MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Recreating a previous collection of books on a device

DMcCunney · 12-14-2019, 10:49 AM

I'm curious abut what strategies people use in a case like this.

I was given a Google Nexus 7 tablet by a friend who has no use for it. It's the 2012 Grouper model, with an nVidia Tegra CPU, 1280x800 screen, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, and running Lollipop 5.1.1. The chap who passed it along said "It's really slow. You'll want to downgrade the OS." I did a factory reset, rooted, and started configuring. My use case is eBook viewer, books stored on device, and online in a pinch.

Yes, it's really slow. Used offline as eBook viewer, it's fast enough. Go online and things go downhill fast. (It rebooted last night trying to visit the Play Store for app updates.) Several different options exist for installing a different Android version, including KitKat, Marshmallow, and Nougat. It will be a time consuming process regardless of which I install, and I'll have to do a factory reset to do it.

A big part of the time will be recreating the eBook collection on device. What I'd like to do would be to compile a list of what is currently there, in a form I can pass to Calibre and say "Add these books to device", then go do other things and come back when its done.

When the device is plugged in, Calibre will inventory the content on device, and books on device will get a checkmark in a on device column in the master library list. I think what I'd like to do is create a new column as a boolean value to specifically record which books are on that device, and automatically insert a yes value to that column for any book that appears in the on device list. When I need to recreate the collection on device, I create a virtual library of the books in that column, and just add the whole virtual library.

Is there a convenient way of doing that mapping of books on the plugged in device to a column meant to store that status? I have more than one device managed by Calibre, and I'd like to create normally hidden columns just to store a "what's on that device" list for reference when the device isn't plugged in.

My fallback notion is "Copy all books off device to a temp directory, create a new empty Calibre Library, then add the books copied off the device it it, and use the new Calibre Library to add them back." That's doable, but it seems more involved than it really needs to be.

Suggestions?
______
Dennis

12-14-2019, 10:49 AM	#1
DMcCunney New York Editor Posts: 6,384 Karma: 16540415 Join Date: Aug 2007 Device: PalmTX, Pocket eDGe, Alcatel Fierce 4, RCA Viking Pro 10, Nexus 7	Recreating a previous collection of books on a device I'm curious abut what strategies people use in a case like this. I was given a Google Nexus 7 tablet by a friend who has no use for it. It's the 2012 Grouper model, with an nVidia Tegra CPU, 1280x800 screen, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, and running Lollipop 5.1.1. The chap who passed it along said "It's really slow. You'll want to downgrade the OS." I did a factory reset, rooted, and started configuring. My use case is eBook viewer, books stored on device, and online in a pinch. Yes, it's really slow. Used offline as eBook viewer, it's fast enough. Go online and things go downhill fast. (It rebooted last night trying to visit the Play Store for app updates.) Several different options exist for installing a different Android version, including KitKat, Marshmallow, and Nougat. It will be a time consuming process regardless of which I install, and I'll have to do a factory reset to do it. A big part of the time will be recreating the eBook collection on device. What I'd like to do would be to compile a list of what is currently there, in a form I can pass to Calibre and say "Add these books to device", then go do other things and come back when its done. When the device is plugged in, Calibre will inventory the content on device, and books on device will get a checkmark in a on device column in the master library list. I think what I'd like to do is create a new column as a boolean value to specifically record which books are on that device, and automatically insert a yes value to that column for any book that appears in the on device list. When I need to recreate the collection on device, I create a virtual library of the books in that column, and just add the whole virtual library. Is there a convenient way of doing that mapping of books on the plugged in device to a column meant to store that status? I have more than one device managed by Calibre, and I'd like to create normally hidden columns just to store a "what's on that device" list for reference when the device isn't plugged in. My fallback notion is "Copy all books off device to a temp directory, create a new empty Calibre Library, then add the books copied off the device it it, and use the new Calibre Library to add them back." That's doable, but it seems more involved than it really needs to be. Suggestions? ______ Dennis