calibre to calibre OPDS to dropbox...

[Belle2Be]

I feel like I'm missing something? I couldn't figure out the directions, it seems like things have changed since all of the "how to's" have been posted and I'm on a mac to make it more difficult.
But whats the reason for calibre Opds? Why not just upload all the books to dropbox and pull them from there into ibooks?

[itimpi]

When you say you found the directions for calibre2opds confusing are you talking about the Use Guide or something else? It should make no real difference if you are using a Mac as the GUI is identical on all supported platforms.

In terms of why not use raw Dropbox and retrieve books directly from there then that is certainly an option. However most people want a way of browsing their library in a variety of different ways (author, tags, series etc) with the ability to see a books detail such as its cover art and description. It is a bit like the difference between using an OS via the command line or via a GUI - both are possible but most people prefer the friendlier approach.

[Belle2Be]

I found directions on Dear Author, shes working with me now but I don't get what I'm supposed to put in the Database _______ in calibre OPDS. I did all the before steps, put everything in dropbox/public/folder. The directions just seemed different from PC to MAc because I couldn't do one of the steps the same way, I had to find a mac how to (that used stanza though, andI know you don't need stanza now because calibre makes its own metadata db) and move the original catalog using run wizard rather than the way she describes...

I ended up putting Dropbox/public/folder in the database ______ and created a _catalog, but I can't find the index file to get the url?

[itimpi]

I am reasonably certain that the Dear Author article was against a very much earlier version of Calibre2ops - probably one of the 1.x releases.

You put the Calibre library folder (where the metadata.db file is located) as the Database folder in calibre2opds. I am assuming from the fact that you mention Dropbox this will be a folder under Dropbox. This is the only mandatory option that the user has to set. If you leave everything else at defaults then the catalog is created as the _catalog folder inside that, and the index.hml file is inside the _catalog folder.

Have you looked at the calibre2opds Online User Guide available either by looking in the documentation section at http://calibre2opds.com, or via the program's Help menu. That should answer most questions, and if not we would like to know where the documentation is deficient so it can be improved.

[Belle2Be]

Yeah, I've looked all over the site, I feel like its written for someone who has a clue though and not the average joe. The step by step with pictures tutorial is perfect, but unfortunately it is out of date.
Now I'm out of space in Dropbox and I think it's causing issues, so I have to figure out how to put select books in Dropbox instead of all of them...