MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

tponzo · 07-05-2010, 08:20 PM

JL,

keep working on it, you will get it and it will be a snap. Collections are the way your reader catagorizes and organizes your books. The 900 has three default collections, unread books, unread periodicals and purchased books. You can't change those but you can add your own to make it easier to keep track of what you have. That's where calibre comes in.

If you go to preferences>plugins>device interface plugins>sony device interface. Highlight and click customize. At the bottom is a place to tell calibre what criteria to use to form collections. They suggest tags, series, author. That actually works pretty well so that's what I put there.

Now go add some books. When you add books and fetch metadata that's where your collection information comes from. So I added Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Most of the fields are easy except maybe tags. Tags are categories, what catagories would you put this book in. I don't like the tags they use in the metadata so I made up my own tags, which will be titles of collections on my reader. Isbndb gave this book a bunch of tags but I only needed one so I deleted them and just added my own, Fiction – Classics. So now the tag is Fiction – Classics. So when I send this book to my reader it will be in three collections: the default Unread Books, Jane Austen (author), and Fiction-Classics (tag).

So what about series? I added all six books in the series Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Again for each book I fetch metadata and get tags I don't want to use. I gave each book the same two tags, Fiction – Childrens and Fiction – Fantasy. In this case, because they are part of a series the name of the series - Chronicles of Narnia- is included in the metadata - and each book is numbered in the series. Calibre does this automatically. So now I send these six books to my reader. Each book in the series will be in 5 collections, Unread Books, C.S. Lewis (author), Fiction – Childrens and Fiction – Fantasy (the two tags I gave it) and Chronicles of Narnia (series name).

So now I have 7 books and 6 collections (not counting the default ones). My collection titles are Jane Austen
C.S. Lewis
Fiction – Classics
Fiction – Childrens'
Fiction – Fantasy
Chronicles of Narnia

So if I add another book by Jane Austen and give it the tag of Fiction – Classics. It goes in the already made Jane Austen and Fiction – Classics collections.

For books in a series usually the metadata will include the series name and what number the book is in in the series so the only info I have to tweak is the tags.

You may want to use different categories but that's the gist

I hope that this is helpful and not redundant. It took some playing with it and I know that there's still stuff I need to figure out but at least that part is working now.

07-05-2010, 08:20 PM	#56
tponzo Addict Posts: 239 Karma: 237 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: OH USA Device: Sony PRS 900(gave it to my sister); Sony PRS-T1; onyx book note air	JL, keep working on it, you will get it and it will be a snap. Collections are the way your reader catagorizes and organizes your books. The 900 has three default collections, unread books, unread periodicals and purchased books. You can't change those but you can add your own to make it easier to keep track of what you have. That's where calibre comes in. If you go to preferences>plugins>device interface plugins>sony device interface. Highlight and click customize. At the bottom is a place to tell calibre what criteria to use to form collections. They suggest tags, series, author. That actually works pretty well so that's what I put there. Now go add some books. When you add books and fetch metadata that's where your collection information comes from. So I added Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Most of the fields are easy except maybe tags. Tags are categories, what catagories would you put this book in. I don't like the tags they use in the metadata so I made up my own tags, which will be titles of collections on my reader. Isbndb gave this book a bunch of tags but I only needed one so I deleted them and just added my own, Fiction – Classics. So now the tag is Fiction – Classics. So when I send this book to my reader it will be in three collections: the default Unread Books, Jane Austen (author), and Fiction-Classics (tag). So what about series? I added all six books in the series Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Again for each book I fetch metadata and get tags I don't want to use. I gave each book the same two tags, Fiction – Childrens and Fiction – Fantasy. In this case, because they are part of a series the name of the series - Chronicles of Narnia- is included in the metadata - and each book is numbered in the series. Calibre does this automatically. So now I send these six books to my reader. Each book in the series will be in 5 collections, Unread Books, C.S. Lewis (author), Fiction – Childrens and Fiction – Fantasy (the two tags I gave it) and Chronicles of Narnia (series name). So now I have 7 books and 6 collections (not counting the default ones). My collection titles are Jane Austen C.S. Lewis Fiction – Classics Fiction – Childrens' Fiction – Fantasy Chronicles of Narnia So if I add another book by Jane Austen and give it the tag of Fiction – Classics. It goes in the already made Jane Austen and Fiction – Classics collections. For books in a series usually the metadata will include the series name and what number the book is in in the series so the only info I have to tweak is the tags. You may want to use different categories but that's the gist I hope that this is helpful and not redundant. It took some playing with it and I know that there's still stuff I need to figure out but at least that part is working now.