Marvin Newbie....Help Please

[gabby98]

I am helping a friend that uses Marvin for reading thanks to you guys. I'm an Android person and when she got her iPhone I remembered all the praise from this forum and she loves it - TY

Anyway, I have two questions we can't seem to figure out:

1. Is there something I can embed in the books metadata or a setting in Marvin, so that a Custom Collection for the Series will automatically be created and/or assigned when she downloads a book from Dropbox?

2. We have specific folder setup in her Dropbox that we both use to send books to her phone. Is there a way to have Marvin automatically download books that it does not already have from the folder or must she do this manually every single time?

Thank you for your help.

I looked for the answers, but I apologize if I overlooked them

[Terisa de morgan]

I only can answer the first one: if you define series in calibre, those series are recognized at Marvin and you can organize by series.

[MeSue]

As Terisa said, series info is recognized, but you may need to tap the pencil icon in collections to get them to show in your organizer.

As for #2, did she link the Dropbox folder from the main settings (gear icon)? I can't remember if this will auto import them, though.

[gabby98]

OK...will have to take a look at the organizer, so far we have used it to manually create collections for the series, only 3 so far, but I can see that getting old quick.

Yes, she has link the dropbox folder, but she has to manually add the books but was wondering if there was a setting to make it automatic

[kguil]

@gabby: Regarding collections, you might want to check out this tutorial on Marvin's blog: http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/62249442864

The section you want is "Smart collections".

If your friend is new to Marvin, she might find Marvin's index of all tutorials useful. Here's the link: http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/74284911817

Right now, there are no plans to make Marvin auto download books from Dropbox. Many people seem to keep 10s of thousands of books in their Dropbox and if they turn on auto download it'd cause all sorts of problems. I'm still frying to figure out a smart way to deal with this.

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by kguil

@gabby: Regarding collections, you might want to check out this tutorial on Marvin's blog: http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/62249442864

The section you want is "Smart collections".

If your friend is new to Marvin, she might find Marvin's index of all tutorials useful. Here's the link: http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/74284911817

Right now, there are no plans to make Marvin auto download books from Dropbox. Many people seem to keep 10s of thousands of books in their Dropbox and if they turn on auto download it'd cause all sorts of problems. I'm still frying to figure out a smart way to deal with this.

Thanks, will definitely take a look.

Yes we are both new to Marvin (and iphone). This is her first smart phone and I was trying to help her out.

Do you happen to know where Marvin stores the book files it downloads. For instance, if we use an app to sync her Dropbox folder with wherever Marvin keeps the files, will Marvin automatically recognize the updates?

thanks again all

[kguil]

@gabby98: iOS doesn't work like that. Files stored in any app including Marvin are not directly visible to other apps like Dropbox to do that. Unfortunately, it can't be done.

In iOS all files are "enclosed" within an app.

You might want to look at this about ways to get books into Marvin: http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/50186700169

[gabby98]

thanks guys for your help...we had looked at the smart collection before and must have missed the series being 'hidden'. we looked at it to day and it worked just the way we wanted.

I'll take another look at the Getting books into Marvin post in case i overlooked something again, but i suppose it should be to bad now that we dont have to always create and assign the series collection.

[Josieb1]

Hi I'm knew to Marvin, starting using it today. Is there a way when getting books from Dropbox I can navigate to a folder within Dropbox. I have thousands of books in Dropbox in loads of sub folders and it just bringing up a random selection. I would like to be able to navigate around dropbox from within Marvin. Is that possible?

For now I'm working the other way. Selecting the book in Dropbox and opening with Marvin.

Thanks

[kguil]

@Josieb1 - I purposely designed the Dropbox screen not to support folders but filter everything out and only show your books.

- Right now there's a limitation where Marvin shows a max of 1000 books in Dropbox. I'm planning working around this limit.

- In the Dropbox screen there's an "App" button that will launch the whole Dropbox app for you if you need it.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by kguil

@Josieb1 - I purposely designed the Dropbox screen not to support folders but filter everything out and only show your books.

- Right now there's a limitation where Marvin shows a max of 1000 books in Dropbox. I'm planning working around this limit.

- In the Dropbox screen there's an "App" button that will launch the whole Dropbox app for you if you need it.

Thanks Kris. I have over 5000 books in Dropbox which is why only folders will work for me, but it's okay I can work around that by launching new books direct from Dropbox.

I discovered the Calibre iOS plug in tonight and it's awesome, just what I needed. It sent 400 books direct into Marvin and straight into their collections, which were already set up in Calibre as bookshelves

[Josieb1]

I love Marvin but I'm having trouble with the Brightness setting, it won't stay where I put it. As far as I can see I have the Enable Fast Theme Switching turned off, so I'm not sure why the brightness won't stay whee I put it.

Can someone help?

[MartyTX]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I love Marvin but I'm having trouble with the Brightness setting, it won't stay where I put it. As far as I can see I have the Enable Fast Theme Switching turned off, so I'm not sure why the brightness won't stay whee I put it.

Can someone help?

Double-check the Gestures tab to make sure that "Brightness and warmth swipe up/down" is disabled. You want a white X on a gray background.

A change to overall iPad brightness that you make with the Control Center will change Marvin's brightness. You can close Marvin with the brightness the way you like it, but if you change iPad brightness with the Control Center you will have to reset Marvin's brightness the next time you open it.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by MartyTX

Double-check the Gestures tab to make sure that "Brightness and warmth swipe up/down" is disabled. You want a white X on a gray background.

A change to overall iPad brightness that you make with the Control Center will change Marvin's brightness. You can close Marvin with the brightness the way you like it, but if you change iPad brightness with the Control Center you will have to reset Marvin's brightness the next time you open it.

I have the gestures disabled and never change the brightness on my ipad but Marvin keeps moving from 60% back to nearly 100%. It's really annoying and I have no idea how to stop it.

[MeSue]

In your setting app, is auto-brightness on? Fast theme switching has nothing to do with brightness.