Calibre2Web

[bagnole2]

Thanks Itimpi for your script, I use it and it's great to have access to your own online catalog from calibre. Could you add a subcatalog to the menu as "By release date", it would be very helpful.

[itimpi]

Nice to know that others find it useful. It will be nice to get the Python version finished that can be passed on to Kovid and support additional features.

In terms of the Release Date you are looking for- I am not quite sure how you see this functioning? for instance:
- What field are you thinking of using for the "By Release Date" field? The current date field from the main Calibre GUI or something else?
- Did you see this as a top-level division or at some other level.
- If a top-level division, what would the next level be split by?
- what granularity were you looking for (year or something finer)

[bagnole2]

I was thinking of the current date field from the Calibre software. And I will see it at the top level division with no sub level. The format would be MM/DD/YYYY.
Thanks!

[itimpi]

Some further questions then:

- You need some sort of next level - I will assume that the next level you are looking for is therefore simply titles?
- Are you thinking of it therefore being the "Date Added to Library" rather than the published date as you originally implied? -
- Alternatively are you really interested in all titles in the library or perhaps the most Recent Entries?
- Do you actually want to see the date or would simply sorting into (reverse) date order be sufficient with the most recent at the top?

When you say that you want no sub-level, note that Stanza on the Iphone/iPod seems to only be able to handle a few hundred items (not sure of the exact upper limit) before it starts crashing (not sure of the exact upper limit) which was why I was asking about sub-divisions.

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by itimpi

When you say that you want no sub-level, note that Stanza on the Iphone/iPod seems to only be able to handle a few hundred items (not sure of the exact upper limit) before it starts crashing (not sure of the exact upper limit) which was why I was asking about sub-divisions.

Uhm... Stanza (latest released version) on both a 2G and 3G iPhone (firmware 2.2 on both) doesn't crash using an online catalog with >3000 books on a single level. :-)
(Yes, takes quite some time to load but technically it works just fine. :) )

If yours does, something is wrong.

Please note that I'm generating my (static) catalogs myself and not using Calibre2Web - I'm on Linux. :-)

Speaking of which - in the Python version, please add a pagination option (preferrably defaulting to 25 entries) so that result fetching is sensibly fast even on slower links.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Philantrop

Uhm... Stanza (latest released version) on both a 2G and 3G iPhone (firmware 2.2 on both) doesn't crash using an online catalog with >3000 books on a single level. :-)
(Yes, takes quite some time to load but technically it works just fine. )

If yours does, something is wrong.

Mine seems to give up if I have more than about 500-1000 books. Whether it is stanza problem or just related to the amount of catalog data I have no idea. That is using Stanza 1.7. However one does not really want to page through that many entries to get to the one of interest - so having sub-divisions for faster navigation is a good idea. The addition of search capability also allows the user to specify more accurate navigation options. Search was not really practical to implement with a static catalog but works well with dynamic catalogs.

Speaking of which - in the Python version, please add a pagination option (preferrably defaulting to 25 entries) so that result fetching is sensibly fast even on slower links.

I already had that on my list and have tested that it works. It is easy enough to do if you are generating the catalog entries dynamically rather than statically. It would is even possible with a static catalog - but one quickly ends up with rather a lot of catalog files as the library size increases. I would also like an option to NOT have pagination involved when I want to get to an entry that is several hundred items into a catalog level. However I have not really though about how to reconcile these two different needs from a usability perspective at the Stanza end. One option might be to have a "Load All Remaining entries" as well as a "Get Next 25 Entries" type options?

[ki5ck]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Nice to know that others find it useful.

Count me in here, too. I find it very useful, and thanks very much!

[bagnole2]

Itimpi, to answer your questions, the next level is Title, by date added to Library and limited to 50 books only.
Thanks again, I use your application all the time and it works great!

[itimpi]

OK - I will add a "Recent Additions" option. It will be in inverse date order (most recent first), but I am not sure that I will actually include the date as it did not look very nice when I mocked it up.

I was also thinking that I will "paginate" it with some "Load more books" options in the style of the built in catalogs. That way it loads faster when not on wifi.

The total number of books to be included in this list and the "page" size will be constants at the top of the script for those who want to play around with them.

[itimpi]

Here is Calibre2Web updated to with a "Recent Additions" section added. Let me know what you think?

It currently lists up to 50 recent books - paginated every 10 entries. The number to list and the pagination interval are controlled by constants at the top of the script if you want to try varying the values to see if other values suit you better.

[kovidgoyal]

@itimpi: Are you still working on a python version, or should I add this to my TODO list?

[itimpi]

I am still working on it!

Part of the reason it is taking a while to complete is that I am also at the same time getting the relevant infrastructure to work on my PowerPC based NAS box which is where I personally want to run the server.

If you think you could do it faster then feel free to work on it - but I think you have plenty else on your palte?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by itimpi

I am still working on it!

Part of the reason it is taking a while to complete is that I am also at the same time getting the relevant infrastructure to work on my PowerPC based NAS box which is where I personally want to run the server.

If you think you could do it faster then feel free to work on it - but I think you have plenty else on your palte?

It's fine, take your time. I just wanted to check that you still intended to work on it.

[bagnole2]

Thanks Itimpi, it was fast! I tried the 'Recent Additions' new feature and unfortunately the 'Load more results' button doesn't work on my iphone; Stanza crashed when I used it. I don't know why, does it work well for you? Let me know if I did something wrong or I missed something at the setting. Otherwise, it's great to have access directly to the latest additions of books to Calibre. Thanks again for your hard work and of course to Kovidgoyal too.

[itimpi]

It was getting the "Load More results" to work correctly that made it take as long as it did! It is now working fine for me, so I would like to know why it is not working for you?

I uncovered a bug (reported to Lexcycle) where Stanza 1.7 will crash if for any reason it fails to get the next page of results. I originally uncovered the Stanza bug by making the link to the next page point to the wrong file. Perhaps you can check that each of the "Recent#.xml" type files generated by the script on your machine has a "next" link that correctly points to the next one - with the case of filenames possibly being significant if not running on a Windows web server.

As a work-around you can change the PAGE-SIZE constant in the script to be at least as large as the RECENT_ADDITIONS constant so that all results fit on one page.