Feature request: favourite news sources

engelhro · 03-24-2012, 09:40 AM

Hi all,

Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but is there a way to mark certain recipes / news sources as "favourites" without scheduling them for automatic retrieval? This is currently the only way to get them "bundled" in one place (the "Scheduled" section of the tree control with the news sources).

Background: when I "activate" news sources by scheduling them, e.g. daily, then their download is started each time I start Calibre. But there are periods of time when I don't want this (i.e. only initiate their download manually) and I then have to stop the all these jobs that have automatically been started in the background.
I see currently two alternatives:

I could of course deactivate the scheduling for my news sources during such periods, but then they hide again in the thousands of other recipes as there's no way to mark them so they stand out. And when I get back to a "download daily" phase, I have to search for every single of these sources and set up their scheduling again.
Or I could set their update frequency to some artificially high value, e.g. every 999 days, but then I still have to reset each of them as soon as I want to return to the "download daily" situation.

So: is it possible to add a feature that allows me do mark news sources as favourites, so I can easily access them still all in one single place (but without them being scheduled) and change their settings there (e.g. toggle their scheduling flag, initiate their download, etc.)? What do the others here think, would that be useful?

Thanks a lot!

kovidgoyal · 03-24-2012, 10:32 AM

No there is no other way. If a periodical is a favorite, you're likely to want it downloaded automatically. If you dont want to download periodicals automatically, you can set the schedule to a large interval. Only your particular case of download automatically sometimes and not other times is not covered, and I, for one am not motivated to cover it. You can acheive what you want by editing the scheduler config file manually (preferences->miscellaneous->open config directory) and then edit the file scheduler.xml in any text editor like notepad. Keep two versions of the file that you can swap between easily.

theducks · 03-24-2012, 10:39 AM

Kovid's answer is the clue

Schedule them for the Largest interval that is allowed (eg 1 Year)

They are now 'Scheduled' and will be at the top of the list

You can Manually download any Scheduled item at other times

engelhro · 03-26-2012, 01:13 AM

Okay, I can understand that, no favourites. I'll go with the proposed solution then, really long update intervals..

One question remains though: now (with the updates set to daily) the downloads are initiated as soon as I start Calibre, even if the time scheduled is over for that day (e.g. download 7 am, and I start the PC and Calibre at 11 am). Somehow Calibre recognizes that it has "missed" the retrievals in the morning and tries to catch up...

How can that be prevented, resp. what is the rule of thumb that Calibre uses to determine whether it should still fetch the news at any given point in time? Because it would be of no use when I set the update frequency to e.g. 1 year, and then still have to abort all jobs each time I start Calibre. Thanks!

nickredding · 03-26-2012, 01:25 AM

Alternatively you could create a "custom" recipe for each of your favorites which is simply the standard recipe, then they would all be grouped in the "custom" recipe list.

theducks · 03-26-2012, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by engelhro

Okay, I can understand that, no favourites. I'll go with the proposed solution then, really long update intervals..

One question remains though: now (with the updates set to daily) the downloads are initiated as soon as I start Calibre, even if the time scheduled is over for that day (e.g. download 7 am, and I start the PC and Calibre at 11 am). Somehow Calibre recognizes that it has "missed" the retrievals in the morning and tries to catch up...

How can that be prevented, resp. what is the rule of thumb that Calibre uses to determine whether it should still fetch the news at any given point in time? Because it would be of no use when I set the update frequency to e.g. 1 year, and then still have to abort all jobs each time I start Calibre. Thanks!

Calibre keeps track of scheduled last fetched (completion), whether Manual or automatic. So once fetched, it will not try again for a year. If you fetch in six months, it gets reset to a year from then.

The key is Completion. if you abort

engelhro · 04-02-2012, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theducks

Calibre keeps track of scheduled last fetched (completion), whether Manual or automatic. So once fetched, it will not try again for a year. If you fetch in six months, it gets reset to a year from then.

The key is Completion. if you abort

I understand. Thanks, that was valuable input! Works now as expected, and I've found a solution I can live with...

@nickredding: Thanks for your idea as well. But (never having worked with custom recipes yet) I'd assume that they have no advantage compared the other solution - grouping by "scheduled" - and even cause more effort, as I then have to update them regularly so my "custom" recipes are in sync again with the predefined ones... Correct?

03-24-2012, 09:40 AM	#1
engelhro Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: Kindle Touch	Feature request: favourite news sources Hi all, Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but is there a way to mark certain recipes / news sources as "favourites" without scheduling them for automatic retrieval? This is currently the only way to get them "bundled" in one place (the "Scheduled" section of the tree control with the news sources). Background: when I "activate" news sources by scheduling them, e.g. daily, then their download is started each time I start Calibre. But there are periods of time when I don't want this (i.e. only initiate their download manually) and I then have to stop the all these jobs that have automatically been started in the background. I see currently two alternatives: I could of course deactivate the scheduling for my news sources during such periods, but then they hide again in the thousands of other recipes as there's no way to mark them so they stand out. And when I get back to a "download daily" phase, I have to search for every single of these sources and set up their scheduling again. Or I could set their update frequency to some artificially high value, e.g. every 999 days, but then I still have to reset each of them as soon as I want to return to the "download daily" situation. So: is it possible to add a feature that allows me do mark news sources as favourites, so I can easily access them still all in one single place (but without them being scheduled) and change their settings there (e.g. toggle their scheduling flag, initiate their download, etc.)? What do the others here think, would that be useful? Thanks a lot!

03-24-2012, 10:32 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,351 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	No there is no other way. If a periodical is a favorite, you're likely to want it downloaded automatically. If you dont want to download periodicals automatically, you can set the schedule to a large interval. Only your particular case of download automatically sometimes and not other times is not covered, and I, for one am not motivated to cover it. You can acheive what you want by editing the scheduler config file manually (preferences->miscellaneous->open config directory) and then edit the file scheduler.xml in any text editor like notepad. Keep two versions of the file that you can swap between easily. Last edited by kovidgoyal; 03-24-2012 at 10:42 AM.

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03-24-2012, 10:39 AM	#3
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,057 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	Kovid's answer is the clue Schedule them for the Largest interval that is allowed (eg 1 Year) They are now 'Scheduled' and will be at the top of the list You can Manually download any Scheduled item at other times

03-26-2012, 01:13 AM	#4
engelhro Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: Kindle Touch	Okay, I can understand that, no favourites. I'll go with the proposed solution then, really long update intervals.. One question remains though: now (with the updates set to daily) the downloads are initiated as soon as I start Calibre, even if the time scheduled is over for that day (e.g. download 7 am, and I start the PC and Calibre at 11 am). Somehow Calibre recognizes that it has "missed" the retrievals in the morning and tries to catch up... How can that be prevented, resp. what is the rule of thumb that Calibre uses to determine whether it should still fetch the news at any given point in time? Because it would be of no use when I set the update frequency to e.g. 1 year, and then still have to abort all jobs each time I start Calibre. Thanks!

03-26-2012, 01:25 AM	#5
nickredding onlinenewsreader.net Posts: 327 Karma: 10143 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Phoenix, AZ & Victoria, BC Device: Kindle 3, Kindle Fire, IPad3, iPhone4, Playbook, HTC Inspire	Alternatively you could create a "custom" recipe for each of your favorites which is simply the standard recipe, then they would all be grouped in the "custom" recipe list.