[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[jrmckins]

I'm sure this is a basic question but I'm too lazy to read a gazillion posts to see if it's been asked/answered. I think I pretty much figured out how to make collections using tags but when I save to my kindle the books are in the collections and listed separately.

I copied all the books from the kindle, created collections then saved to kindle. Do I need to delete all the books from the Kindle before saving?

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by jrmckins

I'm sure this is a basic question but I'm too lazy to read a gazillion posts to see if it's been asked/answered. I think I pretty much figured out how to make collections using tags but when I save to my kindle the books are in the collections and listed separately.

I copied all the books from the kindle, created collections then saved to kindle. Do I need to delete all the books from the Kindle before saving?

No! The books will always be listed separately, regardless of their being in a collection or not.

Edit: If you only want to see the collections then sort your Kindle by collection on the top (it is the option after title or author). That, however, is based on most recent activity so they will not be in alphabetical order.

Edit 2: Scratch the above. Even then you will still see all of the books listed after the collections.

[jrmckins]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

No! The books will always be listed separately, regardless of their being in a collection or not.

Edit: If you only want to see the collections then sort your Kindle by collection on the top (it is the option after title or author). That, however, is based on most recent activity so they will not be in alphabetical order.

oh. When I create collections on the kindle the books are only in the collection.
Oh well. I'll continue to look for a solution...

[NiLuJe]

@jrmckins: The only way you're seeing books *only* in collections (if they're indeed in one), is when you're sorting your Kindle's Home via 'Collections'. Every other sort mechanism (Most Recent, Author or Title) will list both the collections and the titles. When sorting by Collections, only collections and *uncollected* titles are listed.

[meme]

Originally Posted by jrmckins

I'm sure this is a basic question but I'm too lazy to read a gazillion posts to see if it's been asked/answered. I think I pretty much figured out how to make collections using tags but when I save to my kindle the books are in the collections and listed separately.

I copied all the books from the kindle, created collections then saved to kindle. Do I need to delete all the books from the Kindle before saving?

If you have imported your files from the Kindle into Calibre, then if you have any save templates set up (maybe even by default because of the author), Calibre may be saving the books to a different path - then you might have 2 books with the same title (if you have a plugboard for titles they might have a different title which is easier to spot).

If you do have books with the same title but different paths then you might have put one into a collection but not the other. You would need to delete the file on the Kindle that wasn't created by Calibre - only if you are sure its a duplicate or make a backup of course Test it on one and let us know.

A test of manually creating mybook.txt on the Kindle then importing it produced a documents/Unknown/mybook.txt to go along with the original documents/mybook.txt (but that could be just for my setup). (And now I also know that 0 length files are ignored in collections as well )

[meme]

Originally Posted by pspringett

Do you happen to know whether the kindle uses this field to stop it being put into a collection? And will your next version allow a MOBI file of type 259 without a cdetype to be added to a collection?

(Personally I don't care about the periodical back issue stuff - I'd be much happier controlling that myself rather than letting the kindle do it for me).

257 and 259 are periodical codes so Kindle treats them differently and doesn't allow them to be put manually into collections. The next plugin update will allow them to be put into collections. But if its a mobi file without a cdetype the Kindle will not list the book in a collection (this is the problem with catalogs and news feeds).

I'm not sure about the periodical back issue stuff either. I can see why they did it - to avoid users having to delete old issues or have their screens and Kindle fill up. And if they are moving them automatically to a 'collection' for back issues they must have thought allowing them to be put into a separate collection might be confusing (if an issue expired and was deleted from back issues AND your other collection you might not have expected that). At least Calibre gives us the option to save and manage them as we want.

[michalc]

Originally Posted by meme

Calibre should have prompted you to add the plugin to the "main toolbar when a device is connected". The icon will only be visible if you connect a device (a Kindle preferably ) to your PC.

If you have the device connected and there is still no icon, you can add it manually by going to Preferences->Customize toolbar, then from the drop down menu select "the main toolbar when a device is connected", select the Kindle Collections entry on the left, then click the right arrow button to add it to the toolbar, and save.

- calibre prompted me
- kindle is connected
- there is no KC toolbar icon visible
- preferences > customize toolbar > the main toolbar when a device is connected > there is no KC entry on the left
- calibre was restarted, still the same situation

[pr126]

Could someone please explain how can I sort authors within collections?

many thanks in advance.


Peter

[meme]

Originally Posted by michalc

- calibre prompted me
- kindle is connected
- there is no KC toolbar icon visible
- preferences > customize toolbar > the main toolbar when a device is connected > there is no KC entry on the left
- calibre was restarted, still the same situation

What version of Calibre are you using? What version of the plugin?

Is the plugin installed? Go to Preferences->Plugins->User Interface Plugins. Is Kindle Collections listed?

If you go to Preferences->Customize Toolbar->The main toolbar when a device is connected, is the Kindle Collection icon on the right? (try scrolling to the bottom)

With the device connected, is your main toolbar too full to show the plugin's icon - i.e. is there a small ">>" on the far right of the toolbar indicating there are more icons do display?

[meme]

Originally Posted by pr126

Could someone please explain how can I sort authors within collections?

On the Kindle, open the collection. Use the 5-way to go up to the top line (where it says Showing x items) and use the 5-way to go right to see a selection to sort by Most Recent, Title, Author, and select Author.

[pr126]

Many thanks, meme. It worked fine.

[DamaskRose]

I have what may be a dumb question, but I'll admit to being confused.

I've got a Kindle enroute to me, so I'm organizing the e-books I want to stick on it when I get it. I'm running Calibre and want to be able to create collections. However, I got tag happy and currently have 97 tags, covering all sorts of different things.

I saw on your plug-in explanation that you can select specific tags to sort for when creating collections, and I shouldn't have any trouble picking tags. My question is whether I then need to reconvert all of my files or not.

I initially converted files without adding metadata and then went back in and added it, but the metadata didn't show up on the file itself in the e-reader until I reconverted the files. It did show up in Calibre's edit metadata window, of course. (Now I may be missing something obvious, but I'm very new to this and baffled. And don't really want to reconvert files if I don't have to, but don't really see what else to do at this point.)

Do I actually need to reconvert the files to make this type of amended tags work, or does just changing the tags in Calibre mean that when I attach my Kindle and transfer the e-books to it that it will create the Collections properly based on subsequently modified tags?

Thanks!

[DamaskRose]

I've basically decided to reorganize things, but want to leave my tags alone.

I was considering organizing my collections using a custom column. However, on the first page of this thread the directions say:

"Custom Columns

Creating custom columns in Calibre allows you to control your collections better. See thread xxx for more details, but some basic examples are below

Columns with the name of "Author - Series" if auther has a series, or "Author" if no series"

However, the explanation for this section is still listed as "to do." I know nothing about using python, although I have used other programming languages in the past.

Is this function supported in the current version of the code, or do I need to try to create my own amendment to the code? I'm worried I'm going to bork up my code irreparably if I try to do anything with it myself.

I definitely like all the functionality that I do see in this though! Having the plug-in do most of the work for you is great!

[crich70]

This may seem like a silly question but how do you install the plugin itself?
Edit: Never mind I just saw the posting up above that covered my question.

[meme]

Originally Posted by DamaskRose

I initially converted files without adding metadata and then went back in and added it, but the metadata didn't show up on the file itself in the e-reader until I reconverted the files. It did show up in Calibre's edit metadata window, of course. (Now I may be missing something obvious, but I'm very new to this and baffled. And don't really want to reconvert files if I don't have to, but don't really see what else to do at this point.)

Do I actually need to reconvert the files to make this type of amended tags work, or does just changing the tags in Calibre mean that when I attach my Kindle and transfer the e-books to it that it will create the Collections properly based on subsequently modified tags?

The plugin will use the tag information you see in Calibre when it creates collections so you should not need to reconvert your books.

I believe in order to update the metadata information in your books on the device you should just be able to resend them to the device without reconverting them.