Calibre 0.7 + Apple iDevices (Archived)

[GRiker]

Since calibre doesn't currently manage audiobooks, I think it's best to ignore them as well.

If you're having problems with bulk xfers, it would be helpful to know at what point things start becoming unreliable. Try 2, 5, 10 etc until you get a sense. Also please report what errors you're observing when there are problems.

G

[kathyfitz]

The transfer problems were related to one book. I caused it to stop going to both iTunes and the iPad. Without that book the transfer went in bulk with no problems, I am happy to say!

[GRiker]

@kathyfitz, I've posted an updated driver with your ticket that should ignore your audiobooks, along with instructions on how to patch the driver into your copy of calibre. Please test it and report back.

G

[tlrowley]

I'm not Kathy, but the new driver ignores my audiobooks just fine (I'm on 7.5) Is this change in 7.6? If not, can I just use the new driver in 7.6?

Thanks,
Tracey

[GRiker]

There's no difference in the driver between 0.7.5 and 0.7.6. If your audiobooks are properly ignored, then it means that they are all of the type previously known before I made the latest revision for kathyfitz. If you want to test the new driver to help validate its behavior (very much appreciated) please install it as described at the bottom of this ticket and post any problems to the ticket. The installation instructions are for OSX; let me know if you need Windows instructions.

G

[kathyfitz]

Works great! It ignored all of the audiobooks both in iTunes and on my iPad. Thanks!

And thanks for the step by step instructions. Made it quick and easy to test.

[tlrowley]

Originally Posted by GRiker

There's no difference in the driver between 0.7.5 and 0.7.6. If your audiobooks are properly ignored, then it means that they are all of the type previously known before I made the latest revision for kathyfitz. If you want to test the new driver to help validate its behavior (very much appreciated) please install it as described at the bottom of this ticket and post any problems to the ticket. The installation instructions are for OSX; let me know if you need Windows instructions.

G

Sorry, I wasn't clear - I was testing the new driver when I posted that. Working great, still.

[GRiker]

Just spotted this hint in MacOSX Hints:

If you want to quickly add a document or a web page to your 'Books' collection in iTunes, all you need to do is to create an alias of iTunes and drag it to ~/Library/PDF Services. Now, when you're browsing the web or viewing documents and you decide that you want to read them later on a portable Apple device just hit Print, click the PDF button on the bottom left corner of the window and choose iTunes. iTunes will launch and receive the PDF. Next, sync your device and you're ready to go.

Nifty.

You can use the same trick to add an alias for Dropbox.

G

[tlrowley]

Sweet - that saves a couple of steps.

[markbond1007]

Just a thought about the series/category thing, given you're now not using the album field for the uuid, wouldnt it make sense to revert the categories back to tags, and put series into the album field (especially as you're using track number as series number)?

Note: I havent tried this yet as I havent had time plus not sure if it'll work yet (I have ibooks1.1 on my IPhone 3G, ut am using MAC OSX 10,4)

Mark

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by markbond1007

Just a thought about the series/category thing, given you're now not using the album field for the uuid, wouldnt it make sense to revert the categories back to tags, and put series into the album field (especially as you're using track number as series number)?
Mark

Not for the folks adamant about using Series as Genre, which affects how titles are presented in iBooks.

I'm willing to consider populating more of the available metadata fields in iTunes, but at this point I'm not changing the fields already in use.

If you want to propose an extension of the current metadata mapping, submit an enhancement request.

G

[markbond1007]

It was just a thought after reading through the complete thread, noticing you'd changed things and someone complained it didnt work for them (and that the uuid was no longer in the Album field). Personally it doesnt affect me as I can't use it (Im running OSX 10.4 and 10.5 is the minimum for this driver apparently).

Mark

[GRiker]

Just a heads-up to let iDevice users know that another significant revision of the iTunes/iDevice driver will be released with 0.7.7 sometime this weekend. There are a few new features:

• 'Connect to iTunes' is now the recommended mode, no longer experimental.
• Option to skip fetching/caching cover art from iTunes, which should load very large iTunes database much more quickly. Click Preferences|Plugins|Device Interface plugins|Apple device interface, then click Customize plugin to specify. Defaults to fetching/caching cover art from iTunes.
• Audiobook files ('Audible file', 'MPEG audio file', 'Protected AAC audio file') ignored when scanning iTunes database.

Most important among these is the first item, using the 'Connect to iTunes' mode. There will be a migration away from the 'Connect to iDevice' mode in the future, so please start getting used to the 'Connect to iTunes' approach sooner than later.

I've rewritten and reformatted the first post in this thread to make it easier for folks just starting to use an iDevice with calibre. In particular, the Quick start section gives you just what you need to know to run in 'Connect to iTunes' mode. I've also added a section explaining the differences between 'Connect to iTunes' and 'Connect to iDevice'.

G

[ChristopherTD]

Hi GRiker - many thanks for the extraordinary work you have done with this.

One thing I have observed is that if there are multiple authors in the Author field in Calibre, the book gets sent to iBooks happily, but Calibre fails to detect that it is there.
For instance I sent "Swords and Dark Magic" by "Anders, Lou & Strahan, Jonathan" to iBooks. It shows up in iTunes just by "Anders, Lou". Calibre then doesn't match it when it does its check and so no tick is put by the book in Calibre to show it is already in iTunes. I got a few duplicates before I got wise to that!

[GRiker]

This was fixed in 0.7.7, but it requires that you delete/re-transfer the books with multiple authors so that they are correctly written. If you have done that, and they're still not being detected, please file a ticket.

G