How Can I Keep Links in Book Folders

[BetterRed]

I'm not dealing with books as such, but with documents. Some documents are a work in progress.

I would like to keep a link to the original 'book' in the folder Calibre creates for each book.

I do NOT want Calibre to create the link, I can do that via the OS. I just want to see them when I open the folder using the 'Click to open' link on the book details panel on the left of the main list. Calibre deletes them without so much as a 'by your leave squire' if I rename the book, change the author etc - see 2nd sentence in para 1 as to why I might want to do that.

I'd also like to keep links to 'related material' like spreadsheets, technical drawings, presentations and video's in the folders. Again I do NOT want Calibre to maintain the presence of the links, I just not want it to cause their absence.

I could probably get around it with hyper links in the comments. But, I'd prefer to use the facilities of the file system, its more visible, more accessible and far more robust. I have the tools to help me maintain file system integrity, whereas as hyper links chunks of HTML buried in who knows what files is outside my control.

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I'm not dealing with books as such, but with documents. Some documents are a work in progress.

I would like to keep a link to the original 'book' in the folder Calibre creates for each book.

I do NOT want Calibre to create the link, I can do that via the OS. I just want to see them when I open the folder using the 'Click to open' link on the book details panel on the left of the main list. Calibre deletes them without so much as a 'by your leave squire' if I rename the book, change the author etc - see 2nd sentence in para 1 as to why I might want to do that.

I'd also like to keep links to 'related material' like spreadsheets, technical drawings, presentations and video's in the folders. Again I do NOT want Calibre to maintain the presence of the links, I just not want it to cause their absence.

I could probably get around it with hyper links in the comments. But, I'd prefer to use the facilities of the file system, its more visible, more accessible and far more robust. I have the tools to help me maintain file system integrity, whereas as hyper links chunks of HTML buried in who knows what files is outside my control.

BR

Calibre is intended to manage self contained documents.

I would avoid trying to link to a Calibre managed file, there are just too many ways to fracture the current files linkage.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

Calibre is intended to manage self contained documents.

I would avoid trying to link to a Calibre managed file, there are just too many ways to fracture the current files linkage.

I don't want "to link to a Calibre managed file", I appreciate the folly of doing that.

I want to put a link in a Calibre managed book folder to another resource, eg a spreadsheet with the books lexical analysis, I would use a symbolic link.

Obviously this is not doable, and reading similar threads I suspect it will never be doable.

Calibre may have embraced Open Source, but it's ignored Open Data, so it's a long way from being an Open System.

If Calibre is predicated on its data is NOT being accessible using the host file system tools; then why, in Windows at least, does it default to putting its data into Users/BetterRed/Documents, rather than Program Data, I assume something similar happens on other operating systems.

Never mind I'll try putting the symlink in a folder ADS

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

If Calibre is predicated on its data is NOT being accessible using the host file system tools; then why, in Windows at least, does it default to putting its data into Users/BetterRed/Documents, rather than Program Data, I assume something similar happens on other operating systems.

Never mind I'll try putting the symlink in a folder ADS

BR

# 1) Calibre would need UAC admin elevation every metadata or book update if it did put data in Program files (That is so Windows 3.1 type thinking )

Calibre does it the current method to avoid the huge performance hit using a BLOB.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by theducks

# 1) Calibre would need UAC admin elevation every metadata or book update if it did put data in Program files (That is so Windows 3.1 type thinking )

Calibre does it the current method to avoid the huge performance hit using a BLOB.

ProgramData is different than Program Files. It's effectively the AppData directory for "All Users", so if calibre went that route it'd be better to use AppData instead of ProgramData (AppData is per user and lives in the user's profile).

However, default to Documents makes some amount of sense, as Documents is generally backed up (well, when a user does backups, anyway, which is unfortunately not as often as we should). Calibre content could be considered "documents", in the same way that Amazon puts books in Documents\My Kindle Content, Nook puts books in Documents\My Barnes & Noble eBooks, Adobe Digital Editions puts books in Documents\My Digital Editions, etc. Just as those other apps don't expect you to manipulate files, neither does calibre.

For the OP, I don't understand why you would need to link data into a calibre book directory. What's the end goal? Keep in mind that calibre is not a document editor, so if you're trying to build/write a document with embedded content via calibre you're "doing it wrong"

[OddCosine]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I would like to keep a link to the original 'book' in the folder Calibre creates for each book.

I do NOT want Calibre to create the link, I can do that via the OS. I just want to see them when I open the folder using the 'Click to open' link on the book details panel on the left of the main list. Calibre deletes them without so much as a 'by your leave squire' if I rename the book, change the author etc - see 2nd sentence in para 1 as to why I might want to do that.

Try importing the link itself into Calibre. I just created a "book" entry by dragging a Windows shortcut into Calibre and it worked fine. I can launch the original file by clicking the "LNK" entry in the book details pane. I can change the metadata and Calibre will manage the link for me.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I'd also like to keep links to 'related material' like spreadsheets, technical drawings, presentations and video's in the folders. Again I do NOT want Calibre to maintain the presence of the links, I just not want it to cause their absence.

Unfortunately, you seem to be limited to one instance of a given file type per Calibre entry, so it will only allow a single link. Depending on how your stuff is organized you could try importing a folder link.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

If Calibre is predicated on its data is NOT being accessible using the host file system tools; then why, in Windows at least, does it default to putting its data into Users/BetterRed/Documents, rather than Program Data, I assume something similar happens on other operating systems.

One excellent reason is that it allows separate Calibre libraries for different users of a PC. If you have a PC that's used by different members of the family, each of whom logs on with their own account, I imagine that could be very useful.

It's also conformant with Microsoft's guidelines on the correct way to do it.