[Old Thread] Calibre + Dropbox = unclouded happiness - Page 3

dpierron · 11-19-2009, 08:41 AM

Thank you for correcting this mistake, I edited the first post !

itimpi · 11-19-2009, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

halljames : that's because the links in the stanza.xml file are broken, Calibre uses a function called urlencode to convert special characters in these links, and Stanza does not understand all of them (I'm pretty sure it's a Stanza bug).

Stanza is quite happy with the brackets being URL encoded. I do this in my Calibre2Web program and Stanza works fine with the generated catalogs. The only reason for not having them URL encoded would be to make them human readable. I never expected an average user to look inside the xml catalog files so did not deem this to be important.

dpierron · 11-19-2009, 09:40 AM

itimpi : trust me, I tried publishing the stanza.xml catalog (generated by versions of Calibre anterior to 6.0.24) as is with Stanza on the iPhone (published on Dropbox, and before that on an Apache website), and the links didn't work. When I manually edited the file to change the %28 and %29 to parentheses, it worked... Go figure, but this is empirical evidence

mtravellerh · 11-19-2009, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

itimpi : trust me, I tried publishing the stanza.xml catalog (generated by versions of Calibre anterior to 6.0.24) as is with Stanza on the iPhone (published on Dropbox, and before that on an Apache website), and the links didn't work. When I manually edited the file to change the %28 and %29 to parentheses, it worked... Go figure, but this is empirical evidence

Ditto!

rcuadro · 11-19-2009, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

itimpi : trust me, I tried publishing the stanza.xml catalog (generated by versions of Calibre anterior to 6.0.24) as is with Stanza on the iPhone (published on Dropbox, and before that on an Apache website), and the links didn't work. When I manually edited the file to change the %28 and %29 to parentheses, it worked... Go figure, but this is empirical evidence

You know... I looked for the %28 and %29 in the generated xml file and found none...

dpierron · 11-19-2009, 03:23 PM

rcuadro : these are parentheses, and therefore if none of your books titles or authors names contain parentheses, you won't find them - and then Stanza will not complain !

Lucky you

Robotech_Master · 11-19-2009, 05:09 PM

Cron jobs are things that a Unix/Linux computer can be set to do at a certain time every day. Often used for things like creating daily backup files, or downloading files when the network is not busy at night.

dpierron: What do you mean by "publish your library" for step 1? Do you mean change Calibre's setting so it saves automatically into your dropbox whenever you make a change? Do you still have to copy your existing files over manually?

rcuadro · 11-19-2009, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

rcuadro : these are parentheses, and therefore if none of your books titles or authors names contain parentheses, you won't find them - and then Stanza will not complain !

Lucky you

Lucky me... though I just noticed that not all my books actually show up. Wierd.

Kilroy · 11-19-2009, 07:51 PM

dpierron, you rock. I just thought of Dropbox + Calibre + Stanza a couple of days ago, finally got around to searching on Google this morning... and see that you thought of it not too long ago either :-)

Your guide is extremely helpful -- was able to follow it and get it set up in a matter of minutes. Thank you!

Kilroy · 11-19-2009, 08:05 PM

Based on another thread on this forum (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62701 ), I'd like to recommend that you update your first post to include a best practice for using Calibre + Dropbox:

"Always close Calibre after using it, because otherwise the metadata.db file won't be synced correctly, which will lead to problems if you open Calibre on another computer."

Or something like that :-)

dpierron · 11-20-2009, 04:55 AM

robotech_master : I mean that you have to set up DropBox so that your Calibre library folder is shared in the DropBox cloud, and set up as public : basically, either put it in the My Dropbox/Public folder, or make a symbolic link from your actual Calibre library folder to something in the My Dropbox/Public folder (in a Unix, use ln -s, in Windows use junction).

Kilroy : thanks for the compliment, it's really nice to see that I helped so many people ! Also, regarding the metadata.db, while it's locked Dropbox won't be able to publish it, but as soon as Calibre exits (as you said, in fact) it will be released and Dropbox is smart enough to quickly publish it (maybe this is the problem Devon was speaking about yesterday ?).

Ortep : I tried Live Mesh, and while it's nice to have 5Gb of free space, there is no Mac client (yet) and (more of a problem) I didn't find out how to get a public URL to a file in the Live Mesh cloud ; did you ? I submitted a ticket to Microsoft, but as far as I know them I'll never get an answer

mtravellerh · 11-20-2009, 05:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

Ortep : I tried Live Mesh, and while it's nice to have 5Gb of free space, there is no Mac client (yet) and (more of a problem) I didn't find out how to get a public URL to a file in the Live Mesh cloud ; did you ? I submitted a ticket to Microsoft, but as far as I know them I'll never get an answer

Call me paranoid, but I am so glad that I am rid of MS for good and that my system is so stable yet flexible that every MS thing gives me a bad toothache! Dropbox works absolutely great on my Ubuntu 9.10 system and so is O'Reilly's bookworm and Calibre's content server. Why bother about Live Mesh at all?

Ortep · 11-20-2009, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpierron

Ortep : I tried Live Mesh, and while it's nice to have 5Gb of free space, there is no Mac client (yet) and (more of a problem) I didn't find out how to get a public URL to a file in the Live Mesh cloud ; did you ? I submitted a ticket to Microsoft, but as far as I know them I'll never get an answer

There is a Mac Client around for about a year now

https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/features/features.aspx

Mac*
Add a Mac to your mesh. Sync and share folders between your PC and your Mac. Or your friend’s Mac. Or between two Macs. Live Mesh gives you cross-platform functionality, so you can maximize your mesh.
* Some Live Mesh features not yet available for the Mac

dpierron · 11-20-2009, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

Call me paranoid, but I am so glad that I am rid of MS for good and that my system is so stable yet flexible that every MS thing gives me a bad toothache! Dropbox works absolutely great on my Ubuntu 9.10 system and so is O'Reilly's bookworm and Calibre's content server. Why bother about Live Mesh at all?

Because, as my mother used to say, "ne mets pas tous tes oeufs dans le même panier" (french for "don't put all your eggs in the same basket"), which means that it's good to have choices...

Maybe one day DropBox will become paying, and we'll be happy to have investigated other services ?

But in the meantime you're quite right, Microsoft services are usually bad on platforms other than Windows, and DropBox just works ... wait for it ... out of the box

dpierron · 11-20-2009, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ortep

There is a Mac Client around for about a year now

https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/features/features.aspx

Mac*
Add a Mac to your mesh. Sync and share folders between your PC and your Mac. Or your friend’s Mac. Or between two Macs. Live Mesh gives you cross-platform functionality, so you can maximize your mesh.
* Some Live Mesh features not yet available for the Mac

Ok, thanks for pointing this out, I didn't try and thought that they said it was in the works... Did you manage to get a public URL though ?

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11-19-2009, 08:41 AM	#31
dpierron calibre2opds guru Posts: 533 Karma: 8792 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Metz, France Device: iPhone, iPad, PRS-650	Thank you for correcting this mistake, I edited the first post !

11-19-2009, 09:40 AM	#33
dpierron calibre2opds guru Posts: 533 Karma: 8792 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Metz, France Device: iPhone, iPad, PRS-650	itimpi : trust me, I tried publishing the stanza.xml catalog (generated by versions of Calibre anterior to 6.0.24) as is with Stanza on the iPhone (published on Dropbox, and before that on an Apache website), and the links didn't work. When I manually edited the file to change the %28 and %29 to parentheses, it worked... Go figure, but this is empirical evidence

11-19-2009, 03:23 PM	#36
dpierron calibre2opds guru Posts: 533 Karma: 8792 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Metz, France Device: iPhone, iPad, PRS-650	rcuadro : these are parentheses, and therefore if none of your books titles or authors names contain parentheses, you won't find them - and then Stanza will not complain ! Lucky you

11-19-2009, 05:09 PM	#37
Robotech_Master Fanatic Posts: 514 Karma: 2954711 Join Date: May 2006	Cron jobs are things that a Unix/Linux computer can be set to do at a certain time every day. Often used for things like creating daily backup files, or downloading files when the network is not busy at night. dpierron: What do you mean by "publish your library" for step 1? Do you mean change Calibre's setting so it saves automatically into your dropbox whenever you make a change? Do you still have to copy your existing files over manually?

11-19-2009, 07:51 PM	#39
Kilroy Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: iPod Touch	dpierron, you rock. I just thought of Dropbox + Calibre + Stanza a couple of days ago, finally got around to searching on Google this morning... and see that you thought of it not too long ago either :-) Your guide is extremely helpful -- was able to follow it and get it set up in a matter of minutes. Thank you!

11-19-2009, 08:05 PM	#40
Kilroy Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: iPod Touch	Based on another thread on this forum (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62701 ), I'd like to recommend that you update your first post to include a best practice for using Calibre + Dropbox: "Always close Calibre after using it, because otherwise the metadata.db file won't be synced correctly, which will lead to problems if you open Calibre on another computer." Or something like that :-)

11-20-2009, 04:55 AM	#41
dpierron calibre2opds guru Posts: 533 Karma: 8792 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Metz, France Device: iPhone, iPad, PRS-650	robotech_master : I mean that you have to set up DropBox so that your Calibre library folder is shared in the DropBox cloud, and set up as public : basically, either put it in the My Dropbox/Public folder, or make a symbolic link from your actual Calibre library folder to something in the My Dropbox/Public folder (in a Unix, use ln -s, in Windows use junction). Kilroy : thanks for the compliment, it's really nice to see that I helped so many people ! Also, regarding the metadata.db, while it's locked Dropbox won't be able to publish it, but as soon as Calibre exits (as you said, in fact) it will be released and Dropbox is smart enough to quickly publish it (maybe this is the problem Devon was speaking about yesterday ?). Ortep : I tried Live Mesh, and while it's nice to have 5Gb of free space, there is no Mac client (yet) and (more of a problem) I didn't find out how to get a public URL to a file in the Live Mesh cloud ; did you ? I submitted a ticket to Microsoft, but as far as I know them I'll never get an answer

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