Custom GUI plugins for Calibre here...

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Not to go way offtopic, but I'm assuming that to do that, I'd just set the series to foo[x] like your example?

Yes (in 0.7.35).

And as long as we are off-topic, (0.7.35) search/replace now permits you to provide an arbitrary template as the input field. You choose the input field '{template}' and a line edit box will appear for you to enter whatever you want, including expressions in the new template programming language. You can then apply regexps to that information. Using this, you can create a custom input field that contains bits from various other fields, massage them, then use the result to set a writable field.

[Manichean]

Those are some good changes.

[kiwidude]

Thanks chaley for the info, that is nice to know about the pasting series name only. Would never have figured that out without you mentioning it - my "guess" would have been that it would have given it the next numbered sequence for that new series name but that sounds much better.

The other reason not mentioned that I did not automatically post the plugin was that some of my perceived limitations in existing functionality in the tag viewer/bulk metadata dialog will perhaps disappear over time. For instance I think it would be fairly easy to change the tag viewer code so that instead of clearing the search after making a change it researches and retains selections (as my plugin and the bulk metadata dialog does). It should also scroll to make your last selection clicked on visible within the tag viewer itself - try working your way down say the tag list of authors or series to do multiple renames and you will see how much extra effort in scrolling, clicking and hunting is currently required.

I know it is probably way too late for this but it would have been nice if the set_series_name function did not require square brackets around the series index, and just took the last digits (\s+\d+) as the series index. So I could type "Doom 1" rather than "Doom [1]". If that is too controversial even automatically adding a closing ] bracket would improve things, that way you could hit backspace from the end of the line, change the number and hit enter. Right now if you accidentally leave out a bracket you end up with a mess that becomes the series name with a series index of 1.

Like the search/replace changes too btw, sounds very powerful.

[garcle]

Originally Posted by chaley

Yes (in 0.7.35).

And as long as we are off-topic, (0.7.35) search/replace now permits you to provide an arbitrary template as the input field. You choose the input field '{template}' and a line edit box will appear for you to enter whatever you want, including expressions in the new template programming language. You can then apply regexps to that information. Using this, you can create a custom input field that contains bits from various other fields, massage them, then use the result to set a writable field.

I know I have struggled in the past to find documentation for the template language .. so here it is again..
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/template_lang.html

[bookpal]

Hi,
I find a need to improvize the following plugins in the calibre to make it even greater!

1. Improving metadata download plugin "IsbnDB 1.0.0" by Kovid Goyal :
ISBNdb site has more additional book info like Classification, Subject, Book details (language,total pages), Similar books, Buying info, Library entry etc. How to fetch these info in the fetching plugin ?

2. Improving Catalog generator plugin "CSV/XML catalog generator" by Greg Riker:
How to provide choice for the end-user to include some of the custom columns that I created (under preferences/interface/add own columns) and exclude some default columns (say if I don't need Author, Title, Rating, Tags etc) in the catalog generation?

3. Improving User Interface Action plugin "Edit Metadata" by Kovid Goyal:
As soon as we add books (without proper metadata/cover) manually into library, can we have an option to preview (with zoom,scroll,select text) the book inside eidt metadata window itself ?. This would help user to take look at the first few pages to identify exact book title and ISBN, and then enter them manually all inside one window.
Also, "Read Pdf metadata" plugin can be modified to get ISBN from within pdf (for this,maybe,an autosearch for text "ISBN ____" inside pdf within first few pages is enough ?!)

Although, my programming skills can hardly help my interest to build new plugins, Iam interested in learning python and wonder if i can understand and customize existing plugins, if made available. I wouldlike to contribute in some way and be a part of this beautiful and true service-minded project of calibre.

Many thanks to Kovid and his supporters for their great job over years.
I hope for some reply. Thanks for reading..

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by bookpal

Hi,
I find a need to improvize the following plugins in the calibre to make it even greater!...

As only the last of the three plugins you mention is UI related you would probably have more success asking your question in the main forums rather than this thread. The Edit Metadata dialog / Add books actions are indeed triggered from User Interface plugins.

IMHO I think you are in for a tough road with the sort of changes you want to make unless you only intend to make them to your own source code for your own use. I believe they require extremely non-trivial changes to Calibre to implement, and if you want them to be available to other users by submitting as a patch then you will also have to get Kovid to agree to them first. If that is your goal then I would suggest you begin a dialog with him by opening feature request tickets in the bug tracker for each and seeing what he thinks of your ideas.

If on the other hand you just want to play with learning Python and tweak the program to your needs then by all means go for it. However I would suggest you might be in for a world of hurt with regards to merging in enhancements the Calibre developers themselves make in those areas over time.

User created plugins work great for adding new functionality, such as supporting a new xxx feature, device, source, output, etc. However while the features you want to change are indeed implemented as "plugins" within Calibre they are so core to Calibre they have considerable additional suporing infrastructure and I would suggest are not designed to be "end user replaceable". That is not a criticism of the Calibre code, it is just the nature of what those features are and the issues you would face with trying to write in such a way that your own plugins could be made available as a download (like the ones in this thread) to "replace" the Calibre provided ones.

[bookpal]

Thanks for the reply..So nice of you to point my concerns.

I fully agree with u on the fact that the enhancements (so I think !) I seek may or may not be common interest to all.

However I only intend to retain all the features that exists now, if at all, I tweak with the code myself . Well, on the patch suggestion, I agree its a pain for original creators if I/somebody modifies their code and give them back to proceed further. (In fact, I would not like it myself unless the changes are simple enough).

You are right that my plugins (if at all I create) may not be compatible with revisions of default ones of calibre versions that may follow...However, a glimmer of hope is that Calibre allows to add plug-ins and also to simply disable/enable by choice.

Thanks to your suggestion, I have contacted Mr.Kovid on these by a private mail, and hoping for a reply. Also, I started a new thread on these, and hoping to gather other's thoughts.
Thanks a lot, once again.

[darrenlee]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

This plugin is an enhanced alternative to the "Open ePub in Editor" plugin intended to supercede it. It allows you to configure and launch a combination of a specific application (e.g. Sigil) for a specified format (e.g. EPUB) via a sub-menu. The advantage over the previous ePub only plugin is that you can configure multiple format/application combinations to appear in the submenu, each of which can have icons and keyboard shortcuts.

Special Notes:

• Requires Calibre v0.7.34 or later.
• Tested under Windows only by myself, though it should work on other platforms.
• If you edit the book using the external application, no information is updated in the Calibre database (such as the CRC for this file). I'm not aware of any downside to doing this and it is fairly common for users to directly edit formats of files.

Installation Steps:

1. Follow installation steps as per first post in this thread
2. Add a custom tweak value in Preferences->Tweaks reflecting the path to your application for each format. If you configure a keyboard shortcut, be sure not to conflict with one of the existing Calibre ones documented here. In the snippet below (Windows 7 32-bit) I have configured EPUB files to open in Sigil with an icon and Alt+E shortcut, and PDF files to open in Acrobat with no icon or shortcut as follows:
   

   # Specify the submenus to appear on the 'Search the internet' plugin menu.
   # Menu items are specified as a tuple of: ('TEXT', 'FORMAT', 'PATH', [ARGS], 'IMAGE', SHORTCUT)
   # 'TEXT'   - The menu text to display for this menu item entry.
   #            Specify None for a separator row in the submenu.
   # 'FORMAT' - The Calibre format name, such as 'EPUB', 'PDF', 'TXT' etc.
   # 'PATH'   - Path to the external application to launch for this format.
   # [ARGS]   - Optional command line arguments between the app path and book filename.
   #            Specify None or [] for no arguments required.
   #            To specify arguments list in an array like ['arg1', 'arg2']
   # 'IMAGE'  - Name of the image file to use as a menu icon. Specify None if no image.
   #            Image .png files should be placed in the (your config)\resources\images folder if
   #            they are not already contained in the plugin zip file or Calibre's resources directory.
   # SHORTCUT - Keyboard shortcut to use to launch this menu item. Specify None for no shortcut.
   #            e.g. Ctrl+Shift+1 would be Qt.ControlModifier+Qt.ShiftModifier+Qt.Key_1
   # An example menu for EPUB and Adobe Acrobat on a Windows 32-bit machine is below.
   from PyQt4.Qt import Qt
   ofep_open_format_menus = [('EPUB (Sigil)', 'EPUB', 'C:\\Program Files\\Sigil\\Sigil.exe', None, 'sigil.png', Qt.AltModifier+Qt.Key_E),
       ('PDF (Acrobat)', 'PDF',  'C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat 10.0\\Acrobat\\Acrobat.exe', None, None, None)]

3. Restart Calibre and add the command to your context menu or toolbar as appropriate.

Feedback/suggestions welcomed. Refer to the readme.txt file in the zip file if you require more information about where to place images for your menu items.

Thanks for your work,kiwidude.I have been expecting this function for a long time.
But this plugin doesn't work on my system.Here is the info.

Error message:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/main.py", line 251, in initialize
self.initialize_db()
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/main.py", line 232, in initialize_db
self.initialize_db_stage2(db, None)
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/main.py", line 201, in initialize_db_stage2
self.start_gui()
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/main.py", line 156, in start_gui
main.initialize(self.library_path, self.db, self.listener, self.actions)
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/ui.py", line 134, in initialize
ac.do_genesis()
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/actions/__init__.py", line 91, in do_genesis
self.genesis()
File "<string>", line 45, in genesis
File "<string>", line 62, in read_icon_resources
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/actions/__init__.py", line 133, in load_resources
with ZipFile(self.plugin_path, 'r') as zf:
AttributeError: ZipFile instance has no attribute '__exit__'
zsh: terminated calibre

OS:Gentoo
Python version:2.6.6-r1 and 3.1.2-r4
Calibre version:0.7.35
Working plugins:add/remove to/from user category,open epub in editor.

Since I know little about Python language,I can't figure out the problem.Instead,I managed to modify open_epub_in_editor plugin to open pdf format with custom viewer.It works fine for me.But it's just a temporary solution.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

The other reason not mentioned that I did not automatically post the plugin was that some of my perceived limitations in existing functionality in the tag viewer/bulk metadata dialog will perhaps disappear over time. For instance I think it would be fairly easy to change the tag viewer code so that instead of clearing the search after making a change it researches and retains selections (as my plugin and the bulk metadata dialog does). It should also scroll to make your last selection clicked on visible within the tag viewer itself - try working your way down say the tag list of authors or series to do multiple renames and you will see how much extra effort in scrolling, clicking and hunting is currently required.

There are improvements in 0.7.35. Not sure if they are improved enough.

When doing individual edits (not bulk 'manage' edits), the tag browser now tries much harder to reposition at the same place in the tags list. This is not the same item, as it could have moved because of resorting, and I thought that given the use case, you wanted to be where you were. It fails if you are working with the last item in a list and you delete it, because the position no longer exists.

Selections are maintained in the library, although I am not sure why this is important. Unlike with plugins, selections play no role in item editing on the tag browser.

I know it is probably way too late for this but it would have been nice if the set_series_name function did not require square brackets around the series index, and just took the last digits (\s+\d+) as the series index. So I could type "Doom 1" rather than "Doom [1]". If that is too controversial even automatically adding a closing ] bracket would improve things, that way you could hit backspace from the end of the line, change the number and hit enter. Right now if you accidentally leave out a bracket you end up with a mess that becomes the series name with a series index of 1.

Insisting on bracketed numbers was a safety measure. In fact, the bracket must be at the end. The problem is that some calibre users almost certainly have series named like 'Clap of Doom 1 [xx]' and Clap of Doom 2 [xx]. These people would be rightfully annoyed if editing them changed the series to 'Clap of Doom [1]' etc.

[kovidgoyal]

@darrenlee: You need to update your system python or use a calibre binary install

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by chaley

There are improvements in 0.7.35. Not sure if they are improved enough.

Hi chaley... yes I had noticed thankyou I hadn't quite expected the changes so quickly when I said "over time" the behaviour might change though, haha.

It is definitely more user friendly imho. The point about selection being maintained is just a nicety to ensure that if you did have a lot of books visible and had been looking at one well down the list triggering your decision to do an action in the tag viewer that you don't have to "find where you were up to" again.

There is one last action missing that would pretty much make my plugin redundant (albeit at the expense of it still taking an extra click or two). That is locating and scrolling to an item in the tag viewer. It was actually an idea I had for a GUI plugin. Something like:

Show in tag viewer
-> Author
-> Series
-> Publisher

When you have thousands of series/authors etc it can still be a bit of a faff to locate the right group to do the renaming, particularly if you also have multiple custom groups that are open etc. So if I am on a book in the grid and want to rename the series, I could r/c Show in tag viewer -> Series, have the tag viewer pop open if not visible, expand the series node and scroll to ensure that series name is visible. I know that treeview is used rather "uniquely" in that it does not show selections currently so not sure if you can visibly highlight the correct row but at least bringing it on screen would be a huge timesaver. What do you think?

Originally Posted by chaley

Insisting on bracketed numbers was a safety measure. In fact, the bracket must be at the end. The problem is that some calibre users almost certainly have series named like 'Clap of Doom 1 [xx]' and Clap of Doom 2 [xx]. These people would be rightfully annoyed if editing them changed the series to 'Clap of Doom [1]' etc.

Yes I understood the flexibility to have numbered series, which is why I said it might be "too late". However I still think it "could" be done, by making an assumption that the last number separated by a space. So if I typed "Clap of Doom 2" it interprets that to mean "Clap of Doom [2]". If I type "Clap of Doom 1 2" it makes this "Clap of Doom 1 [2]".

The other suggestion I had was the closing bracket. In other words currently if you type "Clap of Doom 1 [2" and hit enter you end up with a mess of "Clap of Doom 1 [2 [1]" . Could it not at least detect that I did not end the series with "]" and add that in for me. That would mean you could just backspace over the last bracket (or select with the mouse from the number onwards), retype the number and hit enter. I just find the square brackets a *pita* from an editing point of view particularly when renumbering a large series that a couple of minor tweaks could make it less "picky" and easier to use.

[darrenlee]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@darrenlee: You need to update your system python or use a calibre binary install

Thanks for the reply.
Python 2.7 has been masked in gentoo portage.I don't know what effect I would get to my gentoo system if Python was upgraded from 2.6 to 2.7.A lot of packages depend on it.
Also,I don't think installing a binary package on a source-compiling system is a good idea.

BTW,@kovidgoyal,I really appreciate your work on Calibre.It helps me a lot when managing a large amount of ebooks.

[DoctorOhh]

@kiwidude Being ignorant of python, my attempt to alter existing plugins to open the cover.jpg file in an external editor was unsuccessful. If you find the time I would greatly appreciate such a plugin. If it could somehow be incorporated into the Open Format Externally plugin that would be great.

Thanks for all the work you've done thus far on GUI plugins.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

@kiwidude Being ignorant of python, my attempt to alter existing plugins to open the cover.jpg file in an external editor was unsuccessful. If you find the time I would greatly appreciate such a plugin. If it could somehow be incorporated into the Open Format Externally plugin that would be great.

Thanks for all the work you've done thus far on GUI plugins.

No problem. I will add a "fudge" in there for a format value of "cover" to open the cover in the associated application rather than a book format. Will post here when done.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

No problem. I will add a "fudge" in there for a format value of "cover" to open the cover in the associated application rather than a book format. Will post here when done.

Looking forward to it.

Thanks!