Plugin ideas... add yours here

[tarisea]

Originally Posted by tarisea

Calibre needs a social media plug in. More and more authors are using Twitter and Facebook, and most have their own websites. Many of them also have blogs. I'm thinking a settings page that mirrors the Manage Authors page.

Author, Author Sort, Website, Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Instagram, MySpace, Other1, Other2.

Other can be any url link.

When you select a book and right click a submenu of social media appears. That menu will show you whatever links are available for that author. Clicking on it takes you to that page in your browser.

Eventually a database of author sites can be put together, I'm sure there would be many people willing to contribute, myself included.

I'm not a programmer but I thought I would make the suggestion.

Tarisea

No one? I thought for sure I wouldn't be the first to come up with this idea.

Kovid what do you think?

TTRS

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by tarisea

No one? I thought for sure I wouldn't be the first to come up with this idea.

Kovid what do you think?

TTRS

I can't speak for Kovid, but here's my opinion.

The idea is good, but the implementation would likely be a nightmare.

First, what you're really looking for is a place to store multiple fields of information about an author. While that can be done in a plugin, the best way to do it would be in the database itself, which would involve a full Author table, which as far as I know, currently doesn't exist.

Second, just from my own experience I believe one of the design principles of Calibre is not to hard-code site-specific information into the program or database. Any place where it deals with external websites, Calibre stores the information about those websites in settings or configuration files instead of working them into the program itself. This is likely due to the ephemeral nature of the Internet. Having the Author table have fields named after specific websites would violate the spirit of that principle.

That means that those field names would have to be arbitrary. They could be set the way you suggested in the default configuration, but there would have to be a way for users to override those settings and create their own field labels.

Of course, once you give the users that power, what we're really talking about is a full custom field system for Authors like Calibre has for books.

Don't get me wrong; I would love to have a full Author table in the database. That would solve a lot of issues that I've run into with trying to organize my libraries. But what you're asking for would best be implemented not a by plugin, but by a major rewrite of significant portions of Calibre.

That said, if Kovid does decide to add a full Author table, I will eat my words (and enjoy them immensely while I'm giddily playing around with this feature).

[theducks]

Manage: Authors has a place (field) for links

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

Manage: Authors has a place (field) for links

Into which you can put a link to a folder, into which you can put whatever files you like, including as many url files as you want.

Social Media sites come and go - My Space is yesterday, I recently read that many Twitter users are switching to ????? (forget), I would want LinkedIn, others Baidu. It only takes a moment to drag a URL out of a browser into a folder.

A possible enhancement to calibre could be to allow users to add files into the author folders and put a button in Manage Authors - Use Author folder as Author Link. So click author name in Book details and the folder opens. This probably wouldn't entail any database changes but it would require changes to the Library folder management functions - Author Name changes, copy to library etc.

Another way might be to provide a Comments field for Authors and use the Link widget to add SocMed links. More elegant but this probably would entail database changes.

BR

[user743]

how about this http://www.cssjanus.commoner.com/ as a plugin to calibre. to convert css made for left to right (ltr) languages, to be used for right to left (rtl) languages and the opposite.

[BetterRed]

If above link not work 4 U - try http://cssjanus.commoner.com/

BR

[roen.v.touli]

Kovid, long time user of Calibre (since 2010) and lurker of the forum, keep up the great work! I have over 400gb of non-fiction books, articles, academic papers, and documentaries I am slowly getting into Calibre with accurate metadata (its a long process and had to start over, but will be well worth it). I look forward to the updates each Friday in anticipation of what has been further developed.

I have a couple feature/plugin requests:

1. Integration or able to link libraries/books into mind mapping software such as The Brain or Docear which are free and the latter open source. This would be great in large libraries where users want to find and view ideas and links between books, documents, authors, etc. It is more of a research and academic tool, and while I know Calibre is not designed for that use in mind, it has great potential and beats many of the paid for software on the market for those purposes if used correctly (e.g. management of documents in natural and citations are just as easy with user columns).

2. Is it possible to utilize or integrate Calibre with PDF-Xchange Editor for the editing and manipulation of .pdf's or is there a copryight issue? Or perhaps they wouldn't mind being used in this light with permission for marketing purposes? This is not a big issue as I can just use the program itself, but it would be nice to be able to do it in one place.

3. Is it possible to implement of scrolling ticker integrated into News that updates as items are downloaded. Users could choose colors and notifications (e.g. red=new item, yellow=recent, green=older, popup notification, etc). Please see pic attached for further clarification. It is a screenshot of my native system (Win 7) with Calibre open and a separate program, Desktop Ticker, used to scroll RSS feeds.

Again, thank you for all your hard work and effort, everyone hear appreciates it much. I enjoy everybody's participation as well, such a great project.

[jackie_w]

I don't think you need a plugin for item 2. I have PDF-Xchange Editor set up as my default application on Windows 7 for opening PDF files. I also have the PDF list item in Preferences - Behaviour - Use Internal Viewer for set to UNCHECKED. This means that when I press the calibre View button for a PDF book it automatically opens in PDF-Xchange Editor and it can be edited in-situ if required. Personally I very rarely edit PDFs, but it does work OK.

[roen.v.touli]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I don't think you need a plugin for item 2. I have PDF-Xchange Editor set up as my default application on Windows 7 for opening PDF files. I also have the PDF list item in Preferences - Behaviour - Use Internal Viewer for set to UNCHECKED. This means that when I press the calibre View button for a PDF book it automatically opens in PDF-Xchange Editor and it can be edited in-situ if required. Personally I very rarely edit PDFs, but it does work OK.

I am with you there, which is why I don't think it is a big issue, my setup is the same as yours. The only reason this feature would be nice is that one would not have to have multiple programs open and can save memory usage. Either way, I am fine with my current set up. I mainly edit .pdf's when I save a web page as one using Print Pages to PDF. That aside, 1 and 2 are big on my wishlist

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by roen.v.touli

The only reason this feature would be nice is that one would not have to have multiple programs open and can save memory usage.

I have XChange Viewer set up as my OS default for PDF's and I have XChange Editor available via the Open With PI.

The calibre Book Viewer and Book Editor are separate programs (ebook-viewer.exe and ebook-editor.exe) that run as separate processes in their own window and they can be executed stand alone. So they are just like XChange Viewer and XChange Editor.

Given that the calibre GUI doesn't encapsulate its own viewer and editor within itself, it's highly unlikely that it will ever do the same for external viewers and editors - where would one stop - Word, OOo Writer, Scrivener, Jutoh, Atlantic...

Originally Posted by roen.v.touli

That aside, 1 and 2 are big on my wishlist

I suspect you mean 1 and 3

BR

[roen.v.touli]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I have XChange Viewer set up as my OS default for PDF's and I have XChange Editor available via the Open With PI.

The calibre Book Viewer and Book Editor are separate programs (ebook-viewer.exe and ebook-editor.exe) that run as separate processes in their own window and they can be executed stand alone. So they are just like XChange Viewer and XChange Editor.

Given that the calibre GUI doesn't encapsulate its own viewer and editor within itself, it's highly unlikely that it will ever do the same for external viewers and editors - where would one stop - Word, OOo Writer, Scrivener, Jutoh, Atlantic...


I suspect you meant you mean 1 and 3

BR

Good points. Yes, I did mean 3, thank you.

[theducks]

Use and Set your favorite whatever as a choice in OpenWith PI for PDF files.

This allows 'n' alternates to the default (Behavior) View action

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by roen.v.touli

1. Integration or able to link libraries/books into mind mapping software such as The Brain or Docear which are free and the latter open source. This would be great in large libraries where users want to find and view ideas and links between books, documents, authors, etc. It is more of a research and academic tool, and while I know Calibre is not designed for that use in mind, it has great potential and beats many of the paid for software on the market for those purposes if used correctly (e.g. management of documents in natural and citations are just as easy with user columns).

If The Brain or Docear have local datasets you could put a shortcut (.lnk) file to the dataset in a book (it would appear as a LNK in Book details), or you could use the URI Link facility in Comments (or a custom comments-like column) to link to the datasets - this has the advantage of allowing a book to link to multiple datasets from The Brain and or Docear.

BR

[bittenfig]

Originally Posted by fem

I've created an OPML importer plugin, that imports RSS feeds exported in OPML format from feedly or the late google reader.

The plugin thread is here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...17#post2793417

I've been looking for this for a long time. Thank you.

[roen.v.touli]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

If The Brain or Docear have local datasets you could put a shortcut (.lnk) file to the dataset in a book (it would appear as a LNK in Book details), or you could use the URI Link facility in Comments (or a custom comments-like column) to link to the datasets - this has the advantage of allowing a book to link to multiple datasets from The Brain and or Docear.

BR

Such a simple solution I can't believe I overlooked it! I use that function to link to ISDNDB and LOC. Thank you Red.

I tested as a link in comments and works great. What I am thinking though is that I would like the mind maps to show in the tag browser to filter like tags but show as a link in comments like ISBN or author. I think I would need a text like column with the file path and an additional column from column showing in tag browser and as a link in comments...I am just not sure of the template language I would use.

For example, if I have a dataset, or mind map, at path 'user/.docear/mindmapX1' how do I show that in the tag browser under category "Mind Map" as "mindmapX1" with a link in comments "Mind Map: mindmapX1"