Best practices for new Kobo users?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

It may also explain why their 'extras' such as reading stats, recommendations appear more polished than their basic ereader software. And you know what they say about 'Good intentions'

I thought new research had discovered that road was actually paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen and the young set among the demons use it for ice-skating on weekends...

Regards,
David

[AnemicOak]

While I have the Aura connected to Calibre, Calibre is showing some books as on the device when they haven't been sent there and aren't actually there. Any ideas what's up with that? With a quick glance at the books it looks like they might all be books I've bought from Kobo.

[PeterT]

Kobo now downloads "stubs" of the books to allow you to easily download the full version. This might be controllable within calibre by the "Show Previews" driver option. If not I'll have to defer to davidfor for the right answer.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

While I have the Aura connected to Calibre, Calibre is showing some books as on the device when they haven't been sent there and aren't actually there. Any ideas what's up with that? With a quick glance at the books it looks like they might all be books I've bought from Kobo.

Your books bought from Kobo can be in these three states as far as the Kobo device is concerned: downloaded; archived; or deleted.

Calibre considers the book to be "on the device" if it is downloaded or archived. But the device says the book is "on device" only if it is downoaded.

I think what might be happening is that your Kobo books are archived, and Calibre considers them to be on the device so has matched them to books in your Calibre collection. You can check this on the Glo by tapping the spanner icon at the botom of the library listing and selecting "show all books", not sure how you do it on the Aura. This will show books that are archived as well as downloaded. The archived ones will have a "tap to download" item in their library listing.

[AnemicOak]

Thanks for the explanation Geoff. All of the books I've ever bought from Kobo (about 300?) are 'archived'. Don't really like that they're showing in Calibre as on device, since they're not. Not a big deal now with a small number of books I have on the device, but could be a major pain in the butt later on.


Is there any way to have the 'home' screen be set as the library page instead of Kobo's widget or whatever you want to call it? Not any kind of huge issue, but it's what I'd prefer and am used to coming from Kindle.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Thanks for the explanation Geoff. All of the books I've ever bought from Kobo (about 300?) are 'archived'. Don't really like that they're showing in Calibre as on device, since they're not. Not a big deal now with a small number of books I have on the device, but could be a major pain in the butt later on.

If you delete the archived books then calibre will show that they are not on the device. You can always download them again if you need to by going to the Kobo website and bookmarking the deleted books you want to download.

Maybe an option could be added to a future Kobo Calibre device plugin to allow archived books to be considered as not on the device (I prefer it the way it is, so if that happens I hope it is an option only :-)

Is there any way to have the 'home' screen be set as the library page instead of Kobo's widget or whatever you want to call it? Not any kind of huge issue, but it's what I'd prefer and am used to coming from Kindle.

Not that I know of, unless there is a hack somewhere. In an earlier firmware version there used to be a back button so that if you opened a book from the library listing you could tap the back button to get back there. Unfortunately they did away with that and so you have to go to the home screen and then to the library listing. I really hope they bring back the back button in a future firmware update.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

If you delete the archived books then calibre will show that they are not on the device. You can always download them again if you need to by going to the Kobo website and bookmarking the deleted books you want to download.

I guess it's an option, but I don't really want to "delete" all 37 pages of books from my library on the website for a couple of reasons.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I guess it's an option, but I don't really want to "delete" all 37 pages of books from my library on the website for a couple of reasons.

That would be painful. You can use the calibre device list to delete kepubs, but I am not completely sure what happens at the next sync to Kobo. I'll have to do some tests.

GeoffR has it right on how calibre is handling this. And I considered an option to ignore archived books when I added the handling for them. I have been a little surprised that there wasn't more complaints. There is actually an unused option in the driver, "Show expired books", that I can rename and use. If I do this, the option will be whether to show or not show the archived books. If they are shown, they will be treated as they are now. If they are not shown, then nothing will be known about them.

[paola]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is actually an unused option in the driver, "Show expired books", that I can rename and use. If I do this, the option will be whether to show or not show the archived books. If they are shown, they will be treated as they are now. If they are not shown, then nothing will be known about them.

that would be a really neat option!