[GUI Plugin] Goodreads Sync

[Ravensknight]

Kiwi-THANKS!

I didn't even realize there was a help in the zip file. I didn't even bother to look. Thanks for helping out.

Now I'll read that before asking more questions...

[Ravensknight]

So after reading through the help file, I still have a question:

Is there a way to populate the "Comments" in the metadata with my Goodreads book review?

[kiwidude]

@Ravensknight - not currently, no. No-one has ever asked for it, and that information is not included in the "standard" response returned from Goodreads.

[Ravensknight]

Copy & Paste it is then. Whooohhhh boy....

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Allow synchronising review text to/from goodreads
• Change the date handling to (hopefully) correctly handle timezones for issues some users experienced
• Adjust some dialog layouts to ensure buttons are sized better with different styles applied
• Minor performance enhancement for when syncing books from large shelves
• Enable gzip compression for oauth calls to see if improves performance

The biggest addition in this release is the ability to synchronise your review text for a book, in the same way you can add/sync rating and date read. You could put it in your comments column, or create a new custom column of type "comments" (you can put it in a column of type "text" but then you only get one line to edit it in!).

I have also hopefully fixed the timezone issue - cecdc7731 and others please let me know if this resolves the "one day off" issues you were having.

[Ravensknight]

Whoohoo!!! Oh crap.

I am finishing up a 13hr shift, and when I get home I REALLY need to sleep. And then I get news like this.
Sleep or play around with book'y' stuff? Crap, crap, crap, what a choice

[Geralt]

Hello. First of all, thank you for this wonderful plugin.
I seemed to have run in to a bit of a problem with it though.
I'm using Calibre version 0.8.54 and your Goodreads plugin. When I try to "Switch Goodreads editions" I get this message:

Spoiler:

calibre, version 0.8.54
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>TypeError</b>bject of type 'NoneType' has no len()

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre_plugins.goodreads_sync.action", line 597, in switch_linked_edition
File "calibre_plugins.goodreads_sync.action", line 615, in switch_edition_for_linked_books
File "calibre_plugins.goodreads_sync.core", line 427, in get_goodreads_book_with_work_id
File "calibre_plugins.goodreads_sync.core", line 479, in _convert_review_xml_node_to_book
TypeError: object of type 'NoneType' has no len()

I have no idea what's up, it used to work perfectly so far.
Appreciate your help.

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Fix bug of switching editions throwing error caused by changes in 1.7.0

@alucarda - welcome to MobileRead and thanks for reporting that error. Something I broke in the last release - update the plugin, restart calibre and you should be good to go.

[Geralt]

Thank you for the welcome, and a speedy response.
It works now, no problem.
Thanks again, and sorry for posting in the wrong thread.
Cheers.

[kiwidude]

@alucarda - no problem, glad it is all working again for you. I can appreciate with two plugins named so similar it is an easy mistake to make so it was no big deal for me to move the post over.

[charles_cinci]

I've got my Goodreads account configured to post to Facebook...but it seems that if I do the "add to shelf" from within Calibre via the plugin it doesn't get posted to FB.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is this a bug or a known limitation?

Thanks!
Charles

[kiwidude]

@charles - its not a bug or anything I can control. There is no special flags or anything in the Goodreads API I can see for anything to do with Facebook. I suspect it is just a limitation in how they have things setup on their side. You could try asking the question in the Goodreads forums - I don't use Facebook myself so I will admit my care factor isn't particularly high

[paulsalter]

@charles, no help with fixing it, but I use goodreads linked to facebook and as long as i add the book to my 'to-read' shelf it sends an update to facebook

as above might be worth checking goodreads, seen a few mentions recently about FB issues

[kaynala]

I'm trying to figure out how to have GoodReads tell Calibre which books are on my "Read" shelf.

Any help/advise would be appreciated!!

[kiwidude]

@kaynala - welcome to MobileRead. What you are looking for is the "Sync from shelf" feature of this plugin, have a dig around in the Help file that comes with it for details.

First you have to decide how you want calibre to visually show books on that shelf - whether it is to have a special tag or a custom column value.

Then go into the configuration for this plugin (authorize the very first time you use it), click Refresh Shelves, choose your "read" shelf and click on the "Edit Sync Actions" button. On this dialog you create what actions you want to take place for each book on your read shelf that you have a matching book for in calibre. Click on the plus button to create your rule(s), setting whatever tag or custom column you decide from the initial decision I said you must make above.

Click ok out of the dialogs, and then on the Goodreads plugin menu you should choose the "Sync from shelf..." option. Choose your read shelf, and then you will be given a list of books on your shelf. Now comes the tricky bit - for each book on your shelf you have to find the matching book in calibre. Thankfully you only ever have to do this once, and if you are lucky it will have figured out some of the matches for you. If you don't have a matching book in calibre, you can create an empty book for it on that dialog (look at the right-click menu)

When you are finished with matching books, click "Sync Now" and at that point every book which you have matched against calibre will have the tag or custom column values applied that you specified earlier in that sync action. Any books you didn't yet match from your shelf will just get ignored, so you can do them at a later date if you want.

Please do read through the Help and then if still stuck ask here. I'm contemplating doing a blog for my calibre plugins with tutorials on how to use some of the more complex ones like this one, but that's nothing more than a passing thought at this point.