[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[booklover001]

the Windows Kindle Collections Manager app doesn't yet work for Kindle Touch, so it looks like I have to wait in order to get my collections organized and working. (They won't update.) I'm glad to know about it...

[NiLuJe]

@booklover001: No, you're confused. I was talking about this.

Wasn't even aware that there was something else with the same name.

[Raederle]

Quote: "I was planning to use Tags to create Collections as I like to use book genres for my collection headings. I have about 500 books in my Calibre library, and yesterday I used bulk metadata download on them to get tags. It resulted in 300+ tags. It looks like I have a substantial effort ahead of me to edit this list down to a manageable size before I can use it for creating collections. Is there a more efficient way to use the Plugin? "

I actually created two custom fields, one for genre, and one for "Read" where the answer was New, Old, Read, Active, First. The Genre I import into collections with a prefix of + so that the +SFFantasy, +Mystery etc show up in collections ahead of any based on series. The Read is for New or Old books, those read in recent years with a read date, and the books I want to read soon (First) or am reading now (Active). Those are imported with a _ prefex to put the collections at the top of the list.

Thanks to the custom columns, the books are in the +genre collection, the _read status collection, possibly a series collectino (author, series name) or a tag based collection (NeedsFormat, News, Nieces, etc).

Finally I set Active to be never changed, and that is the one collection I update calibre from the kindle instead of vice versa. As long as you run the update in preview mode first you get a list of all differences between calibre and kindle, and can update calibre to match where tags were added or something moved on the Kindle side.

Regards, Raederle

[DMee]

OK, decided to give this plugin a whirl. Went for manually editing. I already have a number of collections set up - one author in particular I wanted to easily bung loads of files into his collection.

Open Plugin, chose Manual setting
In window choose existing collection.
Click Author heading to sort by author
Calibre crashes - no log, no nothing, just "Windows prog is dead" error message

Reproducible every time :-(

Any ideas??

[NiLuJe]

Here's another patch/tweak for Touch/PW users .

* Add more extensions to the exclude list (some 3.4 & 5.x stuff), and don't even look in the sidecar folder on the Touch/PW.
* Auto-detect the US PW on Linux/OS X.
* Add a new Touch/PW only setting that will only populate the json db with collections that have been updated (created/modified [added/removed items]). Since Collections Manager never deletes a collection, and always rebuilds modified collections from scratch, that can save us a considerable amount of time by simply not feeding CM stuff that it would only waste time rebuilding with the exact same content. It tremendously speeds up the Calibre => Kindle sync for incremental updates .

Since v10:

* Added an ugly Windows only hack that hopefully allows the auto-detection of the Touch/PW via S/N to work on Windows, without blowing everything up... Seems to work on my Win 7 notebook, but I'd be glad to know if it works for others. (Also, I wouldn't mind a confirmation that the code isn't completely insane, I couldn't find an easier way to get at the pnp_id of a specific device...).

Since v14:

* Fixed a stupid auto-detect issue on Windows for some devices.
* Moved the whole kindle model/auto-detect stuff to the settings, so we don't redo the whole thing everytime. We're already storing settings per-library and per-device, and we can safely assume that the model won't ever change for a specific device, so it actually makes much more sense to do it this way . Bonus: It simplifies a whole bunch of >= Touch tests in the code, and we get rid of the ugly 'assume touch/pw' windows workaround. Upped the store revision to force people to at least launch the settings once to trigger an auto-detect/set a kindle model.

Since v16:

* Added some topaz stuff to the exclude list

Since v17:

* Handle the sort order on the PW. And it sucks. Basically, the only things that we're sure will be in front are the single quote and digits...

v19:

* Switched to an int to save the Kindle model, I ran into weird rounding issues with a float...

v20:

* Fix the first run in diff_db_only mode on a new (or at least empty) Touch/PW device (use the full database instead of nothing).

v21:

* Autodetect the UK 3G PaperWhite.

v27:

* Rework the Mobi metadata code (based on MobiUnpack)
* Try harder to decode metadata title & authors properly to try to help with the few encoding related issues reported

v28:

* Minor formatting tweaks of some settings' tooltips

v29:

* Support the language & rating default columns as a possible data source

v30:

* Handle multiple authors properly in mobi metadata, even in files built by KG 2 & recent Calibre versions.

v31:

* Forgot to switch the Kindle Model back to an int in the reports

v32:

* Should now autodetect a few more PW models (JP, BR)

v33:

* Some minor tweaks to make use of the newdb API (require Calibre >= 1.0.0)

v34:

* Fix various case issues with file extensions (thanks to zelo for reporting this)

v35:

* Oops, fix broken v34, sorry about that... :/

v36:

* PW2 support!

v37:

* Detect the full range of PW2 models
* Ported to PyQt5
* Bumped to 1.7.12
* Packaged it properly, should be infinitesimally faster to load.

----

NOTE: This is now in the plugin's new home .

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Here's another patch/tweak for Touch/PW users .

* Add more extensions to the exclude list (some 3.4 & 5.x stuff), and don't even look into the sidecar folder on the Touch/PW.
* Auto-detect the US PW on Linux/OS X.
* Add a new Touch/PW only setting that will only populate the json db with collections that have been updated (created/modified [added/removed items]). Since Collections Manager never deletes a collection, and always rebuilds modified collections from scratch, that can save us a considerable amount of time by simply not feeding CM stuff that it would only waste time rebuilding with the exact same content. It tremendously speeds up the Calibre => Kindle sync for incremental updates .

I'll look into the sorting order on the PW as soon as I get mine .

I have not been paying attention to the updates since I switched to my PW, how far back do I have to look for instructions on using the PW updates??

[NiLuJe]

@nynaevelan: On the Touch & PW, this (along with the latest released version) works in tandem with ixtab's Collections Manager on the Kindle side. (And checking the 'Assume this is a Touch' option in the plugin's settings on Windows).

That means a jailbroken device, and a slightly different workflow. With my latest changes, I end up spending *less* time managing collections than on my K3 for my own workflow, with nested Collections as a nice bonus, but for more complex/different stuff, it might not be as fast/simple. (In particular, keeping a full Kindle <=> Calibre bidirectional sync can be a bit annoying. It's far easier/faster/forgiving on the Calibre => Kindle side [That doesn't mean you can't handle stuff on the Kindle, you can, but managing those completely on the Kindle side of things will probably be faster/easier]).

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@nynaevelan: On the Touch & PW, this (along with the latest released version) works in tandem with ixtab's Collections Manager on the Kindle side. (And checking the 'Assume this is a Touch' option in the plugin's settings on Windows).

That means a jailbroken device, and a slightly different workflow. With my latest changes, I end up spending *less* time managing collections than on my K3 for my own workflow, with nested Collections as a nice bonus, but for more complex/different stuff, it might not be as fast/simple. (In particular, keeping a full Kindle <=> Calibre bidirectional sync can be a bit annoying. It's far easier/faster/forgiving on the Calibre => Kindle side [That doesn't mean you can't handle stuff on the Kindle, you can, but managing those completely on the Kindle side of things will probably be faster/easier]).

Thanks, I am just a little confused which files I should be installing to get my PW up and running with both CM and this plugin. Should I be installing the jailbreak, kindlet, CM files and this one??

EDIT: I think I found the instructions I am looking for, so I am about to jailbreak and then install the collections files. Yikes, here I go...

EDIT2: Obviously I am missing something very important, where do I import the collection into the CM??

[NiLuJe]

@nynaevelan: There's an 'Import from Calibre' function in the Menu when you're inside the CM app on your Kindle. (Meaning, yes, for a Calibre => Kindle sync, the order is: create collections in Calibre, eject & then import in CM. Which is what the popup should be telling you if you checked 'Assume I'm a Touch/PW')

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@nynaevelan: There's an 'Import from Calibre' function in the Menu when you're inside the CM app on your Kindle. (Meaning, yes, for a Calibre => Kindle sync, the order is: create collections in Calibre, eject & then import in CM. Which is what the popup should be telling you if you checked 'Assume I'm a Touch/PW')

Thanks, I skipped the import step before restarting.

[NiLuJe]

You don't need to restart at all on the Touch/PW, actually. If the pop up is still telling you to restart, that's because you didn't enable the 'Assume the device is a Touch or PW' setting.

[nynaevelan]

No, the popup didn't say it, I guess I am just used to restarting. Now I need to figure out how to nest and only show the top nested collections.

If I nest, will I lose them when I rerun calibre plugin?

[NiLuJe]

@nynaevelan:

Check the first post of ixtab's thread, but, basically, to nest collections, the [X-->] & [<--X] button is your new best friend .

Nope .

Originally Posted by ixtab

• The Import function will never remove collections; it will only update existing collections, or create new ones (visible in home by default). In particular, this means that after deleting collections from Calibre, you may also have to manually delete these collections from the Kindle.
• Calibre Synchronization will never change the collection hierarchy, or the visibility of existing items. This applies to both import and export.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@nynaevelan:

Check the first post of ixtab's thread, but, basically, to nest collections, the [X-->] & [<--X] button is your new best friend .

Nope .

Thank you so much to all you patient assistance, I appreciate all your patience and help.

[thesilviu]

I used Kindle collection to change the margins for my old Kindle 4, but it doesn't seems to work with Paperwhite. Is there a new way of changing the margins?