[Android App] Beta version: Android app to connect as a device to calibre using wifi

[g007]

Hi,

device: Nexus 7; OS: Mac OS X 10.6; Calibre version: 0.8.64; Wireless device connection: on; book type (on server): Epub; book type selected in Calibre Companion preferences: Epub, Mobi

I downloaded the beta and seemed to "connect" to Calibre fine.*

With the Content Server on as well, I get this error in Calibre when I "send to device"

calibre, version 0.8.64
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

ControlError(None,)

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 83, in run
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 478, in _upload_books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/smart_device_app/driver.py", line 43, in _synchronizer
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/smart_device_app/driver.py", line 749, in upload_books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/smart_device_app/driver.py", line 409, in _put_file
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/smart_device_app/driver.py", line 376, in _call_client
ControlError: <unprintable ControlError object>

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Then I tried to send a single book to my device and got the following error:
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2) after 'sending to device' when I look in the Calibre_Companion folder on my device, I can see the file I tried to send, with an ".epub" extension and a size supposedly of 200k

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3) I can't successfully open the book on my device in any of the readers

• Aldiko — "import failed" (when "import to Aldiko" was selected)
  Moon Reader+ — "Error. EOCD not found; not a Zip archive?"
  Mantano) — Opening document error "failed to open the document"

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Note: I get the same errors whether I try to open the file within Calibre_Companion, thru the dialog box that pops up when I select the book, or from my file manager using "open with"

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4) I tried selecting both a single book and multiple books and 'sending to device' — I got the above errors in Calibre and on my device both times. When I selected multiple books in Calibre, however, to "send to device" only one ended up on the device. I couldn't open the book (same errors as above), but the group of books I selected didn't arrive.

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With the Content Server Off, I don't get the error in Calibre when I send a book to the device, however, I still can't open the book in any of those 3 readers, nor "import to Aldiko."
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In Calibre, the books are checked green in the "on device" column ("main"). Lastly, after I uninstalled and reinstalled CComp, and tested two different books, the book I first tested still appears in CComp's list of books on my device, although it is not in the CComp folder (or any other folder).
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What should I try/change?

Thanks,
~g

p.s. I thought CComp was going to make it possible to see (and manage) all the Calibre data associated with a title (tag, author, description, series, etc.) on my device, not simply sort and group — but I only seem to see the cover, author and title. Is there a way to highlight or select the book to see the rest of the data? (this may be an extraneous question when/if the errors listed above are resolved, but I wanted to make sure I understood the app properly)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by g007

Hi,

device: Nexus 7; OS: Mac OS X 10.6; Calibre version: 0.8.64; Wireless device connection: on; book type (on server): Epub; book type selected in Calibre Companion preferences: Epub, Mobi

MacOS has a serious networking bug (well, failure to follow standards) that prevents calibre 0.8.64 and CC from "talking" together reliably. See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=187704, particularly starting at post 16. The workaround that I implemented in calibre seems to overcome the problem. You might want to try the beta release of calibre linked to in that thread.

If you want some technical info about the bug, google for "MacOS socket eagain blocking". FYI: calibre uses blocking sockets.

In Calibre, the books are checked green in the "on device" column ("main"). Lastly, after I uninstalled and reinstalled CComp, and tested two different books, the book I first tested still appears in CComp's list of books on my device, although it is not in the CComp folder (or any other folder).

You are saying that after uninstalling and reinstalling CC, the books were still visible? This is strange, because uninstalling the app removes its database. After an uninstall/reinstall, no books will appear in the app. The only way that the books could reappear is if you resent them. Did you do that? Given the MacOS bug, resending them will likely not do anything useful until you are using the release of calibre that works around its networking bug.

p.s. I thought CComp was going to make it possible to see (and manage) all the Calibre data associated with a title (tag, author, description, series, etc.) on my device, not simply sort and group — but I only seem to see the cover, author and title. Is there a way to highlight or select the book to see the rest of the data? (this may be an extraneous question when/if the errors listed above are resolved, but I wanted to make sure I understood the app properly)

I don't know where you got the impression that CC will "manage" the data. CC is not calibre and does not support modification of book's metadata. Regarding seeing the metadata, as mentioned in the https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...2&postcount=42 the ability to see all metadata has not yet been implemented.

My impression is that putting aside the MacOS bugs that I have worked around, you are expecting something from this app that it will never deliver. As we are still in the beta period, if that is the case please contact Steve Haley for a refund.

[FlareHeart]

I've posted a link to your app on a popular site called Reddit. I'm not sure how much attention it's going to get, but I hope it helps.

Here's a link to my post. http://www.reddit.com/r/Nexus7/comme...to_manage_the/

[Xyo]

I'm having trouble with my .mobi files.

The kindle app for android does support them, if you put them in /sdcard/kindle. However, CC tells me I don't have any compatible apps and won't give me any way to open them.

EDIT: I should point out I synced calibre to the default directory, not to the kindle folder.

[g007]

Hi,
No, sorry, I misspoke (mistyped?) I didn't mean edit the data — just see it/use it to sort and find books. I realize the app isn't meant to write to or otherwise manipulate the Calibre database on my computer. I did not, however, realize that seeing all the metadata wouldn't be available in the beta version. No worries, it can wait.

Regardless, I downloaded the new 0.8.64 version of Calibre and after I connected made sure not to touch the screen — it's all now working like a champ. I selected and copied multiple books to the device and was able to import them into MoonReader+ and Mantano Lite and see all the right Calibre metadata in those apps. Which is precisely what I was hoping for —*a streamlined way to import multiple books, and their Calibre metadata, to the e-readers on my device.

(And for what it's worth, Mantano Lite seems to successfully import the books and metadata from the folder Companion stores them in and it offers a fairly robust sorting and grouping interface using titles/authors/tags/collections itself.)


Thanks much!

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Xyo

I'm having trouble with my .mobi files.

The kindle app for android does support them, if you put them in /sdcard/kindle. However, CC tells me I don't have any compatible apps and won't give me any way to open them.

EDIT: I should point out I synced calibre to the default directory, not to the kindle folder.

See FAQ entry #13 (new entry).

Bottom line: Kindle for Android does not publish that it can open .mobi files (or any other kind of file), so Calibre Companion does not know that it exists, and it is unable pass books to it. Your choices are to use a different reader app to read mobi files (there are several) or to change CC's storage folder to the Kindle folder. If you take the latter route then you will need to open Kindle for Android yourself. K4A will automatically import any books it finds.

We recognize that storing all your books in the kindle folder is not optimal. This is one reason that we will be implementing book "format" routing, a feature that will let you select a different storage folder per book type. The feature will help when someone uses multiple reader apps.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by g007

Hi,
Regardless, I downloaded the new 0.8.64 version of Calibre and after I connected made sure not to touch the screen — it's all now working like a champ.

Excellent. Another piece of evidence that my changes are working around the networking problem.

BTW: We think we have fixed the "touch the screen" problem in CC version 1.2.

(And for what it's worth, Mantano Lite seems to successfully import the books and metadata from the folder Companion stores them in and it offers a fairly robust sorting and grouping interface using titles/authors/tags/collections itself.)

It is good to know that it works. Did you tell Mantano to scan to folder, or did it do so because you opened a book located in the folder?

We won't be at all surprised if someone prefers the interface of a reader app over Calibre Companion's. It might be what the person is used to, it could be color schemes, or even something like a "wooden bookshelf" graphical view.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by FlareHeart

So far it's fantastic. I LOVE this functionality! Thank you so much!

Glad it works for you. Also, thank you for the other posts. We appreciate the help!

I have only one small request, can we have a "refresh metadata" button or something similar?

For example: If I change the metadata for a book while the Nexus 7 is connected and would like to re-send the metadata for the version that is already on my device. At this point, the only way for it to re-send and sync the metadata is for me to disconnect, and then reconnect, then the auto-sync takes over. Would it be possible to add a button shortcut for this in the app?

If we add such a button, it will actually disconnect and reconnect.

There is currently no way for the app to get calibre to resend the metadata. In fact, there is no way for the app to get calibre to do anything. Calibre's model is that the 'connected thing' is a disk drive, and we all know that disk drives don't pop up and ask for new files to be written to them.

Humor aside, I might be able to do something about this when I start looking at how the app might be able to pilot calibre. I will add it to my to-do list.

Edit: And for some strange reason, when I sort by Author but do not group them, the books by that author appear to be listed in random order. Is that normal? Is there a setting that I'm missing that would be some sort of secondary sort order?

Ooops...

The secondary order is currently download order. This is not useful. I will change it to title_sort.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

The secondary order is currently download order. This is not useful. I will change it to title_sort.

You already have a sort all books by title for the whole list of books, wouldn't a better default secondary order for sort all books by author be series? This is the one view of the entire list that I miss.

Just my 2 cents, I'm flexible.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

You already have a sort all books by title for the whole list of books, wouldn't a better default secondary order for sort all books by author be series? This is the one view of the entire list that I miss.

Just my 2 cents, I'm flexible.

It would need to be author by series by title. I would be happy to do this, but I am concerned that it wouldn't be obvious to people what the order actually is. If they don't, then they will "lose" books, which leads to bug reports.

I am considering using the last sorts to generate the secondary keys. Under this scheme, if you sort by series then author, you would get what you are looking for. If you sort by title then author. Experience with calibre tells me that this behavior can be mysterious, but at least it would be consistent.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

It would need to be author by series by title.

True.

Originally Posted by chaley

I would be happy to do this, but I am concerned that it wouldn't be obvious to people what the order actually is. If they don't, then they will "lose" books, which leads to bug reports.

I think it would be obvious to folks, but then I won't be handling the bug reports. It makes sense to minimize opportunities for confusion.

Originally Posted by chaley

I am considering using the last sorts to generate the secondary keys. Under this scheme, if you sort by series then author, you would get what you are looking for.

This would work for me.

If it proves too difficult you can add another option under the Sort menu that sorts by author by series by title and label the button "Sort for Walt."

Of course first and foremost is getting connection issues all smoothed out.

Good Luck.

[chaley]

I did the "last sort within sort" stuff. It works. Now we will see what sort of problems I just created.

[rorschach1234]

Originally Posted by chaley

It would need to be author by series by title. I would be happy to do this, but I am concerned that it wouldn't be obvious to people what the order actually is. If they don't, then they will "lose" books, which leads to bug reports.

I am considering using the last sorts to generate the secondary keys. Under this scheme, if you sort by series then author, you would get what you are looking for. If you sort by title then author. Experience with calibre tells me that this behavior can be mysterious, but at least it would be consistent.

Just my tuppenny's worth, but would adding an option to sort by the date that books were added to CC be possible? Being able to sort by primary and secondary fields would be very useful too.

A couple of other things I was wondering if it would be possible to include as new features (I hope they haven't been covered elsewhere, but there are more posts to read in different threads than I have time to read right now...):

1) an 'about' option, in order to know what release the installed program is at - plus maybe a list of release notes. Maybe it's just me, but I always read those!

2) an option to delete books from within Calibre Companion. Having to connect it to calibre each time I want to delete something is a bit weird, and if I delete books with any other app (Root Explorer or FBReader, for example) CC still claims that they are still installed.

Thanks for all the great work going on here!

[chaley]

Originally Posted by rorschach1234

Just my tuppenny's worth, but would adding an option to sort by the date that books were added to CC be possible? Being able to sort by primary and secondary fields would be very useful too.

Funny, we don't even have that date stored.

One problem with sort -- people will want to sort on anything and everything. We need to keep the options to a reasonable size. For example, in addition to your request should someone be able to sort on calibre's last changed date? Published date? Something else? Hard to say.

That said, date sent seems reasonable. We will look at what we would need to do to support it. Of course, if you can sort on it you need to be able to see it, which implies also adding it to the base books display.

1) an 'about' option, in order to know what release the installed program is at - plus maybe a list of release notes. Maybe it's just me, but I always read those!

The release notes are in the app comments on google play.

I asked him to add an about box a few days ago. He will get to it when he does ...

2) an option to delete books from within Calibre Companion. Having to connect it to calibre each time I want to delete something is a bit weird, and if I delete books with any other app (Root Explorer or FBReader, for example) CC still claims that they are still installed.

That is on our todo list.

Thanks for all the great work going on here!

[FlareHeart]

Originally Posted by chaley

I did the "last sort within sort" stuff. It works. Now we will see what sort of problems I just created.

I'm excited to get the update with this in it! Thanks again!