Symlinks? Do I *have* to use FAT?

[rogue_librarian]

Using a PB 360 here, with quite an elaborate folder structure to organize my books. Sometimes I'd like to place a book in more than one folder. Duplicating the actual file would be silly, but a symlink would be perfect. Obviously not an opzion with FAT, however. Do I have to use FAT? I don't care about Windows compatibility.

[Logseman]

Sadly, you must. I remember formatting the card in EXT4 and it wasn't seen by the device. Maybe EXT2 or EXT3 would work, but I don't see the point.

Besides, you have the "Favorites" option, don't you?

[kacir]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Using a PB 360 here, with quite an elaborate folder structure to organize my books. Sometimes I'd like to place a book in more than one folder. Duplicating the actual file would be silly, but a symlink would be perfect. Obviously not an opzion with FAT, however. Do I have to use FAT? I don't care about Windows compatibility.

There is Favorites function.
Just select one book and place it in favorites.
Then long press OK in favorites and add directories.
Add more books from memory and card.
Then connect the reader to the PC, go to the /System/ directory and find *.flk file.
For each book placed into Favorites there is one [random_string_name].flk file created.
Inside file you find simple link to file, such as /mnt/ext2/Sir Arthur Conan Doyle/Holmes/Omnibus.txt

I am surprised that nobody has come up with a Calibre plugin or a simple script that would generate such files. Here you can have as many "symlinks" as you wish ;-)
I am pretty sure that it would be possible to write a short (<50 lines) shell script using 'find' 'sed' 'awk', or a python or pearl script that would genereate *.flk files for you from a directory.

[brainycat]

I wrote a script that runs in linux that finds duplicate files in different folders and creates the files that the PB firmware reads like a symlink. Look at the f_symlink function for how it's done.

Porting it to powershell for windows is on the todo list, but not very close to the top.

[brainycat]

Originally Posted by kacir

I am surprised that nobody has come up with a Calibre plugin or a simple script that would generate such files.

I've never figured out a way to limit Calibre's output directories to single tagnames, eg:
Book1 is tagged with 'fiction', 'zombies', and 'horror'.
Book2 is tagged with 'fiction', 'aliens', and 'scifi'.
Book3 is tagged with 'fiction'
Book4 is tagged with 'scifi'

I use the 'Save to single directory' and setup '{tags}/' as the template. I get the following:
/fiction,_zombies,_horror
/fiction,_aliens,_scifi
/fiction
/scifi

In my script, I move all the books around until they are in the appropriate toplevel directory before looking for duplicates.