[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[CaptainSully]

Question...
Getting a slightly annoying issue with a story where this:

"This world was merely modeled<em> </em>after the game she knew, not identical to it."

ends up removing that em tag completely when downloaded through FFF, so the words don't have a space between them.

Is there a way to prevent this?

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by CaptainSully

Question...
Getting a slightly annoying issue with a story where this:

"This world was merely modeled<em> </em>after the game she knew, not identical to it."

ends up removing that em tag completely when downloaded through FFF, so the words don't have a space between them.

Is there a way to prevent this?

For that story, you can do:

add_to_keep_empty_tags:,em

From defaults.ini:

## By default, empty tags are removed as part of cleaning up the
## source HTML.  However, a few tags should be kept even if empty.
## (Whitespace only, including   is considered empty.)  This
## setting can adjust which tags are kept.
keep_empty_tags:p,td,th

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2025-12-20
- Calc words_added even if not in logpage_entries.
- AO3: Site changed 'don't have permission' string

[booster-t]

I think this came up regarding A03, but I don't recall it happening to FFN. Yesterday, using v4.52.0, all was well (hmm, that sound familiar). Today ... nope. I updated to v4.52.6 and still no change.

Stephen

*****

A follow up. Thanks to texasnightowl, I turned off my VPN and it works now. Stupid me. Sorry about any confusion.

[texasnightowl]

anyone having issues with AO3 today? just sitting at fetching metadata for minutes at a time. long enough that it says Calibre is not responding. I did update to 4.52 in case there was something changed or fixed, but same problem.

I last downloaded some stories on the 17th and had no issues at all.

edit: I also turned off my VPN in case that was the issue. But no change.

[whiteowl]

I would like an option in FanFicFare to preserve order of chapters, apocrypha and sides stories as they were published on Sufficient Velocity or Space Battles.
I have a suspicion that it was discussed already a few times, but cannot find it in the this many pages...

Anyway, here is my proposal:

The "supporting" chapters can distract from the main story, sure, but they also add some flavor, or influence the autor. But currently the book downloaded form SB or SV forums always has main chapter first, then Side Stories, Apocrypha, Media, etc.

But I believe it is wrong - the Side Stories and Apocrypha do evolve with progression of the main story line. And sometimes the side story become part of main story. And Media posts are often needed as illustration.

As an option, maybe we can have an automatic addition into the main story chapter with limited TOC: "After this chapter the next Media/Side Story/Apocrypha/Information were added". And the side story or apocrypha chapter can be prepended with a text "Published after main chapter XXXX", so the reader will know that there were some illustrations. Or if apocrypha goes against the "truth" as it become known in later chapters, the reader can go back and see at what stage of the main story that apocrypha was added.

So I would like to have a four-way switch:
- group posts by tag (as it is now),
- sort them as they were published in the thread,
- sort by tag with automatic list of references which could be used to see the order of publishing,
- just ignore everything which is not a main story. Just like the "Reader" mode on the forum is already doing it.

It is primarily needed for forum-like sources as SV and SB. Probably some other, which I am not know about, too. Not important for AO3 and similar - they do not have a specific "apocrypha" or "side story" tags. But for SB/SV - would be an excellent addition.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by whiteowl

I would like an option in FanFicFare to preserve order of chapters, apocrypha and sides stories as they were published on Sufficient Velocity or Space Battles.
...

Existing FFF options for xenforo forum sites (SB/SV/etc) from defaults.ini:

## If desired, you can change the order FFF places threadmark
## categories.  (This setting does not remove categories, you need to
## use skip_threadmarks_categories for that.)
#threadmark_category_order:Threadmarks,Sidestory,Apocrypha,Omake,Media,Informational,Staff Post

## By default, FFF orders threadmarks first by category, then in the
## order they appear as determined by the author.  When
## order_threadmarks_by_date:true, all included threadmarks
## (skip_threadmarks_categories still works) will instead be ordered
## by their datetime as reported in threadmarks.  Different threadmark
## categories will be mixed together, and I've seen at least one case
## of post order on the site disagreeing with post datetime.  Note
## that if order_threadmarks_by_date_categories (see below),
## order_threadmarks_by_date is ignored.
#order_threadmarks_by_date:false

## By default, FFF orders threadmarks first by category, then in the
## order they appear as determined by the author.  When
## order_threadmarks_by_date_categories is set, the listed threadmark
## categories are sorted by their datetime (as reported in
## threadmarks), the different threadmark categories mixed together.
## Categories *not* listed in order_threadmarks_by_date_categories
## will all be *after* the date sorted threadmarks in category, then
## threadmark order.  Note that if
## order_threadmarks_by_date_categories is set,
## order_threadmarks_by_date (see above) is ignored.
#order_threadmarks_by_date_categories:Threadmarks,Sidestory

Copy (uncommented) and set in your personal.ini as desired.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2025-12-26
- Changes for #1292 for normalizing different series URL forms. Thanks, dbhmw!
- adapter_literotica: Remove unused chapter_categories_use_all option, fix other site options for better defaults.ini #1292

[whiteowl]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Existing FFF options for xenforo forum sites (SB/SV/etc) from defaults.ini:

Thank you, it does work as I hoped.

But I now found a potential bug? Here is a book: https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...plete.1058679/

It has an image in the first post (threadmark) and that image was used as a book cover (epub target).

After adding, into `personal.ini` settings:

[base_xenforoforum]

#threadmark_category_order:Threadmarks,Sidestory,Apocrypha,Omake,Media,Informational,Staff Post

#order_threadmarks_by_date:false

order_threadmarks_by_date_categories:Threadmarks,Sidestory,Media,Omake

I now have an image from the first "Media" post as book cover. And the image from the Prologe completely disappeared.

I do not think it is correct.

[steltek]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

anyone having issues with AO3 today? just sitting at fetching metadata for minutes at a time. long enough that it says Calibre is not responding. I did update to 4.52 in case there was something changed or fixed, but same problem.

I last downloaded some stories on the 17th and had no issues at all.

edit: I also turned off my VPN in case that was the issue. But no change.

I've been seeing the same thing intermittently for the last 3 days on AO3, most recently about 5 minutes ago. Have also had a few "page not found" errors, though these were able to be resolved by force reloading the page in the web browser.

As an FYI, I got a "Shields are Up" captcha when attempting the report the problem so it is entirely possible that AO3 is dealing with either an onslaught of AI training bots or yet another extended DDOS attack (or both, as one may mimic the other).

[MPTSakurada]

Hi,

(Apologies if this or similar has been asked, I did a thread search for page-progression, and for content.opf more generally, but didn't find anything.)

I'd like to be able to add `page-progression-direction="rtl"` to the spine element in the opf for certain sites, is there a personal.ini option to do this?

The sites are syosetu.com and kakuyomu.jp, because I prefer reading Japanese prose vertically and right to left. I've got the css working to display the pages that way, but page-progression-direction doesn't get set, so it leads to swipes going the wrong direction. Thanks!

[whiteowl]

Another wish for xenoforum downloads.

- Include poster's name as a chapter author for Omake/SideStory chapters.

Normal Threadmark chapters should go with a primary writer name mentioned in the book's info, but omakes are usually one story per writer and they comes from a different writers. It would be good to see it in the chapter's header, right under the title.

Checked the defaults.ini - do not see anything related to multiple authors or single-chapter authors.

[JimmXinu]

Multi-reply

Originally Posted by whiteowl

It has an image in the first post (threadmark) and that image was used as a book cover (epub target).

Working as intended. Xenforo sites didn't used to have dedicated cover images and it was common practice for a cover image to be the first image in the story. And still is for some sites.

You can disable that behavior in personal.ini.

[epub]
## If set, the first image found will be made the cover image.  If
## keep_summary_html is true, any images in summary will be before any
## in chapters.
make_firstimage_cover:false

Originally Posted by MPTSakurada

I'd like to be able to add `page-progression-direction="rtl"` to the spine element in the opf for certain sites, is there a personal.ini option to do this?

That's something I should be able to add, but not until next week. Ask again if I haven't said anything by Wednesday Dec 31.

Originally Posted by whiteowl

Another wish for xenoforum downloads.

- Include poster's name as a chapter author for Omake/SideStory chapters.

FFF used to do that, then XF2 stopped listing the author in the threadmarks list. I'm not aware of any useful list where FFF could get the author per threadmark without basically fetching every post again every update.

But I'll look into it if you can point one out.

[Hlord369]

Hey, I used the Fanficfare plugin to download an Ao3 story with embedded images. But then it updated with new chapters, so I used the update function, and it moved the story up the list of most recent books in Calibre, leaving it out of order with the other stories in the series. What should I do to keep this from happening going forward/fix the order besides just downloading the stories all over again?

[JimmXinu]

There are multiple possible answers. My go-to would be to just sort by Calibre's Series column.

You can order your library by the Published date column, that should be populated in the order the author initially published each story rather than last updated.

You could add a custom 'added to library' column to your library that get populated only on initital download. Similar to Published, but specific to you.

If what you actually mean is that the author changed the order of the series and now your Series column doesn't match for those books, you can (in order of severity):

Use Manage Series plugin to fix the series for those books in Calibre's series column.
Use FFF 'Update Calibre Metadata only' mode on all books in that series to fetch metadata and update it.
Use FFF 'Update EPUB Always' mode on all books in that series to fetch metadata and update it both in Calibre and on the books' title pages.