Collections Manager

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by acalva

After the firmware upgrade i got a message saying that the firmware is not compatible with Collections Manager. I know that it says on the OP that it will not be compatible but I wonder if this can be modified.

You mean if the message can be modified? Sure, edit it to whatever fits your needs and recompile CM.

And now, seriously:

Come on, the firmware has been out for merely one day. Because of Lab126 developers' "being the @$$#0%3$ that we are, we love to antagonize the independent developers, so we re-obfuscate everything anew with every new firmware release, just because we can" motto... for each new firmware, it takes about 4 or 5 hours of rather complicated work for me to figure out how that new firmware can be supported. And guess what, I have a real job and a real life too.

Yes, I will eventually look into supporting new firmwares. But I will do so when I have the time and motivation to do so. And I wouldn't mind at all if somebody else, instead of just coming here and complaining that I'm not fast enough in providing the work that I do on a voluntary basis, actually invested some effort to support new firmwares -- in fact, I would happily include their patches.

Sorry if that sounded a bit harsh, I'm not trying to offend you. Just read between the lines of your post and you'll hopefully understand why it was rather counterproductive.

[acalva]

No offense taken and sorry by my bad wording, I'll try to be more careful with my posts.

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by acalva

After the firmware upgrade i got a message saying that the firmware is not compatible with Collections Manager. I know that it says on the OP that it will not be compatible but I wonder if this can be modified.

So ixtab, is it done yet? (since I'm safely on 5.3.3 on my PW, I'm still pretty happy)

It's an interesting message if that IS what it said... "the firmware is not compatible with Collections Manager" If you want the firmware to be modified, you need to talk to the guys at lab126.

OK. Serious questions. I didn't read all 38 pages, but I think I read the lead post pretty well. I was able to get the software installed, but I'm having some problems using it.
1) Is there any documentation other than the images in the original post? I've got a sketchy idea of how to use the software, but I was also successful in hiding books from myself (and the PW) and the only solution was to go through page by page looking for grey titles and unhiding them. Not fun, and I still don't know how I did it to begin with. I'm guessing Select all only selects all on the current page, right?
2) The only sort options are by title and "sort" title, if I've read correctly. Sort by author would be a BIG help for me. Hasn't anyone else asked about that? Remembering the titles of the 25 P.G. Wodehouse books to put them all in the same collection is not much fun either.
[strikeout]3) "Import collections from Calibre" is greyed out. I have version 2.3.3 of the software, but I didn't see anything about that being added (or enabled) recently.[/strikeout] pretend I didn't say that.
3) I could not (can not) create a collection named "Ring of Fire". I tried 4 times, and finally created it from the Kindle menu. I then renamed it "Ring of FireZ" and tried twice more from inside Collection Manager. I can create the following, but not "Ring of Fire": "Fire of Rings", "Ring of Fred", "Ring of Fires". I wanna hear the explanation for THAT one.

If (as I suspect) there isn't any documentation, I'll try to type up my interpretations, and ... can you attach a file to a PM?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

If (as I suspect) there isn't any documentation, I'll try to type up my interpretations, and ... can you attach a file to a PM?

The annotated screenshot in the first post of the thread is the documentation.

No, you can't attach a file to a PM.

[SampleAndy]

Call me weird, but I just love things that don't make sense.
I tried "Create collections from directories". I had nothing to lose, since I'd already used "Delete all collections". So I know I didn't have any problem with duplicate file names.
Ring of Fire, no.
ring of fire, sure, no problem.
rename ring of fire to Ring of Fire, nope. no way.
rename ring of fire to ring of Fire? Sure thing.
rename ring of Fire to Ring of fire? absolutely!
rename Ring of fire to Ring of Fire? can't make me do it.

C'mon, guys. It's not that bad of a name, is it?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

C'mon, guys. It's not that bad of a name, is it?

The "Collections Manager" is just an alternate GUI on the Amazon/Lab126 functionality.

So the "guys" to be asking are the ones who wrote the "fictionality".

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by knc1

The "Collections Manager" is just an alternate GUI on the Amazon/Lab126 functionality.

So the "guys" to be asking are the ones who wrote the "fictionality".

With all due respect... There you go jumping on somebody without reading the posts.

In #574, 3) I said, "I could not (can not) create a collection named "Ring of Fire". I tried 4 times, and finally created it from the Kindle menu."

This means to me that "Amazon/Lab126" is performing correctly (in this case) and Collections Manager is for some unknown reason not communicating its desires to the underlying functionality. (shrugs)

[knc1]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

With all due respect... There you go jumping on somebody without reading the posts.

Jumping on?
Ah, come on now, you have not been "jumped on", at least not by me.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

With all due respect... There you go jumping on somebody without reading the posts.

In #574, 3) I said, "I could not (can not) create a collection named "Ring of Fire". I tried 4 times, and finally created it from the Kindle menu."

This means to me that "Amazon/Lab126" is performing correctly (in this case) and Collections Manager is for some unknown reason not communicating its desires to the underlying functionality. (shrugs)

If you want, you can grep the source code of collections manager for "Ring of Fire" to see whether I implemented some easter egg which prevents the creation of such a collection (I didn't).

Alternatively, you can start here and work your way through the code to see that it always ends up doing the same pattern of action, namely creating a MutableCollection object, settings its name, and committing a transaction with that object. Yes, there are multiple indirections, because I have to account for every single firmware employing its own obfuscation mechanism, but I can assure you that I'm only passing the input to the underlying firmware.

EDIT: While looking at it - you may have a BOOK with the name "Ring of Fire", in which case CM would also refuse to create a collection with the same name.

[SampleAndy]

Originally Posted by ixtab

If you want, you can grep the source code of collections manager for "Ring of Fire" to see whether I implemented some easter egg which prevents the creation of such a collection (I didn't).

...

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

To be honest, I'd HEARD of grep, but I thought it was used to compare two files, so I have learned something today. Since my expertise in Java was limited to drawing a purple square inside a white one, and even that was 4-5 years ago. I'm not even going to look at your code. I have nothing but respect (or AWE?) for what you can do.

I think what I was hoping for was somebody to try it and either tell me I'm crazy or my KPW is screwed up or that the process CAN be reduplicated.

and then...

... EDIT: While looking at it - you may have a BOOK with the name "Ring of Fire", in which case CM would also refuse to create a collection with the same name.

An ANSWER!!!

uh... So how come I can do it from the Kindle menu?

I've read some of your posts about what you have to go through to figure out what lab126 did so you can create programs that can do anything, and from trying to figure out what other baby programmers were trying to do (in their SOURCE code) I have some appreciation of it... but I just had to ask.
Thanks,
Andy

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

An ANSWER!!!

uh... So how come I can do it from the Kindle menu?

You can do it from the Kindle menu because that one doesn't check whether a collection name clashes with a book title, while CM (wrongly) does.

It's actually right below the code that I pointed you to (that's why I noticed it)... See this line in the isItemWithNamePresent function? It will find all items with the same name as the name that you are trying to give to the collection, and return true if any is found - and if so, CM will refuse to create/rename a collection with/to that name. That's obviously a bug, as it should be searching the names of collections only, not all items. Here's an example where I did it correctly.

That said, it should have worked when creating collections from directories, and also when importing from calibre. The only place I seem to have missed it is when manually creating/renaming collections. And as said, it will only strike if you try to create a collection with the exact same name as an existing entry (collection or book), where also considering the latter is the bug.

This is a minor bug, which I've already fixed in my local source code. It'll be "officially" fixed with the next release, which will include support for FW 5.3.5 and 5.3.7 too. But that'll take another week or two.

[brianinmaine]

Originally Posted by ixtab

This is a minor bug, which I've already fixed in my local source code. It'll be "officially" fixed with the next release, which will include support for FW 5.3.5 and 5.3.7 too. But that'll take another week or two.

So I was lurking to see if you had a new version yet - I see one is on the way! You are DA MAN!

I checked out the license of you software :
https://bitbucket.org/ixtab/ktcollec....txt?at=master

Most impressive!

Thank you for your hard work.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by brianinmaine

I checked out the license of you software :
https://bitbucket.org/ixtab/ktcollec....txt?at=master

Most impressive!

A license that it will be illegal to even mention on the new Russian no-swearing Internet! (Estimated number of web pages remaining unblocked on new Russian no-swearing Internet: 3.)

[knc1]

Originally Posted by NullNix

A license that it will be illegal to even mention on the new Russian no-swearing Internet! (Estimated number of web pages remaining unblocked on new Russian no-swearing Internet: 3.)

That should be enough pages for the Russians who do not drink.

[ixtab]

Here's a fresh screenshot of what CM 2.4.0 could look like.



This is still work in progress, -- I didn't yet manage to get everything to work the way that I want it to be.

That said, the "Ring of Fire" issue is now fixed (thanks @SampleAndy for pointing it out!). Plus: real and correct localization -- at this time, probably only people who speak polish can really understand what I mean.

Bottom line: a new CM version is on its way. But it'll take a bit more time before it's released.