Incoming News on Pandigital Novel

[Corpbob]

I'd like to see an option to have larger text instead the Calibre Book image on the cover.jpg for incoming news. On my Pandigital, I have a hard time picking out which news ebook is which.

Keep up the great work on Calibre! I think I'd have packed up my Pandigital Novel and taken it back if Calibre hadn't worked so well with it.

[kovidgoyal]

making the font bigger will mean longer titles wont fit. The current font size is the best compromise between legibility and size that I could come up with.

[Mark Adams]

I came and joined this forum to answer precisely this question. How to make the titles on the PDN generic cover readable. They're not, period. This is not a compromise, it is not a feature, it is a bug I'd like to fix.

Don't get me wrong, I'm astounded by this program, love, love, love it. Simply blown away by all the work and the continued updates making this thing better and better daily.

The problem is the default picture takes up too much real estate when the generic book cover is scaled down to icon size in the Pandigital Novel. Unreadable. Can't tell which subscription is which (but I can read the creator, "Calibre," on book spine of the generated picture clear as day). It's frustrating when a recipe publisher doesn't provide their own cover.

You can see the difference, for example, in the cover generator of The Economist - which you can identify at a glance - and USA Today, which is simply a blur when scaled down.

Is it possible to embed the title on/in the jpg itself or reduce the picture so the font can scale up? My only other option is to manually remove the cover jpg's after I import them to the device which defaults to the file name as title - which I can at least read.

It really is only a question of about a 2 point font size increase, but it makes all the difference - just doesn't look attractive with my workaround.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Mark Adams

I came and joined this forum to answer precisely this question. How to make the titles on the PDN generic cover readable. They're not, period. This is not a compromise, it is not a feature, it is a bug I'd like to fix.

The covers are designed as a full size (not thumb nail) cover for the book on the reader. I can see that the way your reader displays items (is there not a text display?) doesn't work with the generated cover. But you have offered a solution in your example of The Economist. Take a few minutes and add a cover_url to each recipe you download.

Here is the example from The Economist

cover_url = 'http://www.economist.com/images/covers/currentcoverus_large.jpg'

If you can't find a suitable image on the web site to use then create your own and use any of a number of sites to host the image.

In the spirit of your request I'm going to update the 6 recipes I maintain with cover images and submit them to Kovid for the next release. If I need to host them I'll use Google's Picasa because I know the links will always work.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

In the spirit of your request I'm going to update the 6 recipes I maintain with cover images and submit them to Kovid for the next release. If I need to host them I'll use Google's Picasa because I know the links will always work.

It's nice to know that a link to a cover image will always work, but be aware that the cover is probably copyrighted. When a user runs a recipe, the user is obtaining only material that the copyright owner has made available to the public on the web. If the copyright owner does not want that material made available, they are free to remove it, and the recipe immediately respects that decision and can't get the material.

Making a copy of copyrighted material, then hosting it yourself brings you into the loop between the recipe user and the source material of the recipe. It removes the copyright owner's control over their material and places you in the position of hosting copyrighted material without the owner's permission.

I applaud your desire to keep the cover always available, but it's probably not a really good idea (unless the cover is your own work). If it suddenly becomes unavailable, there's likely to be a good reason for it.

[Mark Adams]

Oh guys, this is fantastic, thank you for the prompt suggestions. It's a shame to use plain text in the covers when everything else connected to this program is simply elegant. In lieu of a possible copyright violation, if I created my own cover would I link it this way using "file" instead of "http"?

cover_url = 'FILE:///PATH-TO-MY-IMAGE-FOLDER/currentcoverus_large.jpg'

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Mark Adams

In lieu of a possible copyright violation

Please do not read my comment as implying there is any copyright violation by using a cover_url. I was merely suggesting that the link should point to the original cover, wherever on the web it is found, and not to a copy of an image hosted by the recipe writer. I have several recipes with cover_urls defined. I just point them to the url where the image is located.

If you find an image on the web, just point to that. If not, you can create your own image and host that. Then change the recipe and post it in the recipe thread so others can use your changes. I suggest that's better than trying to point to your own drive.

[Mark Adams]

If you find an image on the web, just point to that. If not, you can create your own image and host that. Then change the recipe and post it in the recipe thread so others can use your changes.

Excellent idea. I assume something like Photobucket or Flickr would serve.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Starson17

I applaud your desire to keep the cover always available, but it's probably not a really good idea (unless the cover is your own work). If it suddenly becomes unavailable, there's likely to be a good reason for it.

Thanks for the concern, I would only need to go to hosting an image if I couldn't find an appropriate one and if I couldn't find an appropriate image I would be forced to create my own cover. Good words of advice.

Originally Posted by Mark Adams

In lieu of a possible copyright violation, if I created my own cover would I link it this way using "file" instead of "http"?

Whatever you use, if you host it yourself for your own fair use (not for public consumption) I doubt there is a copyright worry. Starson17 was pointing out that if I did that for a recipe that might serve 1000s of people and used/hosted copyrighted images that I might be leaving myself exposed to copyright infringement issues.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Starson17 was pointing out that if I did that for a recipe that might serve 1000s of people and used/hosted copyrighted images that I might be leaving myself exposed to copyright infringement issues.

Exactly. We wouldn't want to lose our dwanthny - this place just wouldn't be the same without you.