Calibre Companion prerelease 3.3.0e

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

But, isn't Google Books a fairly obscure use-case? Are a lot of people really going to go - Calibre->Calibre-Companion->Google-Books->Cloud? Won't most people go: Calibre->Cloud->Google Books. If that is true, then this is going to be an option that's just greyed out all the time for most of your users.

You might well be right. However, to use the calibre -> cloud -> google books path you must install google books on your device. Once you do that I can see cases where it is more convenient to send it from the device. Example: you are on a bus or at an airport and you haven't set up the calibre content server. You are reading a book on device A and decide that you want to make it available to read on device B. One way to do that is to upload the book to Google Books then use Google's reader on both devices. Of course, you are faced with all the normal problems of metadata syncing etc so this isn't a particularly good general solution, but it does handle some specific cases rather well.

We will see. If it turns out to be too confusing then we can hide it instead of disable it.

[kaufman]

I wan't arguing that no-one would ever do it. We already know that Purple Lady is doing it. And, if you do have Google books installed, then sure, show the active function.

My only point was that probably most people don't install it, and even in your use case, the person is going to have to install google books twice and then send the book and receive the book. Its probably easier for them to use the send-to option and just email the book.

Like I said, I don't have any personal problem with having it there, I just think if the majority of people are only ever going to see it greyed out, and are never going to install google books, it might be better to just hide it.

[jackie_w]

Just extra FYI, my phone came with Google Books pre-installed so I tried Send to Google Books. It worked ... eventually. The upload speed was pitiful -- I'm assuming that's nothing to do with CC -- I don't think I'll be using it again.

Re-initialising the Date Read field works fine.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Just extra FYI, my phone came with Google Books pre-installed so I tried Send to Google Books. It worked ... eventually. The upload speed was pitiful -- I'm assuming that's nothing to do with CC -- I don't think I'll be using it again.

Yea, when I tried it I saw "processing book" for almost 5 minutes. I think that the great-computer-in-the-sky was analyzing the metadata inside the book, because when it finished the title changed from the file name to the correct title. But 5 minutes is a very long time.

Re-initialising the Date Read field works fine.

Thanks for testing it.

[chaley]

There will be a V3.3.0f. Why: We just worked out that in android kitkat (4.4), Google no longer allows apps to write to removable SD cards except in very restricted places. This change prevents CC from supporting libraries on such cards on devices running kitkat, which is more and more of the installed base.

The changes necessary in CC to detect this situation and say something reasonable to the user are fairly invasive. Although very unlikely, it is possible that I broke something else, which is why I am making another prerelease.

Thanks, Google.

Thanks, prerelease community.

[kaufman]

Are you planning on supporting the App-Specific folder on the SD card? I think Google's changes are incredibly heavy-handed, but at least you now have a way to find out where the SD card is.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

Are you planning on supporting the App-Specific folder on the SD card? I think Google's changes are incredibly heavy-handed, but at least you now have a way to find out where the SD card is.

Not this time around, but probably eventually. There are several problems we must deal with:

1. We need to work out a way to let the user navigate to that folder in a device-independent way without having to know the long long name. This is probably a button of some kind, but the prompts must make things clear. For example, we probably must stop showing the full path in the folder chooser, instead showing something like "(Internal memory)/" and "(Removable memory)/".
2. Do we allow separation of formats into folders when using the app-specific external folder? That can go either way. There isn't any reason to allow it for supporting reader apps, but perhaps we should simply for the user's happiness.
3. Speaking of reader apps, will they all work on books in the app-specific folder? I am particularly worried about temp files they might want to create, which will fail. Not sure what to do if an app doesn't work, other than sigh.
4. Users not on kitkat should have the current functionality.

Heavy-handed is right. This is arguably worse than what they did with forcing MTP by removing disc emulation. The change breaks all notion of "sneakernet" portability of files across devices by moving SD cards around. "Oh, but people don't really do that" they say. Yea, right.

[kaufman]

I agree completely.

Its funny that you would make this change now, because yesterday I moved my books to internal storage just in case the KitKat upgrade showed up before you added support to CC.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

There will be a V3.3.0f.

Please don't forget to include the magic sauce to spread out the grouping menu.

[PatNY]

Originally Posted by chaley

There will be a V3.3.0f. Why: We just worked out that in android kitkat (4.4), Google no longer allows apps to write to removable SD cards except in very restricted places. This change prevents CC from supporting libraries on such cards on devices running kitkat, which is more and more of the installed base.

The changes necessary in CC to detect this situation and say something reasonable to the user are fairly invasive. Although very unlikely, it is possible that I broke something else, which is why I am making another prerelease.

Thanks, Google.

Thanks, prerelease community.

Is that restriction just for plain vanilla KitKat?

I've been running CM11 which is KitKat 4.4.2 under the covers for over 2 months now on my Nook HD and CC is writing to the external sd card just as it was before when I was running ICS. Is that because the CyanogenMod developers have specifically enabled it in CM11?

My entire library of epubs and pdfs is on the external card.

Edit: I currently have many apps on CM11 writing to the external sd card. In addition to CC, there is Titanium Backup, iSyncr, FolderMount, and BitTorrent Sync.

--Pat

[chaley]

Originally Posted by PatNY

Is that just for plain vanilla Kit Kat?

I've been running CM11 which is Kit Kat 4.4.2 under the covers for over 2 months now on my Nook HD and CC is writing to the external sd card just as it was before when I was running ICS. Is that because the cyanogenmod developers have specifically enabled it in CM11?

My entire library of epubs and pdfs is on the external card.

--Pat

My understanding is that all Google versions have this "feature". Apparently Samsung has followed suit. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the cyanogenmod folks undid that change, given how unpopular it is. At any rate, if it works for you, be happy!

[jackie_w]

Well, I wasn't aware of this future Android negative enhancement facility, so thanks (I think) for being the messenger, I promise not to shoot. It sounds as if my brand new 64GB microSD is about to become very poor value for money. I think I'll stick with Android 4.3 for the forseeable, assuming Samsung can't do forced OTA updates.

Do Google seriously think that Cloud storing/streaming everything is practical for everyone? If so they should try uploading on my pathetic broadband link.

[PatNY]

Originally Posted by chaley

My understanding is that all Google versions have this "feature". Apparently Samsung has followed suit. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the cyanogenmod folks undid that change, given how unpopular it is. At any rate, if it works for you, be happy!

Charles, if some of your customers are truly unhappy with this, you may want to suggest they go over to the XDA forums and investigate whether there is a CM11 version for their specific device. There aren't versions for all devices, but they have ones for the Nook HD and Nook HD+, and probably for the most current and popular Samsung devices. This, of course, is not an option for those who are not comfortable tweaking things on their tablets or phones.

--Pat

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

There will be a V3.3.0f. Why: We just worked out that in android kitkat (4.4), Google no longer allows apps to write to removable SD cards except in very restricted places. This change prevents CC from supporting libraries on such cards on devices running kitkat, which is more and more of the installed base.

The changes necessary in CC to detect this situation and say something reasonable to the user are fairly invasive. Although very unlikely, it is possible that I broke something else, which is why I am making another prerelease.

Thanks, Google.

Thanks, prerelease community.

Is this in all devices or the just the Google Play edition? If it's all, that's ridiculous. I know Google devices will never have an SD card, but to make it so other devices can't either is nuts.

[kaufman]

It's for all official kitkat releases, and its stupid and limiting, but depending on how somone uses their card, it might not impact them that much.

For example, if you only use your card as a media device and load it up with videos and music from your computer, it may not impact you at all. If you only use apps that write their data to a single directory on the card, and no other app needs to write to that data, they can be updated so that they will work the same. It's only for the case where two apps have to write to the same directory that there is a real problem.

It's a huge pain, but in most cases, not an insurmountable issue.