simple and common name: folders.

Well, folders (and subfolders) are not exactly the same as collections (and subc). You have to duplicate a book in order to be in two different folders. But with collections the very same book can be in any number of them.

Collections are actully "tags", "descriptions", "key-words" attached to books. Subcollections are just hierarchical tags.

[davidfor]

OK, number 1 needs Kobo to do something. I don't see it as something they will do. Number 2 is only needed if Kobo do number 1.

Number 3 is easily achievable now with custom columns. Helen posted a solution here. Though there is an extra space in it. The following works: {series:'test($, test(field('series'),strcat('Series:',field('serie s'),),''),'')'}

But, as there is a precedence in another driver and support for this in calibre, I'll have a look at adding it to the KoboTouch driver. I won't promise it as I have to make sure it doesn't break anything else. If I add it, the extended driver will inherit it.