Kovid:
First, Amazon has released/posted the 2.5.2 update you can find it at the links here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...4143443&sr=1-1
Second, I got interested in how Amazon is implementing the collections feature, and so I did some research. There's not much available to a Google search, but there is some minimal information in the Kindle community forum threads at Amazon.com.
It appears that a kindle collection is a data structure consisting of a collection name plus a list of its members. A member is a SHA-1 hash of the title (at least) and perhaps additional metadata. Amazon has added its internally unique ASIN number to the titles of all its kindle books (both in the metadata in the book; and in the filename as seen ihn the kindle documents folder).
The collections.json file is a serialization of this data structure, and is used to convey a copy of a device's collections (and the names of their contents) to the Amazon archive.
The exact interaction among the file, the archive, the whispernet status, and the state of the kindle is a bit obscure. So I thought I would copy a couple of useful posts here.
Quote:
C. Stoneham says:
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So, I'm poking around a bit in the "system" folder and I see a file named "collections.json". Looking closer, I see the following organizational scheme:
{"collection1name@en-US":{";items":["#B000R8YMMM^EBOK";,etc, etc,etc],"lastAccess":1276105657406},"collection2name@e n-US":{"items":["#B001D23Q00^EBOK",etc,etc,etc],"lastAccess";:1276106033495},
and so on.
Well, it just so turns out that, at least for azmn books, the "#B001D23Q00^EBOK" is a shortened form of the filename of the book with just the serial and ^ used in place of "-type_"
So, has anyone tested if we can edit this json file directly and speed up the process of making collections for large numbers of books?
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Quote:
Johan1FS says:
I did some testing ... deleted the .JSON file with wireless off ... my collections were still there. However, after I soft reset the Kindle, the collections were gone, so they probably stay in memory until such time as you restart the Kindle.
Copied the file back, no collections. Soft-reset again, and hey, the collections are back, but it took a while for them to update with the actual content.
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So, I hope this information will prove to be of use, and that a way to accommodate the collections feature and the metadata changes it apparently requires can be found.
In the meantime, now that my kindle collections are stable, I'm going to clear my Calibre DB back to zero, and start over, and see what results. I will pass on any interesting discoveries that may appear.