whether Japanese-language learning plugin idea is possible in Calibre

Moosatronic · 04-26-2021, 06:31 PM

Hello,

I'm a relatively new programmer who has an idea for a plugin and I thought I would ask if such a plugin is possible.

So I use Calibre to learn Japanese because I find the ebook reader's lookup function to be really useful. I can lookup words on the fly from pretty much any dictionary site i wish.

To learn Japanese I would look up words in calibre and then paste the words, their readings, and definitions into an excel spreadsheet that I would later convert into flashcards.

As for my plugin idea, its basically a plugin that allows you to use the calibre's lookup to effectively automate the above process.
Basically
1.use an existing python module to look up Japanese words, their readings and their english definitions from the free JMDict dictionary.

2. display the result in a simple generated html page like with Calibre's lookup functionality,

3. add words and their definitions to a list and, finally from that list,

4.generate and save a .csv file for easy import into a flash card program like Anki or displayed in Excel.

I was just wondering if something like the above is possible and, if so, some tips on how to implement it as if i embark on this, it'll be my first programming project of this scope. I just think a plugin like this would be very useful because it makes it easier to focus on what you are reading, as opposed to spending time copying and pasting words into a spreadsheet.

kovidgoyal · 04-26-2021, 09:56 PM

Sadly the viewer has no plugins API at the moment. It's on my TODO list, but given the rather large complexity of the viewer (its written in multiple languages and involves lots of asynchronous code across multiple sandobed processes), its not something easy to do.

For your use case you are probably better off just running calibre from source, which is easy to do see https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/develop.html and modifying a single file viewr/lookup.py to change the lookup panel to do what you need.

Moosatronic · 04-27-2021, 03:41 PM

okay that sounds simple enough. Thanks for the suggestion and i'll try that.

I may just end up creating a website that can do what I noted instead as well.

04-26-2021, 06:31 PM	#1
Moosatronic Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	whether Japanese-language learning plugin idea is possible in Calibre Hello, I'm a relatively new programmer who has an idea for a plugin and I thought I would ask if such a plugin is possible. So I use Calibre to learn Japanese because I find the ebook reader's lookup function to be really useful. I can lookup words on the fly from pretty much any dictionary site i wish. To learn Japanese I would look up words in calibre and then paste the words, their readings, and definitions into an excel spreadsheet that I would later convert into flashcards. As for my plugin idea, its basically a plugin that allows you to use the calibre's lookup to effectively automate the above process. Basically 1.use an existing python module to look up Japanese words, their readings and their english definitions from the free JMDict dictionary. 2. display the result in a simple generated html page like with Calibre's lookup functionality, 3. add words and their definitions to a list and, finally from that list, 4.generate and save a .csv file for easy import into a flash card program like Anki or displayed in Excel. I was just wondering if something like the above is possible and, if so, some tips on how to implement it as if i embark on this, it'll be my first programming project of this scope. I just think a plugin like this would be very useful because it makes it easier to focus on what you are reading, as opposed to spending time copying and pasting words into a spreadsheet.

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04-26-2021, 09:56 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,864 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Sadly the viewer has no plugins API at the moment. It's on my TODO list, but given the rather large complexity of the viewer (its written in multiple languages and involves lots of asynchronous code across multiple sandobed processes), its not something easy to do. For your use case you are probably better off just running calibre from source, which is easy to do see https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/develop.html and modifying a single file viewr/lookup.py to change the lookup panel to do what you need.

04-27-2021, 03:41 PM	#3
Moosatronic Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	okay that sounds simple enough. Thanks for the suggestion and i'll try that. I may just end up creating a website that can do what I noted instead as well.

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