MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

swineone · 09-30-2018, 10:57 AM

Hello,

I just registered on the forum, after countless Google searches returned links to topics here, where I could witness how knowledgeable the members are and the high level of the discussion going on.

I've been using the iPad since the 1st generation as an ebook reader. At the time I just started using iBooks as my reader app as that's what was available. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Apple is trying very hard to make iBooks less useful with every new version, and iOS 12 with the change to Apple Books sealed its fate for me -- I'm finally looking seriously for alternatives, and I'd very much appreciate the input of the community here to help me choose.

Some information to start with:

My library is mostly (98%+) composed of PDFs and EPUBs, with the odd DJVU and CHM file here and there -- and I don't really care if my chosen setup can't read either DJVU or CHM (or both). However, both PDF and EPUB support is essential.
I download new files from both my Mac and my iPad, and one of my most wanted features would be to have seamless syncing between the Mac's and the iPad's libraries, so that a file downloaded on the Mac is copied to the iPad and vice-versa. Ideally I'll even be able to edit metadata on my iPad and have it sync back to the Mac. Although I'd be very very disappointed if such Mac-iPad sync is not doable, I'll learn to live with it.
Some kind of tagging system is the essential feature I need -- mostly my library is of technical books, and often I need to search for books in my library on a specific subject/genre rather than looking for the author or title. Also, a hard requirement is tag syncing between my Mac's and my iPad's libraries -- I don't want to duplicate work in the Mac and iPad.
One thing I really hated about iBooks was how hard it worked to "hide" its library from you, inside the ~/Library folder in the filesystem, plus it had no folder hierarchy to save these files. This forced me to keep a second copy of my library in an easier to access location in the filesystem, but with space at a premium in my MacBook Pro's SSD, I had to resort to a process of hardlinking files between the iBooks library and my own copy of the library. Although this worked, it required periodic manual intervention and is a really convoluted setup which is prone to errors. I'd really really like to do away with this and have a single, well organized, user accessible library for my ebooks in my Mac.
I already purchased MapleRead SE, so if I could integrate that with whatever solution I decide to go with, that would be great. However, I'm open to spending some money if necessary (say up to $50) to implement my dream library management setup. However, I don't do subscriptions, on principle -- I'd rather pay $50 once than pay $20 or even $10 a year for an app.

Basically I'm a fan of the iTunes model of syncing music tracks between my Mac and iOS devices, while keeping the files well organized in an easily user accessible folder in the file system. Obviously there's no way that I know of to download music tracks in the Music app in iOS and sync them back to iTunes, so that's an extra feature I'm looking for in my setup. To try to put it as concisely as I can, what I'm looking for would be similar in spirit to what Dropbox is to file management.

From my research, it seems like Calibre is ideally suited to implement the Mac side of my library management system. Although I'm not a fan of the app's UI, I'm confident it will do the job, even if not in the most pleasant way. The issue now is to find a companion iPad app that fits into this system.

As I mentioned, I already downloaded the MapleRead app and was trying to implement a setup like I described above, but I ran into some roadblocks. Let me make it clear that I haven't done as much research as necessary -- I just downloaded MapleRead last night and didn't spend that much time with it, but maybe my issues here are something that forum members have seen before and will be able to help me overcome.

There doesn't seem to be the concept of syncing per se between Calibre and MapleRead. Rather, it seems like I need to add the Calibre OPDS content server to Maple Read, then tell it to download all books, and it will skip whichever books were already downloaded. Besides being a little awkward, it doesn't seem to take care of the reverse sync (iPad -> Mac), plus I have no idea if edited metadata in Calibre on the Mac will be reflected in MapleRead after a "sync", or if it will just skip over.
I really need a tagging system to make sense of my library, and Calibre's section on subgroups/genre of their manual is absolutely perfect for my needs. I followed the steps there to implement the "Genre" column on the Calibre side, but when following the "syncing" procedure of the previous bullet point, these tags were not downloaded. As I said I'm not willing to do the same work twice, once in the Mac and once in the iPad, so this setup won't work for me as is.

Ideally I would like to stay with one app only, but it appears the Calibre Companion iOS app may be the missing piece of the puzzle for my library management system. Unfortunately, from reading the app's description on the App Store and their website, I was left with more questions than answers. I can't picture concretely in my mind what it does or how it works -- maybe a demo video of Calibre Companion in action would help me understand? Maybe a more knowledgeable member of the forum could help me understand if its syncing process is closer to what I need than MapleRead's and if it will sync my subgroups (Genre tags) from Calibre. Also, I'm unclear about integration of Calibre Companion with reader apps, and exactly how it works -- e.g. is the library kept in MapleRead or Calibre Companion? When I open a file in Calibre Companion, is it copied over to MapleRead, so I may end up with basically two copies of my library, one in Calibre Companion and the other in MapleRead (I don't have enough free space in my iPad for two copies of the library)? What about syncing last page read between both apps? Etc.

I will buy Calibre Companion in a heartbeat if it is clear that it solves my problem, but as it is, I'm not clear on how it works and won't speculatively spend money on it just to find out it's not suitable for my system.

I now defer to the very knowledgeable members of this forum, hoping that you may enlighten me on ways to overcome the issues that I've found, or even suggest a completely new workflow that implements my requirements above.

Thanks in advance

09-30-2018, 10:57 AM	#1
swineone Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2018 Device: iPad Pro 10.5"	Library management system suggestions Hello, I just registered on the forum, after countless Google searches returned links to topics here, where I could witness how knowledgeable the members are and the high level of the discussion going on. I've been using the iPad since the 1st generation as an ebook reader. At the time I just started using iBooks as my reader app as that's what was available. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Apple is trying very hard to make iBooks less useful with every new version, and iOS 12 with the change to Apple Books sealed its fate for me -- I'm finally looking seriously for alternatives, and I'd very much appreciate the input of the community here to help me choose. Some information to start with: My library is mostly (98%+) composed of PDFs and EPUBs, with the odd DJVU and CHM file here and there -- and I don't really care if my chosen setup can't read either DJVU or CHM (or both). However, both PDF and EPUB support is essential. I download new files from both my Mac and my iPad, and one of my most wanted features would be to have seamless syncing between the Mac's and the iPad's libraries, so that a file downloaded on the Mac is copied to the iPad and vice-versa. Ideally I'll even be able to edit metadata on my iPad and have it sync back to the Mac. Although I'd be very very disappointed if such Mac-iPad sync is not doable, I'll learn to live with it. Some kind of tagging system is the essential feature I need -- mostly my library is of technical books, and often I need to search for books in my library on a specific subject/genre rather than looking for the author or title. Also, a hard requirement is tag syncing between my Mac's and my iPad's libraries -- I don't want to duplicate work in the Mac and iPad. One thing I really hated about iBooks was how hard it worked to "hide" its library from you, inside the ~/Library folder in the filesystem, plus it had no folder hierarchy to save these files. This forced me to keep a second copy of my library in an easier to access location in the filesystem, but with space at a premium in my MacBook Pro's SSD, I had to resort to a process of hardlinking files between the iBooks library and my own copy of the library. Although this worked, it required periodic manual intervention and is a really convoluted setup which is prone to errors. I'd really really like to do away with this and have a single, well organized, user accessible library for my ebooks in my Mac. I already purchased MapleRead SE, so if I could integrate that with whatever solution I decide to go with, that would be great. However, I'm open to spending some money if necessary (say up to $50) to implement my dream library management setup. However, I don't do subscriptions, on principle -- I'd rather pay $50 once than pay $20 or even $10 a year for an app. Basically I'm a fan of the iTunes model of syncing music tracks between my Mac and iOS devices, while keeping the files well organized in an easily user accessible folder in the file system. Obviously there's no way that I know of to download music tracks in the Music app in iOS and sync them back to iTunes, so that's an extra feature I'm looking for in my setup. To try to put it as concisely as I can, what I'm looking for would be similar in spirit to what Dropbox is to file management. From my research, it seems like Calibre is ideally suited to implement the Mac side of my library management system. Although I'm not a fan of the app's UI, I'm confident it will do the job, even if not in the most pleasant way. The issue now is to find a companion iPad app that fits into this system. As I mentioned, I already downloaded the MapleRead app and was trying to implement a setup like I described above, but I ran into some roadblocks. Let me make it clear that I haven't done as much research as necessary -- I just downloaded MapleRead last night and didn't spend that much time with it, but maybe my issues here are something that forum members have seen before and will be able to help me overcome. There doesn't seem to be the concept of syncing per se between Calibre and MapleRead. Rather, it seems like I need to add the Calibre OPDS content server to Maple Read, then tell it to download all books, and it will skip whichever books were already downloaded. Besides being a little awkward, it doesn't seem to take care of the reverse sync (iPad -> Mac), plus I have no idea if edited metadata in Calibre on the Mac will be reflected in MapleRead after a "sync", or if it will just skip over. I really need a tagging system to make sense of my library, and Calibre's section on subgroups/genre of their manual is absolutely perfect for my needs. I followed the steps there to implement the "Genre" column on the Calibre side, but when following the "syncing" procedure of the previous bullet point, these tags were not downloaded. As I said I'm not willing to do the same work twice, once in the Mac and once in the iPad, so this setup won't work for me as is. Ideally I would like to stay with one app only, but it appears the Calibre Companion iOS app may be the missing piece of the puzzle for my library management system. Unfortunately, from reading the app's description on the App Store and their website, I was left with more questions than answers. I can't picture concretely in my mind what it does or how it works -- maybe a demo video of Calibre Companion in action would help me understand? Maybe a more knowledgeable member of the forum could help me understand if its syncing process is closer to what I need than MapleRead's and if it will sync my subgroups (Genre tags) from Calibre. Also, I'm unclear about integration of Calibre Companion with reader apps, and exactly how it works -- e.g. is the library kept in MapleRead or Calibre Companion? When I open a file in Calibre Companion, is it copied over to MapleRead, so I may end up with basically two copies of my library, one in Calibre Companion and the other in MapleRead (I don't have enough free space in my iPad for two copies of the library)? What about syncing last page read between both apps? Etc. I will buy Calibre Companion in a heartbeat if it is clear that it solves my problem, but as it is, I'm not clear on how it works and won't speculatively spend money on it just to find out it's not suitable for my system. I now defer to the very knowledgeable members of this forum, hoping that you may enlighten me on ways to overcome the issues that I've found, or even suggest a completely new workflow that implements my requirements above. Thanks in advance