[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I never use the Kobo desktop app. Never, ever, not at all. I have wifi connectivity and the Adobe Reader for everything I would ever do with that. When I use the USB cable, it's for sideloading into device memory by using the Kobo as a flash drive.

I was clarifying your process. You were talking about the kepubs and sideloading and making changes to the books. You said all these things close enough together that I wanted to make sure I knew what you were doing. And seeing as we have crossed wires, this is what I think you are doing:

1. Buying some books on the Kobo site
2. Downloading the epubs versions to you PC
3. Tweaking the epubs
4. Sideloading the epubs to the device via the USB cable
5. Disconnecting the device and letting it process the sideloaded epubs
6. Seeing the new books on the home screen and the top of the Recently Read list.
7. Doing a WiFi sync to download the kepub versions of the books
8. After the sync the kepubs are not on the home screen or at the top of the Recently Read list
9. Deleting the kepubs from the device so they are also removed from the "I'm Reading" section of the library on the Kobo site

Is that correct?

I don't like using apps unless they actually add something positive to the experience. So far, they don't do that for me, except for using the Kobo app on my iPad for a couple of things (like removing duplicate shelves). That's why I use the terms that the Kobo device and website use, rather than terms like "I'm Reading" which only apply to the apps.

The reason I used "I'm Reading" is that is what I see on the the web. While writing my post, I went to the site and the library section. The three options I see are "I'M READING", "PURCHASED" and "TRASH". I changed the case to suit my sensibilities. I can't see any of these on either my Glo or Touch. I think one of the older devices had a "I'm Reading" section. And the desktop application only has a "library" tab.

This is why I hate Kobo's inconsistent labeling. "Bookmarked" in the website library interface equals "I'm Reading" in the app. "Purchased" there equals "everything I've bought, including free books, except for what I've trashed." "Trash" on the website is basically the Recycle Bin, where trashed stuff goes until you either permanently delete it or restore it.

Other than seeing different titles for the "Bookmarked"/"I'm Reading" section, that appears to be how it works. And that the free books I have are not in the purchased list. There are some books that didn't cost me anything in the purchased list, but these were purchased with a promotion code that cut the price to zero. None of the books that are shown as "FREE eBOOK" when browsing the site are shown in my purchased list.

On the website, you can copy "up" from Purchased to Bookmarked. You can Trash from either list (moving it from both to Trash), or un-Trash to restore its prior state. The one thing you CAN'T do from the web is remove from Bookmarked without also removing it from Purchased. You have to Delete on a device to make that happen, and that's exactly what I was doing.

Yes, you are right. I had also assumed that finishing a kepub would get it removed from "I'm Reading", but it doesn't.

I'd downloaded newly-bought books (aka Purchased + Bookmarked) to my PC archive, tweaked the titles so they'd display in proper sequence, and then sideloaded via USB to device memory.

Well, I have, in this very incident.

I'll watch more closely the next time I buy some books and see what happens.

I'm well aware of that. That's why I said "Recent Reads" and didn't mention the home carousel. YOU brought that up.

Whoops sorry. One of the most common complaints is that book currently being read disappears from the home page when new books are added, so my mind tends to think of that in these sort of discussions. Your problem seems to be the opposite. In any case, the difference between what is on the home page and the Recent Reads is the inclusion of finished books in the latter. The sort sequence is the same. But, did these books appear on the home screen?

Nor do I; that's the whole reason why I do things the way I do. Download, fix, sideload. The hole in the process is that there's no way to keep your purchase in your library but off your device without syncing the device so you can Delete it from there.

In that case, why are you syncing at all? If you don't want the kepubs on the device, don't sync to Kobo. Then they won't get downloaded. The only other thing it does is to check for firmware updates. Or are you syncing shelves with other devices? As you aren't using the kepubs, that effectively only sync the names, so doesn't add much.

If you want the sync for other reasons, I think I would use the Kobo desktop application. It will download the books and you can delete them there. That will put them in the place you want them on the site and prevent a sync to the device from downloading the kepub. The only real difference is which you consider the easier way to do it, the desktop or the device.