[GUI Plugin] Goodreads Sync

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Upgrade the oauth2 library to 1.5.170
• Ensure the book details pane is updated after shelf changes or linking books

@organicveggie - I finally got a reply back from Goodreads Support today (coincidentally after I went around them to go direct to a previous contact I had there from previous issues). They weren't very helpful, but I did try again and everything seems to be working again now for me at least. So perhaps they rebooted some servers or whatever.

[corneus]

Hi kiwidude,

First off - great job. I've been a lurker using Calibre for years, and your plugins are at the point where they should be considered part of everyone's standard install.

But it looks like I'm getting the same issue @organicveggie was seeing earlier. I just moved my library around and did some updating, and now the Goodreads sync on a new PC just loads the normal goodreads webpage, even after removing the app access. I'm running Calibre 0.8.4 using 1.4.13 of your plugin under Win7. Tried a fresh install of Calibre and plugin on work computer, and seeing the same thing. Maybe they went and changed something again?

Thanks!

[kiwidude]

@corneus - thx for posting and welcome to MR.

There is nothing I can do about this I'm afraid - they never gave me a satisfactory answer last time, and the problem somehow "fixed itself". I have proved the issue previously is nothing to do with the plugin code by building a simple standalone example.

Perhaps Goodreads are having some sort of intermittent issue with their authentication servers. All I can suggest is to try contacting Goodreads support (or posting on their forums, you might get a better response from the latter) and seeing if others are getting this issue with other applications out there.

[Noughty]

I am trying to add some sync rules with no success. The plug doesn't support columns text,but with a fixed set of permitted values? I made a column like this for read, to read, currently reading etc. Then I go into sync rules, I do not see this column. I would like sync to add read if it is on read shelf and etc.

TIA

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Allow enumerated text columns for sync action columns
• Ensure the book details pane is updated after removing a Goodreads link to the selected book

[Noughty]

Thanks for the update.
I was also wondering if you can make two sync actions for the same column? For example If book is on fantasy shelf, I want to:
add to tags - Fantasy
remove from tags - Contemporary
I get error:
calibre, version 0.8.5
ERROR: Sync Action Conflict: You have two or more actions applying to the 'tags' column in Calibre.<p>Edit your actions so they will not conflict.


Also the plug in seems to be case sensitive, is it possible to make it not so? That is a problem then uploading tags. If tag is Contemporary and in tags/shelves map it is contemporary, it doesn't upload the the correct shelf.

[kiwidude]

That error is intentional to prevent you doing that as ou have found. That is a rather unusual requirement I would suggest? What is your reasoning behind such a removal/addition combination?

As for the case sensitivity - well I can take a look. Though I'm not sure how you are getting the casing wrong. Are you not using the intellisense?

[Noughty]

No I am not using it.

My reasoning is that I would like to have books in two categories: one for fantasy etc and another for realistic stuff (no demons etc). So I would like to make it if a book doesn't have tag fantasy when it automatically is realistic stuff which I don't mind tagging as contemporary (even if it isn't correct term) or some other tag. For me tag contemporary is kind of useless as almost all books have this tag.
But if it isn't allowed in sync. It ain't too hard to add tag manually to all books which don't have fantasy kind of tags. I was just wondering if it is possible in sync.

Is there a way to check broken/ wrong links to goodreads? Some of my links have gone bad, then pressing view book, I get that there is no such book (the book is on goodreads, but the link is wrong).

[nynaevelan]

Kiwidude and Company:

I am looking for a best practices way of adding book(s) to more than one shelf at a time. All of my books end up on three shelves, one for format (ebook, audiobook or paper/hardback), one for read/to read/currently reading and the last for the tag. Do you all know of a way I can pick the three shelves and then have it sync rather than having to run add to shelf 3 times?? Is it better and/or easier to do this straight from the goodreads website?

Nyn

[kiwidude]

@Nyn - the only way you can do this from the plugin is to use the "Upload tags as shelves" feature. If your book had multiple tags, each mapped to the appropriate shelf, that should work I think.

@Noughty - re broken links. Not that I can think of in the plugin currently. Though I am curious as to how your links got broken?

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@Nyn - the only way you can do this from the plugin is to use the "Upload tags as shelves" feature. If your book had multiple tags, each mapped to the appropriate shelf, that should work I think.

Unfortunately that will not work since that would only be able to upload to one shelf, however if it was possible to upload from a custom column that would work since all three would be on that column. Thanks for the idea though.

[kiwidude]

@Nyn - why do you say it can only upload to one shelf? You can set multiple tags and map to each. And it doesn't have to be the "Tags" column, it can be a custom column. The only thing you can't do is have multiple custom columns with a shelf representing each.

[kiwidude]

I have finally being using the plugin myself a little lately (rather than just testing with random books when I developed it). There are definitely a few areas that I would like to potentially change at some point.

As I have mentioned previously on this thread this plugin evolved based around minimising the calls to the Goodreads API, due to both paranoia and no personal experience with Goodreads. Six months later I would like to think that more people would have a better idea as to how they use it and what things they would like made easier. I think the user base for this plugin is not sufficiently large to worry too much about the volume issues in certain areas, and I would rather just make it a bit more seamless to use.

So what would I like to improve? Well the main thing I have been doing is adding books to my read shelf. This necessitates a subsequent visit to the Goodreads website to set the "date read" column, my # review stars, and also the flag as to whether I "own" a book or not. I also often end up switching editions, to one that has page counts specified. Of course once I do that the link to my book in Calibre is incorrect and must be changed. It would be nice if more of that could be done in a single dialog in Calibre. To do that functionality I think would require doing one book at a time, a bit like you have single or bulk editing within Calibre.

How about everyone else - if you had a clean slate how would you like things to work in this plugin? I'm not rushing to make changes given it will involve yet another rewrite but longer term I would like to see a more task based approach. Perhaps now we have a better idea of what those "tasks" are and some discussion could come up with a new user interface for it.

[Nyssa]

I stopped using the plugin pretty early on because I could not get the multiple shelf option to work. Please forgive me if any of these options have already been addressed.

Thinking of a clean slate, I would like:

1. To have all books with Calibre tags, that mach my Goodreads shelves, to transfer over easily onto those shelves.

2. To choose which new shelves based off of Calibre tags to be created when syncing.

3. To have any books matching my "Read" custom column to transfer to me "Read" shelf.

4. To have any new books, marked however necessary* to Transfer to my "TBR" shelf. *If this could work in conjunction with the Reading List plugin, that would be even more awesome. Right now I place all of my new books on the list - the books are then tagged as "NEW" until they are sent to my Kindle.

5. To have any book currently being read, again marked however necessary, to be transferred to me "Currently Reading" shelf and/or vice-versa.

[nynaevelan]

Well since you put it out there.....

1. I would like to be able to upload to more than one shelf at a time, if this cannot be accomplish I would work with the upload tags to feature if it pointed to a custom column.
2. I would like to be able to upload the own feature also, I do not know why this is not standard with goodreads since I own all books that I put in there.
3. I would like to upload my read date and ratings and/or reviews though this is not critical.
4. This is just a thought but maybe someway to upload empty books into Calibre that the user selects from their recommended list.

But other than #1 and 2 which are critical choices, I would be happy with any improvements/changes you all can come with, especially CWatkins because she pushes me to reach higher with her organizational mind.

Nyn