Calibre Companion 3 beta for Android released

[Merischino]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by chaley

I am confused. CC already allows you to specify a default reader per book type (extension), and you can put each extension into a different folder in case the reader app wants that. What more should it to do?
Have you told CC that it can manage CBZ and and CBR? Settings -> Book formats & folders (the first preference in the settings display).

This is the trick I missed. I was thinking I was stuck with only the formats already enabled because they were the only ones showing up as I tried to "read" books.

Problem solved!

There are lots of readers that claim to handle CBZ. I haven't tried any of them, and I don't know if they "advertize" (in Android) that they handle CBZ, but I strongly suspect that they do.

I have several than handle cbz, which I've been accessing by side-loading the cbz and cbr files manually. It's just nicer that now I can manage the comics library via calibre and calibre companion as well.
It was my oversight. Awesome that this can be done!

M-

[RobFreundlich]

Originally Posted by chaley

Nope, we haven't looked at it, mostly because we don't have any model of the Fire. It hasn't seemed worth it given Amazon's attitude toward us. However, we might need to rethink that given that (it seems) more than a few people are willing to root their Fire.

I'm definitely considering rooting my Fire, now that the new version of CC is available on Google Play.

I have an older version on my Fire, but neither Play nor the Kindle Store shows me as having paid for it, which really disturbs me, since I definitely did pay somehow before sideloading it (got it onto my old Droid X, then onto the Fire). If I didn't actually pay, that's bad, because I use it every day. If I did, well, it seems like the simplest path would be to root and install the Play Store, and then purchase/install directly to the Fire. If I do root/install-Play, will Play show it as compatible with the Fire and let me do that, or will I still have to sideload?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by RobFreundlich

I'm definitely considering rooting my Fire, now that the new version of CC is available on Google Play.

I have an older version on my Fire, but neither Play nor the Kindle Store shows me as having paid for it, which really disturbs me, since I definitely did pay somehow before sideloading it (got it onto my old Droid X, then onto the Fire). If I didn't actually pay, that's bad, because I use it every day. If I did, well, it seems like the simplest path would be to root and install the Play Store, and then purchase/install directly to the Fire. If I do root/install-Play, will Play show it as compatible with the Fire and let me do that, or will I still have to sideload?

You might have paid using a different account?

As for Play saying that the app is compatible with the fire, I can't say with certainty. My guess is yes, but the sure way to tell is to ask someone who has a rooted fire, such as diapdealer. You could try a PM, or you could semi-hijack this thread where he and I debugged some problems with CC on his rooted fire. Do note that he says in post 1 that he downloaded CC from Play, so signs point to yes.

[thekidsmom]

my 'grouping drawer buttons' box is checked, but the 'slide here' message isn't showing and I can't slide my drawer back to the left. ( ie; close it so I only have book covers showing. any ideas? I've turned off/on a couple of times.

[PatNY]

There are 2 other ways to close the drawer --

1) slide the shelf to the left with your finger as if you were turning/swiping a page

2) touch the tiny stack of white books in the upper left corner of the screen next to the name of the shelf being shown (ie, No Grouping or Authors)

Did you already try both methods?

--Pat

[chaley]

Originally Posted by thekidsmom

my 'grouping drawer buttons' box is checked, but the 'slide here' message isn't showing and I can't slide my drawer back to the left. ( ie; close it so I only have book covers showing. any ideas? I've turned off/on a couple of times.

If you are using a 7" or a 10" tablet then when in landscape the drawer is permanently open. In portrait the drawer can be closed. Is this your situation?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

If you are using a 7" or a 10" tablet then when in landscape the drawer is permanently open. In portrait the drawer can be closed. Is this your situation?

I didn't respond because I was at a loss, but the solution is so simple once someone tells me the answer.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

I didn't respond because I was at a loss, but the solution is so simple once someone tells me the answer.

I have this and find it annoying and confusing.

Landscape actually shows LESS books and the over wide drawer can't be closed.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

I have this and find it annoying and confusing.

Landscape actually shows LESS books and the over wide drawer can't be closed.

On the other hand, it is much faster to navigate because you have immediate access to both the books and the grouping criteria. It is also better when using list view, something that many people still use (including me), because the space for the list cell is mostly white space. Finally, this is the behavior that google recommends, which implies that it is/will become the "standard".

I am not even sure it is possible to have both a) the possibility of opening/closing the drawer, and b) nothing pushed off the right edge when the drawer is open.

De gustibus non est disputandum.

[Lanix]

Isn't there anyway to mark books as read? I know CC isn't a reading app but it could still be more than just an app to read/sync the calibre database.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Lanix

Isn't there anyway to mark books as read?

No.

Reason: we could add a "read" checkbox, but within seconds of releasing it we would (rightly) get asked to sync that box back to calibre. And that is seriously hard. Calibre's device driver subsystem has no facility for writing back to calibre's main database, and there is no support for column mapping or simultaneous change management.

I have looked at how one might code something like this in both calibre and CC, without arriving at something with the necessary reliability, discoverability, and ease of use. On the other hand, last week I had some ideas that might break my mental logjam, so I might revisit it again, after I explore some ideas that might speed up the initial metadata handshake by 10 to 50 times.

[PatNY]

Charles, I was wondering if it would be possible to show centered items as centered on the book details page. Bold and italics show up. But all centered items appear flush left. Is this doable?

--Pat

[chaley]

Originally Posted by PatNY

Charles, I was wondering if it would be possible to show centered items as centered on the book details page. Bold and italics show up. But all centered items appear flush left. Is this doable?

--Pat

Unfortunately, this is hard. We currently convert the comments to "rich text" and display them that way, which is why you get bold, italic, etc. This conversion is provided by android, and it throws away all alignment information. We looked at using a web view that interpreted more html, but that created no end of problems with fonts and font sizing, and it wasn't happy when given pure text input instead of html. In the end we gave up.

[Lanix]

Originally Posted by chaley

Reason: we could add a "read" checkbox, but within seconds of releasing it we would (rightly) get asked to sync that box back to calibre.

You don't want to add it because people would demand it to be synced? It seems limiting to only add stuff that can be synced. I wasn't expecting it to be synced anyway as you can't mark books as read in calibre (I think).
You do record last read date and that's not synced, is it? Automatically recording read date and manually setting a book to completed isn't really that big of a difference IMO.

How about a better way to see recently read books than sorting books by "Date read"? E.g. a separate page.

[Sefiriot]

Originally Posted by Lanix

You don't want to add it because people would demand it to be synced? It seems limiting to only add stuff that can be synced. I wasn't expecting it to be synced anyway as you can't mark books as read in calibre (I think).
You do record last read date and that's not synced, is it? Automatically recording read date and manually setting a book to completed isn't really that big of a difference IMO.

How about a better way to see recently read books than sorting books by "Date read"? E.g. a separate page.

Actually you could mark books as read in calibre, but it involves a custom column and manual updating, I think. Sure CC has a last read date, but just because I opened up a book and looked at its cover/metadata doesn't mean I've finished reading it, or even that I started actually reading it despite what CC may think.

So yes, people would rightly expect that if you can mark books as read in CC, that the data be sent back to calibre so we'd know there too what books we'd already read. And chaley's already explained why that currently isn't doable already. Maybe give it more time and better hardware/software on Android devices.