My automatic "feeds to Memory card" trick...

[sherman]

I dunno if anyone is interested in this, especially now that calibre has scheduled downloads of news, but I'll share it anyway.

Basically the situation was that I don't always want to read the news on my reader. I don't always want to download the news every day either. And I also don't like plugging my reader into USB any more times than necessary. I wanted a way to get news easily onto my reader without having to plug reader in, open calibre, fetch news, wait for it to convert, upload file, then wait for ages after I disconnect the reader before I can do anything.

So I started thinking of some other way to get the occasional news on my reader. And then I saw the SD card I had floating around.

The result is a SD card that when it is inserted into a PC with calibre installed, will automatically run a batch file which calls feeds2epub and downloads the news directly to the SD card for your viewing pleasure. I have it setup to autorun so I don't even have to do anything once I've plugged in the card.

So here is what I did:
1. I created any custom recipes (only one for me) and stuck them in a recipes folder on the memory card (with a filename of <some name>.py)

2. I created a simple batch file called get_news.bat in the root of the memory card with the following -

@echo off
"C:\Program Files\Calibre\"feeds2epub recipes\stuff.py
move *.epub calibre\
pause

The "C:\Program Files\Calibre\"feeds2epub recipes\stuff.py line is what calls feeds2epub and can be as simple or as complex as needed. Add multiple lines like this for multiple news sources. The "recipes\styff.py" is the location of the recipe I used. I assume that internal recipes can also be used here.

the move *.epub calibre\ moves the epub to the desired folder on the memory card.

The pause is there for troubleshooting purposes and can be removed if everything works correctly.

3. I then created an autorun.inf file on the root of the memory card, with the following -

[autorun]
ShellExecute=get_news.bat
Label=PRS505
UseAutoPlay=1

The ShellExecute line instructs the batch file created previously to run when autorun is invoked. The Label line is arbitrary.

That was all there was to it... I can now stick my SD card in the slot, get autorun to automatically start the process, then remove the card and stick it right in my reader and read the news.

It can be modified easily to suite the needs and desires of anyone else.

Obviously this particular method is for windows only and requires calibre be installed in the default location. It is also most useful to those who have easily accessible memory card readers on their PC or laptop.

It is also not machine specific in that the only requirement is that calibre be installed to the default location on the PC's you want to use it.


Next project: getting calibre - or at least feeds2epub - to run from the memory card itself...