Firmware Update Collection Manager, anyone interested

[noxin]

seeing all the current collections on the device, its a one way system, you cannot get the book names from the collections.json, one of the reasons I made v2.

.Net version: 3.5
Here's a download link on microsoft's site
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[Sridhar]

Nice! Look forward to a version for the Mac OS-X as well in the future.

[guiyoforward]

Ohh yes! This is exactly what I needed. Kudos and thanks to the author. I don't have my device right here so I cannot try it, but in my case the optimum would be just creating a collection for each folder, and assigning that collection name to every file in that folder. Since I already have my pc-side content organised in folders...
Thanks again. Best,
g.

[noxin]

You are very welcome, glad I could help in some way.

[stehk]

Unfortunately it didn't work for me...
after I restarted all collections were gone... just chaos
maybe the error was to copy books to the kindle and then immediately put them into a collection, before the device could recognize them...

anyway thanks to the backup I could restore everything
so thanks anyway

[biodu]

Hello Noxin,

thanks a lot for this great tool. I have the new Kindle DXG and version 1.2.1 worked for me. V2 didn't work because the hash keys for the books are created with capital letters whereas the DXG creates them with small caps. Also there is an error with the brackets (first collection starts without a { and at the end it looks like },} but should be }}.

Created by V2:

"Statistics@en-US":{"items":["*4DB0A1E42031D64B28046AE8DD16458AB81BB5B8",
"*8369A87DEB08085E049C752628B6DA47109A1DAB"],
"lastAccess":1280813909602},}

Should be:

{"Satistics@en-US":{"items":["*4db0a1e42031d64b28046ae8dd16458ab81bb5b8",
"*8369a87deb08085e049c752628b6da47109a1dab"],
"lastAccess":1280813909602}}

One thing in version 1.2.1 might also be a small error - if one adds a folder then for all files a hash value is created, in my case .pdf AND .pdr. The latter are only bookmarks made by the Kindle.

Files in the folder to be added:

book1.pdf (shall be added)
book1.pdr (only a bookmark - should not be added)

resulting with V1.2.1 in:

,"TooManyEntries@en-US":{"items":["*0a9def17e18365d2484373db24e8931fcddf54c9",
"*183372b91d67dbb826738b8576b4ad7174164985"],
"lastAccess":1280813909602}}

Nevertheless I am happy with V1.2.1. Some editing and then there are all the collections - very nice

Thanks a lot

[noxin]

bah, during the redesign must have left out a tolower, fix that right away, and as it was build only with my trusty kindle2 as reference I didn't know about the pdr which I will add to my exceptions. as for the }} that a big stupid for me another quick fix I'll do right away.

@Stehk
Your problems were due the issues biodu discovered, I apologize that I didn't catch them before posting the redesign. 2.1 (still the redesign beta) fixes those bugs and the program should be fully functional.

[tsa1001]

Do you mind posting the source code?

I would like to see if Kindle would support non-English collection names (for example, Cyrillic), as well as read collection information currently on Kindle.

Originally Posted by noxin

bah, during the redesign must have left out a tolower, fix that right away, and as it was build only with my trusty kindle2 as reference I didn't know about the pdr which I will add to my exceptions. as for the }} that a big stupid for me another quick fix I'll do right away.

@Stehk
Your problems were due the issues biodu discovered, I apologize that I didn't catch them before posting the redesign. 2.1 (still the redesign beta) fixes those bugs and the program should be fully functional.

[meem]

The bad that you are using .NET 3.5
I don't think I want to install that heavy framework which make my system more heavy.

I just became convinced with JAVA, not like before, it's more lighter and working on many platforms even my Kindle and my mobile phones.

I think you knew Kindle OS is embedded Linux with Java interface.

[biodu]

Good morning noxin,

thanks a lot for the fixes.

However there are still issues with v2.1.

I find those very important:

• .pdr are still part of the .json -> DXG doesnt show collection. When I click on "Browse and add folder" it adds supported and unsupported (.pdr) book types. If I remove manually the entries for the .pdr it works. So very good work .
  
• The V2.1 overwrites the .json file and does not append. It will delete all existing collections. So one can only use it for creating new collections. This makes me still stick to V1.2.1

These I find minor:

• Create a collection with V2.1 and save it two times to the .json -> in the json you see double entries. Save the collection three times and you have three times the same entry.
  
• When I close V2.1 it pops up an exception "could not find manager.skm" - it searches for it on my kindle system folder.

I have also a feature request: would it be possible to open the .json on the kindle, reconvert its entries and show the existing collection in your tool?

for the great work.

Best wishes


PS:
Does this decode option help in getting the book names from the Kindle .json?

$ echo -n "encode me" | openssl enc -base64
ZW5jb2RlIG1l

Use the -d (decode) option to reverse the process.

$ echo "ZW5jb2RlIG1lCg==" | openssl enc -base64 -d
encode me

There is a mobiread thread on the openssl for the .json

[jglerner]

Lacking the knowledge to improve your proggy, I´m asking if is possible adding a feature that would work like that:

1: Import your books from your Kindle,
2:Filter it by author, title or so on,
3: give you the possibility to sort it by any criterium, for instance, you create a collection , let´s say " Scientific Fiction", or " Currently Reading " or anything that fits your needs,
Finally, export your books into the new created Collections...

That will be awesome!

JAT

And thanks for you Collection Manager, as it is it perfect on our dreams!

Jacques

[NightGeometry]

noxin - I don't use Windows either (well, I do in a VM occasionally). But I just wanted to say, I think it's great you getting a tool together, and sharing it.

Thats kind of it

[biodu]

Oops - I have seen that the SHA1 used for the Collection is not an encryption method (=can be en- and decrypted) but a hash method (it can only be converted to a hash). So the only way to get the content of the collection.json on the kindle would be to create hashes of all books which are on the kindle and then compare the hashes with the ones on the collection.json...

Lots of work

[noxin]

Originally Posted by biodu

Oops - I have seen that the SHA1 used for the Collection is not an encryption method (=can be en- and decrypted) but a hash method (it can only be converted to a hash). So the only way to get the content of the collection.json on the kindle would be to create hashes of all books which are on the kindle and then compare the hashes with the ones on the collection.json...

Lots of work

Exactly, the hashes can never come back and even if it could be worked around by some method, I'm doing this just to help out, its already taken a few days of work and besides the append function, I don't believe it can/will go much further. Version 2 was designed to replace the functionality of the Create Collection->Add Books from a large list of titles. 2.2 will have this append function back shortly, based on selecting a specific collection and adding it to the end of the file.

As for where it searches for files, the defaults are as is, I am letting the user decide where he wants to go to locate the file, its not technical task to use a browse dialog. There really isn't an alternative as everyone's path to json/books is different.

Its a shame that amazon didn't feel the need to release a similar tool with the firmware upgrade and I know it sucks that those using macOS/linux are currently left out (that may change if I get more free time, having some life issues atm).

[Kitard]

Hi Noxin - I had started writing a collections manager in Python that would run across Windows, Linux and the Mac.

I didn't get too far - but did managed to map the SHA1 hash's back to the original files in each collection (bar .azw files that didn't conform to the -asin -type convention).

The tool had a v. simple two pane layout with Kindle docs on one side and the current collections on the other. I had drag and drop working to add to existing collections, but hadn't added an option to create new ones.

Heres a quick screenshot ...



I was doing this more out of fun than anything else (I have an new DXG), but would be happy to collaborate on something together if there was demand. Who know the next firmware release could kill collections all together.

Rgds

Kitard