Glo Display Calibre metadata comments in Glo details

[leftright]

Is there anyway to get the Glo to display the details which are within the comments of the metadata ?, in the home screen, Library, or in the book whilst been read.

Thanks.

[Terisa de morgan]

You have different ways:

• Plugin KoboUtilities: send the comments to the Kobo database, so you can see them when look at book details
• I think that the Kobo driver sends them too, along with the series info (first time you connect the ereader after sending the book to the device and disconnect it)
• You can create a jacket inside the book (I think you can do it with Polish tool) which includes the comments.

[davidfor]

As Terisa said, it should just happen when the device processes a sideloaded book. Unless it is a book format that doesn't contain metadata. Epubs, PDF, kepubs and MOBI all contain metadata and will be loaded. Other formats such as text, CBR and CBZ don't have metadata (the latter two can, but it isn't a formalized standard). For these, and if you change the metadata, you can use my Kobo Utilities plugin to update the metadata once he book has been processed into the library on the device.

[leftright]

I have looked everywhere but I don't see anything that says "send comments".
(see attached pics).

I've clicked on everything meatadata and tried many combinations of update metadata, embed metadata, read metadata etc. Deleted the book, resent book, to no avail. No comments in Glo's detail tab.

All books are epubs, sideloaded.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by leftright

I have looked everywhere but I don't see anything that says "send comments".
(see attached pics).

I've clicked on everything meatadata and tried many combinations of update metadata, embed metadata, read metadata etc. Deleted the book, resent book, to no avail. No comments in Glo's detail tab.

All books are epubs, sideloaded.

The first screen shot shows the Kobo Utilities menu when no Kobo device is connected. Most of the options are disable because there is no Kobo device connected. But, the first option on the menu is "Update metadata in device library". When you connect a Kobo device, that option will be enabled, though it will probably be the third option. Then you:

1. Find the books you want to update the metadata. They must already be on the device.
2. Select them.
3. Choose the "Update metadata in device library" from the menu.
4. On the dialog displayed, choose what parts of the metadata to update. At the least, tou want to select comments.
5. Press the OK button.
6. After some time, depending on the number of books selected, a message will be displayed with the number of changes made.
7. Eject the device and check the changes.

But, this should already be happening when you send the books. Or even manually copy a book that has embedded metadata. The device processes the books when it first sees them, and extracts the metadata including the comments. This should be displayed on the details screen for the book. And to check that we are doing the same thing, to access the details screen:

1. Go to the library list on the device.
2. Find a book you sent from calibre that you know has comments.
3. Press on the book for a second or two. This is a "long press".
4. On the menu that is displayed, select "View details".

The details screen for the book should be displayed. An example of what it looks like is here. Kobo have decided that the comments are to be called the "Synopsis".

[leftright]

Originally Posted by davidfor

On the dialog displayed, choose what parts of the metadata to update. At the least, tou want to select comments.

I don't get the sub menu asking what metadata to update.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by leftright

I don't get the sub menu asking what metadata to update.

The only way that I can get that to happen is if I don't have any books selected in the calibre library list. And that is expected. You have to select the books that are on the device to update.

If you have books selected and the options dialog is not coming up, then I need a debug log. Restart calibre in debug mode, connect the device, repeat what isn't working and then close calibre. The debug log will be displayed. Post the full contents for me to look at.

[leftright]

I veiwed a different book in Glo for Comments and the comments were evident in that book without any additional update metadata commands from Calibre.

(back to problem book).....
After finding the correct Update Metadata dialog, (red face here), I ticked the "comments" field, and updated the metadata on the problem book.
Ejected Glo; Nothing under synopsis/details for this book.

The comments for that book is large(utf8). Does the Glo have a size limit for synopsis/comments/details?.

I've attached some pics of correct update dialog, (I confused it with the update cached metadata, my mistake).

Also attached; Debug; and the Comments for the book (utf8).

Many thanks for your time and patience.

[davidfor]

That log says nothing was changed, so the metadata in the calibre library matches that in the device library. Unfortunately, the logs do not show anything about what the plugin is seeing as the comments in the two places. That is because it sees them as the same. But, I had already prepared a test version of the plugin for someone else. Could you install the version in this post? That logs the comments not matter what is happening.

Again, to see the logs, you will need to run it in debug mode. But, can you run it twice. Run the update once and the log should show what the current comments are in the library and on the device. Then, make a change to the comments in calibre. Just add a word or something somewhere that will be easy to see. Then run it again and see what happens. Again the log will show what the comments and description are. Hopefully with this I will be able to work out what is going on.

For completeness, can you do two things:
- In the metadata editor in calibre, can you copy the HTML source of the comment.
- Can you run the database check that is in the plugin. It's under the "Database" menu. It should display a window with "OK" in the text area, but if there are database issues, it will display something else.

[leftright]

Installed the test plugin.
logs attached with no change to comments, then a minor change to comments.

After a minor change the comments show up in the Glo synopsis tab. with several blank pages.

EDIT:
I noticed that there was 10's of blank lines in the html code, e.g.
<div>
blank
blank
blank
etc.

then Comments start;
I deleted all these 10's of blank lines in the html code and the comments now show up in my Glo, 7 pages worth in the synopsis tab.

Many thanks for your time.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by leftright

Installed the test plugin.
logs attached with no change to comments, then a minor change to comments.

After a minor change the comments show up in the Glo synopsis tab. with several blank pages.

EDIT:
I noticed that there was 10's of blank lines in the html code, e.g.
<div>
blank
blank
blank
etc.

then Comments start;
I deleted all these 10's of blank lines in the html code and the comments now show up in my Glo, 7 pages worth in the synopsis tab.

Many thanks for your time.

Glad that it's sorted out. From the logs, it looks like the comment was in the database, just not being displayed. The only thing I can think is that there was something in the comment that the device didn't like and that stopped the comment from being displayed. I can't see what it was. All of the versions that I can pull from the logs and file are displaying with no problems. It probably means there was something either you removed when editing the comment, or calibre automatically cleaned up as you made another change.

One thing that would be good to check is if there is a stack dump file on the device. If something about the comment was causing an error, nickel might have written the stack at the time of the error. Can you look in the .kobo directory for files with the name "stack_nn.log" (the "nn" will be numbers). If there are any, they might help Kobo work out what was wrong.