Organising stuff on your Kindle

[DMB]

Can Amazon save one's collections along with other data such as where you are in a book?

I ask because my original K3 was stolen and I had to download my books again but the collections had disappeared. My new K3 also had one of the defective covers and after painstakingly putting everything back into collections I was dismayed to find that my Kindle "forgot" the collections (as well as other things) when it went to sleep. I now have an OK cover (thanks to Amazon CS) but I wouldn't want more of the same for any reason that might arise in the future.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by DMB

Can Amazon save one's collections along with other data such as where you are in a book?

I ask because my original K3 was stolen and I had to download my books again but the collections had disappeared. My new K3 also had one of the defective covers and after painstakingly putting everything back into collections I was dismayed to find that my Kindle "forgot" the collections (as well as other things) when it went to sleep. I now have an OK cover (thanks to Amazon CS) but I wouldn't want more of the same for any reason that might arise in the future.

According to the site, yes they do save your collections, but I do not believe it would transfer over from one Kindle to another. Although, I really do not know that for sure.

[Langley]

I also assume if your battery died and was replaced you would have problems restoring collections?

[FF2]

Collection info is stored in the collections.json file. Sorry, at the moment I cannot tell you which folder it is in but maybe the System folder (which might be hidden depending on how you have your Explorer show file details). Although, I'm not sure how copying/replacing it would work if you did not also recreate you exact folder structure on the kindle if you did not simple place all of your books in the Document folder.

[bball2]

I have my kindle collections setup like this:

_Currently Reading
_Read Later
[ Current Series ]
{ Category 1 }
{ Category 2 }
+Series 1
+Series 2

And then organized alphabetically. I've been using this organize about 200 books and so far I'm very happy with it.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by FF2

Collection info is stored in the collections.json file. Sorry, at the moment I cannot tell you which folder it is in but maybe the System folder (which might be hidden depending on how you have your Explorer show file details). Although, I'm not sure how copying/replacing it would work if you did not also recreate you exact folder structure on the kindle if you did not simple place all of your books in the Document folder.

Yes, it is in the System folder (hidden or revealed by the "protected system files' option in Windows). As long as the books are somewhere in the Documents folder, it doesn't seem to matter where. The collections file only references the ID hash for the file, not the location. In other words, it seems to check the file for it's ID first, then checks to see which collection it goes into, so the folder structure inside the Documents folder shouldn't matter, though it may take a restart to get it to read the file "fresh" if changes are made.

[emalvick]

Originally Posted by JainaSJedi

@aproudlove

Thank you for the detailed instructions on sorting collections on the Kindle. I am having a few problems with the |> plus spacing and the ordering of my collections and sub-collections. Ultimately, I would like the home screen of the Kindle to look like an outline of a term paper, if that's possible. For example,

|>200 Sci Fi
|>xxxxx201 Star Wars
|>xxxxx202 Star Trek
|>300 Fantasy
|>xxxxx301 Sword of Truth

Again, the xxx denote spaces.

The problem that I am having is when I move to a new main collection (|>300 Fantasy Collection) and the corresponding sub-collections (|>xxxxx301 Sword of Truth).

My Kindle will either display the main collections at the top or the bottom of the home page followed by the sub-collections as in:

|> 200 Sci Fi
|> 300 Fantasy
|>xxxxx201 Star Wars
|>xxxxx202 Star Trek
|>xxxxx301 Sword of Truth

Is there a way to fix it so it displays properly? I have also been using the Kindle Collection Manager to help name these collections.

I have a feeling your best chance maybe to use something like:

xxxxx|> 201 Star Wars

i.e. move the spaces before your special characters. I haven't checked for this, but the Kindle ignores spaces that are at the very beginning of a title or collection name. You put them after the special characters, thus I don't think it ignores the spaces (which gives the results you are getting).


As for the ideas in the original post... I like them. I will probably try them out myself. I just hate that we have to go to these lengths to work around the nuances of the Kindle's fw/os. Ideally, we should be able to toggle whether we want books that are in Kindles to be listed in the main menu (i.e. like the Alphabetical Listings) or not (i.e. like the by-collections view).

[DaronFraley]

Like HarryT suggested, the underscore at the beginning worked for me in getting my collections alphabetical at the main screen with the BY TITLE sorting option. And they are still on the front page (although in a MOST RECENT sorting) when I choose BY COLLECTION. Good enough for me!

[JainaSJedi]

Originally Posted by emalvick

I have a feeling your best chance maybe to use something like:

xxxxx|> 201 Star Wars

i.e. move the spaces before your special characters. I haven't checked for this, but the Kindle ignores spaces that are at the very beginning of a title or collection name. You put them after the special characters, thus I don't think it ignores the spaces (which gives the results you are getting).

I tried that too. Now my sorting goes like this when sorted by title:
xxx|>101 Author 1
xxx|>102 Author 2
xxx|>201 Star Wars
xxx|>202 Star Trek
|>100 Authors
|>200 Sci Fi

I will play around with it some more.

[emalvick]

Originally Posted by JainaSJedi

I tried that too. Now my sorting goes like this when sorted by title:
xxx|>101 Author 1
xxx|>102 Author 2
xxx|>201 Star Wars
xxx|>202 Star Trek
|>100 Authors
|>200 Sci Fi

I will play around with it some more.

Yes, I tried it out myself last night after my suggestion, and I ended up the same way, although the view didn't even show the indentation. I'm not sure (at the moment) what else could be done. I do know there are other characters (symbols) that are ignored in sorting that could perhaps be used as place holders/elements to tab by.

In the meantime, is there any way that as a group we can "mass" suggest that Amazon adjust elements like this in the firmware? I've made the suggestion back at the beginning, but I'm not sure if there is a way to emphasize the need for cleaning up this collection / sorting / etc. setup.

[pboss]

Originally Posted by DaronFraley

Like HarryT suggested, the underscore at the beginning worked for me in getting my collections alphabetical at the main screen with the BY TITLE sorting option. And they are still on the front page (although in a MOST RECENT sorting) when I choose BY COLLECTION. Good enough for me!

Nice tip! I use the same trick on my PC but to give priority to specific folders but it never occurred me to use this on the Kindle.

[Sydney's Mom]

This is very helpful! K for you!

[Sydney's Mom]

So, there isn't a fix for me - I want to sort my collections alphabetically, but not have the titles within the collections show up. Mine will only sort by most recent opened, no matter what I do. Is that correct? I have a page and a half of collections, but 40 pages of books. I prefer just to have the page and a half come up.

[emalvick]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

So, there isn't a fix for me - I want to sort my collections alphabetically, but not have the titles within the collections show up. Mine will only sort by most recent opened, no matter what I do. Is that correct? I have a page and a half of collections, but 40 pages of books. I prefer just to have the page and a half come up.

That is correct.

This is why you see the discussion on using special characters at the beginning of a collection name:

Doing that will put the collections at the front when you sort alphabetically. The titles won't disappear, but they'll come after the collections rather than itnerspersed with the collections. You could then just use page 1 and 2 of your listings and skip the remaining pages of titles.

You could even add and utilize blank collections to push title off until a page after the collections if that looks better to you.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by emalvick

That is correct.

This is why you see the discussion on using special characters at the beginning of a collection name:

Doing that will put the collections at the front when you sort alphabetically. The titles won't disappear, but they'll come after the collections rather than itnerspersed with the collections. You could then just use page 1 and 2 of your listings and skip the remaining pages of titles.

You could even add and utilize blank collections to push title off until a page after the collections if that looks better to you.

Thanks. Being so persnickity is a pain.