I no longer get series info sent to ereader

[Larla]

I had created a plugboard to append series info to my book titles. It finally dawned on me that was stupid because when displaying the books in the reader library I was getting the same series info on each of the 1st two lines with virtually no room for the book title.

So I deleted the plugboard. Removed the two books from the reader that I was testing with and resent those two books to the device. However now the books have no series info displayed.

I recreated the plugboard and just sent title to title thinking somehow that plugboard was involved in sending the series info to the database. However, after removing the two books and resending them to device I still have no series info for them.

What I am doing wrong here?

[PeterT]

The series info is added on the SECOND connection of the Kobo to calibre.

Connect the Kobo, send the books, disconnect and allow the device to process the new content, then reconnect the Kobo, and disconnect a second time.

[jackie_w]

Assuming you're talking about populating that middle row between the Title row and the Author row, there are a couple of things to check.

Firstly you need to make sure your calibre Kobo device driver is configured to send Series info.
Prefs - Plugins - Device Interface plugins - KoboTouch (or KoboTouchExtended if you've chosen to send all your books as kepubs) - Customize plugin and on the Metadata tab check both 'Update metadata' and 'Set Series info'

Secondly, for technical reasons calibre doesn't send the Series info when you initially send-to-device it sends it the *next* time you connect to calibre. So make sure you do that second connect.

ETA: Too slow, again!

[Larla]

It gets worse and worse. {Note: this was fixed; see next message; however a new problem)

I tried the double connect and eject just as stated several times but the series info never showed up on the two books. then I did a really bad thing, I think. I removed the two books; connected and then resent the two books; then I clicked "Update cached metadata on device". I then ejected and on device virtually all of my collection data is gone.

All my books appear to still be there but only small percentage of the collections are there and some of them aren't correct.

What did I do and is there any way to recover?

[Larla]

OK -- I corrected the collections problem by setting Metadata Management to Automatic (was Only On Send) and reconnected to device and ejected when all tasks were done. Collections look OK again.

Plus now the series info is present for the two books I was testing.

However, the Title Sort doesn't put the series books together. I thought the series info was used as part of the title sort.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Larla

OK -- I corrected the collections problem by setting Metadata Management to Automatic (was Only On Send) and reconnected to device and ejected when all tasks were done. Collections look OK again.

Plus now the series info is present for the two books I was testing.

However, the Title Sort doesn't put the series books together. I thought the series info was used as part of the title sort.

A while back, you could sort on Series but that functionality was removed. What some people are doing is using a plugboard to add a series tag as part of the title to allow sorting by series/title.

For instance, you own all the Harry Potter ebooks. The plugboard would set the title to HPx - Harry Potter and the whatever (the x is the book number in the series).

Personally, I don't bother since search will locate series as well as titles and authors. I only have a few series such as the Grantville Gazette which is up to 66 ebooks, In Death which is up to 42 plus the interpolated short stories where it takes an annoying number of pages to display the series. Most of the other series are 1 to 2 pages which makes it easy to locate a book from the search results.

[Larla]

In my first message I indicated that all my series books have the series name & number added to the title. But it takes up too much space and I can't see the actual book title. So I ws planning on removing series info from title. I thought that title sort would use the series info but evidently it doesn't anymore.

I just saw a thread about using Kobo Utilities plugin -- I'm going to look into that.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Larla

In my first message I indicated that all my series books have the series name & number added to the title. But it takes up too much space and I can't see the actual book title. So I ws planning on removing series info from title. I thought that title sort would use the series info but evidently it doesn't anymore.

I just saw a thread about using Kobo Utilities plugin -- I'm going to look into that.

If you want to sort the series books together, the only thing you can do is use a plugboard.

There was one or two versions of firmware a long time ago that used the series as part of the title when sorting. The Kobo Utilities plugin can set a series order for collections. But it cheats by changing the date the book was added to the collection into the appropriate order. Then you use the "Date added" sort. But, the sort hasn't worked properly for a while.

Someone here, uses the plugboard to add the series info in the author. That makes the title easier to read and sorting by author groups the books by series within the author.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Someone here, uses the plugboard to add the series info in the author. That makes the title easier to read and sorting by author groups the books by series within the author.

That's what I do

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

That's what I do

I thought it was you, but wasn't sure.

[Larla]

What if I don't send the series info to the reader but leave the series info in the title. That way I would have two lines available to display the title. Would that work? How to disable sending series info to reader?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Larla

What if I don't send the series info to the reader but leave the series info in the title. That way I would have two lines available to display the title. Would that work? How to disable sending series info to reader?

Yes, the title will wrap to the next line if the series info is no there. The option for setting the series info is in the device configuration. Unselecting it will stop it from being sent in the future.

[Larla]

I guess I will have to resend all of my series books to remove the series info. Is there any easier way to do this?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Larla

I guess I will have to resend all of my series books to remove the series info. Is there any easier way to do this?

Unless you want to play with the database on the device, that's the only way at the moment. I'll look at adding something in the utilities plugin, but that's not likely to happen in the next few days.

[Larla]

OK -- the process is working. I can see all of my book titles along with series info. Plus sorted by title works nicely. Once I figured out I could delete my series books using Calibre rather than one at a time on the device, it got a lot easier.

Thanks for your help David.