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Daria9000 · 05-26-2015, 05:44 PM

Clarification.
1. I've gotten a lot of use out of calibre so don't mind the money I spent on the Companion even if it turns out not to be useful at this point.

2. I want to access calibre information for books that are ON my device. But I don't want to be connected to the Content Server in order to do that.

Let me approach this a different way.

For me, Calibre serves several functions.

First, it lets me convert non-Amazon books into a Kindle format so I can download them to my Fire and find them in the Books section. From my perspective, doing this with a USB connection is the most practical option since what normally happens is that I have downloaded a book from another source directly to my Fire. So I want to get it into Calibre from my Fire, change the metadata, convert it to mobi, copy it back to my Fire. The USB connection works fine for this function.

Second, and this is something I've only been playing with for a short while, Calibre lets me add tags which give me more flexibility in how I look at my e-books. I see it as the digital equivalent of my physical bookshelves (some house sci-fi, some fantasy, some mysteries, another for novels, one for business books, etc.) and within those bookshelves I sort books by author and, within author, by series (when they exist).

Third, what I find awful about Amazon's handling of books is how limiting it is. I can sort books by author, title, recent. Nothing else. I can create collections, but I can't even sort books within those collections.

So, basically, Calibre does what Amazon doesn't do and if I read books on the computer, well, that would be that.

But, right now I have multiple book databases: a complete one is in Amazon's cloud, incomplete ones are stored locally on my various Fires, and a complete one (the "physical" books) exists on my PC in the Calibre database. (The PC Calibre database is essentially a duplicate of the Amazon cloud.)

If, from the Fire, I connect to the Content Server, I can see the various groupings that I've set up so far, can sort books in various ways. But when I disconnect from the Content Server, the Calibre Companion doesn't show anything on the Fire, doesn't see any of the books that are on my Fire. I go to Groups and there just isn't anything there.
That's the part I don't understand.

Content Server on PC: all the ebooks I own.
Books on Fire1 or Fire2 : subset of all the ebooks I own.

So this is how I thought the Companion would act or how I would like it to act.
1. Periodically connect to content server to get/update all the data (not download the physical books but download the catalog, the metadata).
2. Disconnect from content server.
3. Go into Companion, ask it to show me, say, all the books I've tagged as history books and sort by author within that group.
4. Select one of the history books.
5. Have it tell me that that book is either on my Fire or is not on my Fire.
6. Read book.

05-26-2015, 05:44 PM	#5
Daria9000 Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2012 Device: kindle fire	Clarification. 1. I've gotten a lot of use out of calibre so don't mind the money I spent on the Companion even if it turns out not to be useful at this point. 2. I want to access calibre information for books that are ON my device. But I don't want to be connected to the Content Server in order to do that. Let me approach this a different way. For me, Calibre serves several functions. First, it lets me convert non-Amazon books into a Kindle format so I can download them to my Fire and find them in the Books section. From my perspective, doing this with a USB connection is the most practical option since what normally happens is that I have downloaded a book from another source directly to my Fire. So I want to get it into Calibre from my Fire, change the metadata, convert it to mobi, copy it back to my Fire. The USB connection works fine for this function. Second, and this is something I've only been playing with for a short while, Calibre lets me add tags which give me more flexibility in how I look at my e-books. I see it as the digital equivalent of my physical bookshelves (some house sci-fi, some fantasy, some mysteries, another for novels, one for business books, etc.) and within those bookshelves I sort books by author and, within author, by series (when they exist). Third, what I find awful about Amazon's handling of books is how limiting it is. I can sort books by author, title, recent. Nothing else. I can create collections, but I can't even sort books within those collections. So, basically, Calibre does what Amazon doesn't do and if I read books on the computer, well, that would be that. But, right now I have multiple book databases: a complete one is in Amazon's cloud, incomplete ones are stored locally on my various Fires, and a complete one (the "physical" books) exists on my PC in the Calibre database. (The PC Calibre database is essentially a duplicate of the Amazon cloud.) If, from the Fire, I connect to the Content Server, I can see the various groupings that I've set up so far, can sort books in various ways. But when I disconnect from the Content Server, the Calibre Companion doesn't show anything on the Fire, doesn't see any of the books that are on my Fire. I go to Groups and there just isn't anything there. That's the part I don't understand. Content Server on PC: all the ebooks I own. Books on Fire1 or Fire2 : subset of all the ebooks I own. So this is how I thought the Companion would act or how I would like it to act. 1. Periodically connect to content server to get/update all the data (not download the physical books but download the catalog, the metadata). 2. Disconnect from content server. 3. Go into Companion, ask it to show me, say, all the books I've tagged as history books and sort by author within that group. 4. Select one of the history books. 5. Have it tell me that that book is either on my Fire or is not on my Fire. 6. Read book.