[chaley]

Originally Posted by cybmole

can any of those be done or does content server offer only download a single book or sync the entire library ?

The download all menu is enabled (it will work) for categories where the calibre server can send all the book ids. This includes almost all categories except search results. For example, if you navigate to an author in the content server then CC will enable the download-all menu item.

do I need to connect as wireless device in order to push a collection ( i.e. a calibre series) onto a dedicated shelf in CC ?

No, although I am wary of the word "collection". If you use download-all while looking at a series then all the books will be downloaded and the series will appear in CC's grouping drawer.

I am not sure what you mean by "collection". If you mean Kobo- and Sony-style collections then see below.

I am looking to set up a tablet music documents file collection for material purchased from truefire. Each truefire lesson pack has a set of 30-50 pdf files , consecutive numbered, which relate to a purchased video lesson set. I can add each set as a series to calibre but i want each set of PDFs to appear on a shelf in CC for simple access on KF.
( until such time as truefire produce a proper android app of their own )

Many ways to do this, including tags, series, a custom column, a unique author, or a unique publisher. All of these are available in CC's grouping drawer.

I can live with truefires' default naming system but I want to add these in bulk not individually,
so what is the slickest way to bulk add & then maintain please
( e.g. I may want to add extra tags in calibre & copy those over also, at a later date )

Give them some piece of unique metadata such as a tag, a series, a value in a custom column, a publisher, or an author. Once you do that then you can push them all using the wireless device connection or you can pull them all using the content server. However, as you mention that you want metadata to be updated (your tags example) then you should use the wireless device connection, via which CC's copy of calibre's metadata is automatically updated.

Originally Posted by cybmole

update - so I added 130 "books" ( 2 x sets of 50, 1 x set of 30)individual pdf sheets via the wireless device route.
I now have those on KF & tagged & I've kept them out of the KF documents infrastucture by changing the CC default directory.
( on my previous test, I let them go to documents on KF, but then I found that deleting a file from KF documents view also deleted CC's copy which was unwanted)
so now, if I connect as wireless device & switch to device view I see an empty column called "collections"
how do I/ can i populate that please ?

In general you don't. That column is there to support Sony and Kobo collections because those devices do not support operating on base calibre metadata.

If you *really* want to use Sony-style collections (I don't recommend it), then see the FAQ answer I am a Sony user and I want my collections. What do I do?.

Note: there is no facility of any kind in CC to support collections/shelves in the kobo or any other reading app.

& my related previous question is still puzzling me, If I change the author, or add a tag for one of these sets in calibre, how do I then sync that change via CC, or is it easier to delete & resend. ( as they are single sheets, there is no "last page read" issue to worry about

You connect as a wireless device, let CC and calibre do their thing, then disconnect. CC's metadata is now up-to-date.

My suspicion is that a lot of these difficulties arise because you are mostly using CC as a transport, not as a book organizer/calibre metadata repeater, the "job" CC was designed to do. Because of this the metadata inside the books is important because that is what your apps see. Most CC users don't care about the metadata in the book because CC operates directly off the metadata in calibre's db. Of course, this hypothesis could be bogus, but I don't think so given your previous posts about using calibre cloud, using the kobo app as your primary organizer, and using CC's content server connection as a calibre cloud backup.

PS -my very first plan was not to clutter my main calibre library with these sheets, instead I was to send via cloud drive, then have CC scan for & shelve them. But anything sent via cloud is hoovered into some arcane storage system & cannot be found by searching all of android storage. I peek into documents folder via ES explorer shows only lots of gobbbledook html files. But doument sideloaded via US from calibre CAN be seen, so it seems that KF indexes it ( & can delete it) but does nto otherwise mess with it . is there a for dummies explanation for how KF handles books & documents which arrive via the various possible routes

From CC's perspective this workflow is flawed, putting aside the problem that you can't find the documents. CC really really wants to get metadata from calibre, not from inside books. Because of this, CC will scan for books only when you connect as a wireless device, and will actually send the books (other than epub) up to calibre for analysis. Much of the time calibre cannot figure out what the book is so you end up with books named I1237 and the like. CC works much better if you push the books over the wireless device or pull them using the content server, because in both cases CC has access to calibre's metadata and ignores the metadata (if any) inside the book.