CC Beta 3.6.7* is now production as V3.6.8

[chaley]

Changes:

V3.6.7a

• Option to auto-delete calibre news. You can control the deletion window for each feed by adding a special tag in the calibre news source specification that looks like cc_delete_after_N, where N is the number of days to wait before deleting the book(s). A book will never be deleted earlier than the number of days specified in CC's options.
• Option to try to recolor dialogs when using CC on an e-ink device.
• Add "series_index" as a searchable field
• Performance improvement of 30% to 50% in search scanning
• Add copy/paste buttons to the search dialog to work around some devices not showing the text action bar.
• Add CC's read date to the list of fields that can be displayed on the book list
• Add an option to use the device's date format for CC-generated dates on the book list
• Updated languages: Spanish, Italian
• [BUG FIX]Fix "is read" appearing twice in book details under some strange conditions
• [BUG FIX]When using long-press searches, display the search strings using correct search syntax in the search bar
• [BUG FIX]Fix problem in searches where "not" was sometimes not recognized correctly
• [BUG FIX]Respect the "Move disconnect to menu" option in the content server

V3.6.7b:

• Fix crash when opening search box in content server

V3.6.7c:

• Auto-delete news: allow the tag to specify a smaller number of days than the CC setting
• Improvements in e-ink color correction
• Make the new copy/paste buttons in the search box work

V3.6.7d:

• Pop up a configuration dialog when home screen widgets are created, permitting setting the number of books displayed.
• Option for the home screen stack widget to wrap from back to front and vice versa.
• Many more e-ink color corrections.
• Update languages: Brazilian Portuguese

V3.6.7e:

• E-ink corrections: Fix missing action bar buttons and improve display of ratings

V3.6.7f:

• Fix error in handling news delete tags longer than the default

V3.6.7g:

• Improvements in logging news deletion. It now logs decisions not to delete, and when deleting whether a tag or the default was the deciding factor
• Handle corner cases involving multiple and misspelled cc_delete_after tags
• Fix another error in handling news delete tags

V3.6.8:

• In content server, detect attempts to download formats that don't exist
• Improvements in logging news deletion
• Fix problems with Choose Reader dialog when a widget is tapped
• Update languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish

See CC's change log for a summary of the changes from V3.6.7 to V3.6.8.

[chaley]

One feature of calibre is its ability to download news from many providers on the internet. When you set up a news download, you can tell calibre how many days to keep the "books" that the news download produces. In addition, you can tell calibre to automatically send news books to a device when that device connects. In CC's case, this transfer will happen any time CC connects as a wireless device, either manually or using CC's automatic connection option.

CC can mimic calibre's automatic delete after some number of days. To do this, go to CC's settings and scroll to near the bottom, looking for the "Delete older news" option. Tap that option to see the three settings that CC needs:

• A checkbox telling CC that it is permitted to delete older news books.
• The tag that calibre automatically puts on news books. This tag depends on the user interface language being used in calibre, not CC. If you are not running calibre in English then you should check in calibre's tag browser for the value of this tag. You must enter that tag here spelled exactly as in calibre, including upper and lower case characters.
• The number of days that must pass after a news book is downloaded into CC before CC can delete it. Note that a "day" is actually a 24-hour period. If you download news at 7 in the morning and set this option to 1 day, the news books are eligible to be deleted after 7 in the morning the next day.

CC will check to see if books are to be deleted at one minute after midnight every day. For example, if you enter zero into the setting, all news books will be deleted at the next midnight. If you enter 1, news books will be deleted at the second midnight after they are downloaded to CC. And so on.

It could be that you want to keep books from different news sources for different numbers of days. CC will check for a special tag on the news book to determine if the time-before-delete is different. To set up a different delay, in calibre:

• Click on Fetch News
• Click on Scheduled to see the news sources you have set up
• Click on the news source that you want to keep books for shorter or longer than the time you entered into CC.
• Click the Advanced tab
• Enter cc_delete_after_N into the Extra Tags box, where N is the number of days you want CC to keep books generated by this news source. For example, if you want CC to keep them for 10 days, enter cc_delete_after_10. N can be larger or smaller than the number in CC's settings.

CC logs automatic deletion successes and failures to the autoconnect log. You can see this log by going to CC's Settings, scrolling down to Wireless Device Connection, then tapping View automatic connection log.

[chaley]

V3.6.7b has been published. I fixed a silly error in Content Server searching that crashed CC.

[nqk]

Do you plan to develop a reader, @chaley?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nqk

Do you plan to develop a reader, @chaley?

No. There are many good ones already out there, and it would be very difficult to get right given how much people care about the details of how the reader renders books.

[chaley]

The way auto-delete is currently implemented the value in CC is the minimum number of days that must pass before a book will be deleted. I did this because I thought it was safer, but thinking about it more I realize that my scheme is potentially dangerous.

The problem: the user must set this number to the lowest value desired and existing in the cc_delete_after_ tag. This means that news without a tag will be deleted using that low value. It would probably be safer if this number be the default and permit the cc_delete_after_ tag to specify a lower number. That way the user can specify a higher number which will apply to new feeds and feeds without the tag.

Comments?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

The way auto-delete is currently implemented the value in CC is the minimum number of days that must pass before a book will be deleted. I did this because I thought it was safer, but thinking about it more I realize that my scheme is potentially dangerous.

The problem: the user must set this number to the lowest value desired and existing in the cc_delete_after_ tag. This means that news without a tag will be deleted using that low value. It would probably be safer if this number be the default and permit the cc_delete_after_ tag to specify a lower number. That way the user can specify a higher number which will apply to new feeds and feeds without the tag.

Comments?

Does that number have to lower? What happens if I set that number to be 10 and the tag is set to 5?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Does that number have to lower? What happens if I set that number to be 10 and the tag is set to 5?

As implemented, the 5 would become 10. As proposed, the 5 would stay 5.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

As implemented, the 5 would become 10. As proposed, the 5 would stay 5.

I would think they should be distinct. Any news item without an extra tag should use the number in the settings, and any news item with a tag should use whatever number is in the tag. You can have any number of tags with different numbers, right?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I would think they should be distinct. Any news item without an extra tag should use the number in the settings, and any news item with a tag should use whatever number is in the tag.

That is the position I came to after deciding that my initial rationale was flawed.

You can have any number of tags with different numbers, right?

Yes, if you mean different tags on different news sources. I don't know which tag would get honored if there were multiple tags on the same news source. Probably the first one entered.

Random points:

• Tags with negative numbers (e.g., cc_delete_after_-1) are ignored
• The delete process runs at one minute after midnight
• The deletion process is logged to the auto-connect log so you can see what it did and did not do.

[chaley]

@Purple Lady: Question on a different setting: does using the new e-ink checkbox help on your T62? It doesn't do much on my Onyx Afterglow 2 but is needed on my T62+ (carta screen).

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

That is the position I came to after deciding that my initial rationale was flawed.Yes, if you mean different tags on different news sources. I don't know which tag would get honored if there were multiple tags on the same news source. Probably the first one entered.

Random points:

• Tags with negative numbers (e.g., cc_delete_after_-1) are ignored
• The delete process runs at one minute after midnight
• The deletion process is logged to the auto-connect log so you can see what it did and did not do.

You could also decide what to delete based on tags only instead of news source. That way you don't have to care what tags are where.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

You could also decide what to delete based on tags only instead of news source. That way you don't have to care what tags are where.

I don't see how that could work. If the tag is not attached to the news "book" where do I get the value and how do I know which tag to use?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

@Purple Lady: Question on a different setting: does using the new e-ink checkbox help on your T62? It doesn't do much on my Onyx Afterglow 2 but is needed on my T62+ (carta screen).

I did see some places where it's fixed, but there are still some places it didn't help. Like Device name shown by Calibre and everything under Covers and thumbnails. I didn't look much further.

So how do you like the T62+? I'm jealous - I don't see anywhere to buy one since Banggood is out of stock. I don't think there's much that will help the Onyx device.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

I don't see how that could work. If the tag is not attached to the news "book" where do I get the value and how do I know which tag to use?

I didn't phrase that well. I meant to get all tags that are attached to news sources and delete all news sources that have that tag. In other words use tags as your starting point instead of starting at news sources. That way a news source can have different tags in case there is a specific day you want to keep longer.