Recreating a previous collection of books on a device

[DMcCunney]

I'm curious abut what strategies people use in a case like this.

I was given a Google Nexus 7 tablet by a friend who has no use for it. It's the 2012 Grouper model, with an nVidia Tegra CPU, 1280x800 screen, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, and running Lollipop 5.1.1. The chap who passed it along said "It's really slow. You'll want to downgrade the OS." I did a factory reset, rooted, and started configuring. My use case is eBook viewer, books stored on device, and online in a pinch.

Yes, it's really slow. Used offline as eBook viewer, it's fast enough. Go online and things go downhill fast. (It rebooted last night trying to visit the Play Store for app updates.) Several different options exist for installing a different Android version, including KitKat, Marshmallow, and Nougat. It will be a time consuming process regardless of which I install, and I'll have to do a factory reset to do it.

A big part of the time will be recreating the eBook collection on device. What I'd like to do would be to compile a list of what is currently there, in a form I can pass to Calibre and say "Add these books to device", then go do other things and come back when its done.

When the device is plugged in, Calibre will inventory the content on device, and books on device will get a checkmark in a on device column in the master library list. I think what I'd like to do is create a new column as a boolean value to specifically record which books are on that device, and automatically insert a yes value to that column for any book that appears in the on device list. When I need to recreate the collection on device, I create a virtual library of the books in that column, and just add the whole virtual library.

Is there a convenient way of doing that mapping of books on the plugged in device to a column meant to store that status? I have more than one device managed by Calibre, and I'd like to create normally hidden columns just to store a "what's on that device" list for reference when the device isn't plugged in.

My fallback notion is "Copy all books off device to a temp directory, create a new empty Calibre Library, then add the books copied off the device it it, and use the new Calibre Library to add them back." That's doable, but it seems more involved than it really needs to be.

Suggestions?
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Dennis

[theducks]

I think this is part of what what you want to do:
Connect Old device and let it settle: search Ondevice:true
Select all (ctrl-A) and tap 'E" (bulk metadata edit mode): Add Tag: <eg Old XYZ >
Disconnect (eject)
Connect new device: Search tags:Old XYZ: select all: Send to device

This does not create any device collections. Those may be device centric
This assume you have any Templates or Plugboards set your way (those may make your collections)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think this is part of what what you want to do:
Connect Old device and let it settle: search Ondevice:true
Select all (ctrl-A) and tap 'E" (bulk metadata edit mode): Add Tag: <eg Old XYZ >
Disconnect (eject)
Connect new device: Search tags:Old XYZ: select all: Send to device

That sounds like just the thing. Searchable tags may be a better approach than hidden columns.

This does not create any device collections. Those may be device centric
This assume you have any Templates or Plugboards set your way (those may make your collections)

I don't have Plugboards or Templates, and don't have specific on device collections. Everything on device is in a single directory, and my eBook viewer (FBReader for Android) uses the metadata Calibre sends to device, and lists books by Author, Title, Series, Tags and other things like Favorites and Recently Opened. I'd need to recreate the Favorites list, but the rest will be there.

EDIT: And I just followed your suggested steps and added a Nexus 7 tag to volumes on that device. Restoring all books with that tag when the time comes should be straightforward.

Thanks!
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Dennis

[chaley]

The reading list plugin can make a list of books on the device when you connect it. It keeps a different list for each device.

Theducks method is better if you will want to look for books on any device or on more than one device. Personally I would use a like-tags custom column instead of a general tag, and I would first remove the book tag from all books before the select & add steps to be sure there aren't any leftovers.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by chaley

The reading list plugin can make a list of books on the device when you connect it. It keeps a different list for each device.

Theducks method is better if you will want to look for books on any device or on more than one device. Personally I would use a like-tags custom column instead of a general tag, and I would first remove the book tag from all books before the select & add steps to be sure there aren't any leftovers.

I've already used Theduck's method to add a Nexus 7 tag to books on that device. It will do what the primary purpose of my question was - "How do I recreate the set of books that was on the device before I had to factory reset to do OS changes?"

I'll look at other tweaks later. Another device is being problematic at the moment because it recognizes being plugged in to my desktop to get power and recharge, but doesn't recognize it is plugged into a host and can transfer files via MTP. (I've tried three different cables, one of which I know previously worked.)

USB tends to be quirky.
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Dennis