Firmware Update Kindelabra: Kindle Collection Manager

[NiLuJe]

@teegee543: I guess it should be available as metadata somewhere in the MOBI/EXTH headers. Is there anything about that in the Wiki?

EDIT: Yep, apparently exth record 113.

It's stored in the json file as

#ASIN^TYPE

Where asin is the ASIN, and TYPE the doctype (exth 501), most of the time that'll be EBOK

(#B012345678^EBOK for example)

instead of the usual

*SHA1

.

[DiapDealer]

You can look at MobiUnpack or Calibre for examples of parsing the exth records.

[NiLuJe]

More or less this, after being gutted out of MobiUnpack .

Never checked how Topaz files are handled in the json db though...

[ElizabethN]

A very nice program. I'm using windows vista and a K3. After reading through the thread, I updated from python 2.6 to 2.7 and downloaded all the rest of the libraries/programs as advised. No problem getting kindelabra to work.

Most of my collections were already created manually then revised using kindle collection manager (another nice program). Kindelabra enabled me to sort both columns alphabetically so that I could further clean up my collections.

Just a couple of thoughts.
-Does it matter where I have the kindelabra program located? I currently have it in the original folder which is in my python 2.7 folder.
-Is there an undo button? I can't tell you how many times I hit "delete" when I meant to hit "rename."
-A few DRM-d books didn't take and neither did a few samples. I just checked at the end of the collection folder on the K3 and manually updated what hadn't taken.
-Is there a way to check in kindelabra for books that aren't in a collection?
-Is there a way to incorporate this program into calibre as a plug-in since it's in python? If I'm trying to update a genre collection, I've just had both kindelabra and calibre open side-by-side.

Thanks for all your work and for sharing!

[teegee543]

Thanks for all the comments, everyone. I really appreciate the interest Kindelabra has had here on MobileRead. Please realize that I have a life and that this is a hobby project for me, which I really wanted to share with the community. I'll prioritize major bugfixes to the program, but will continue working on new features to make my program even better/complete. Here are some features I'd like to include in the next few versions:
- confirmation for delete collection (DONE)
- support for DRM-d books
- icons showing which books are already in a collection

possible future features:
- undo
- calibre plugin
- windows installer

@ElizabethN: it doesn't matter where you keep the program, as long as you have kindle.py in the same folder.

[Lordblacknail]

Any chance of even rudimentary instructions?

[charliefx]

Nice software.

Thanks!

[teegee543]

Originally Posted by Lordblacknail

Any chance of even rudimentary instructions?

I'll write up some documentation once I finish making the hotkey interface.

New features:
- windows installer for GTK+, let me know whether or not this works for you
- hotkeys
- add collection now highlights and scrolls to the new collection to make it easier to immediately start adding books to the new collection

[Mixx]

teegee543,

thanks for your efforts, I am really eager to try it. I am just not savvy enough to set it up. I installed I believe everything using your install.bat for win32. It is just that I do not find kindelabra.py anywhere (and I did search my drives).

Embarrassing as it is, I need a hint where to look for that file to click on (or instructions how start the app).

Thanxx, Mixx

[teegee543]

Hi Mixx,

Sorry I forgot to have the installer download my program. You can get it manually by clicking here. Unzip that file and run Kindelabra.py

[Mixx]

Thanks teegee543, got it.

But now I get

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\Python27\Kindelabra.py", line 14, in <module>
import gtk
File "C:\Programme\Python27\lib\site-packages\gtk-2.0\gtk\__init__.py", line 40, in <module>
from gtk import _gtk
ImportError: DLL load failed: Die angegebene Prozedur wurde nicht gefunden.

Is something still missing?

Thankxx, Mixx

[teegee543]

Hi Mixx, I'm not sure what could be causing that error, but it seems that GTK is not working for a lot of people. If you don't mind, could you try uninstalling Python and installing an older version that should work better:
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.6.6/python-2.6.6.msi
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binar...in32-py2.6.exe
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binar...in32-py2.6.exe
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binar...in32-py2.6.exe

I've pushed out Kindelabra v0.2 now. My program now supports DRM-d books.

[jlmwrite]

@teegee,

Thanks for the work you've been putting into Kindelabra. I just installed v0.2 with no issues.

First, the tooltips are much appreciated.

However, the problem with DRM'd/Amazon purchased books in a collection still appears. Only one of my collections is made up exclusively of 7 DRM'd books. Kindelabra correctly shows the collection name but all 7 of the books are the same but random book not in that collection.

It appears the .json backup files are stored on the Kindle rather than on the PC. Is that correct? If so, you may want to consider saving that (by default) to the PC so that collections can be easily reproduced.

As I pointed out before, you may also want to consider a "write and eject Kindle" button, with a subsequent pop-up message reminding the user to do a Kindle restart.

Keep up the great work!

[NiLuJe]

@teegee543:

Yep, same symptoms as jlmwrite with DRM'd books.

Also, it dies horribly on old PRC files that don't have exth records.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./Kindelabra.py", line 391, in refresh
    self.kindle.init_data()
  File "/home/niluje/Kindle/Kindelabra/kindle.py", line 98, in init_data
    self.load_folder(folder)
  File "/home/niluje/Kindle/Kindelabra/kindle.py", line 110, in load_folder
    book = Ebook(fullpath)
  File "/home/niluje/Kindle/Kindelabra/kindle.py", line 78, in __init__
    self.meta = ebook.Mobi(path)
  File "/home/niluje/Kindle/Kindelabra/ebook.py", line 35, in __init__
    len_exth, = struct.unpack_from('>L', header, len_mobi+4)
struct.error: unpack_from requires a buffer of at least 4 bytes

(Specifically, the complete MobiPocket version available here).

[teegee543]

@jlmwrite and @NiLuJe: i'll look into what's going on with the DRM'd/Amazon books. if you have more information you can give me that would be helpful

The latest version should ignore reading metadata for PRC files, same as calibre