[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[michalc]

Originally Posted by meme

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?

Originally Posted by meme

Do you have any other plugins installed? Do their icons show up? (They may not show up on the toolbar when the device is connected though).

any other plugins are not installed

[michalc]

Originally Posted by hrynkiw

Is the Kindle Collections menu item still on the LEFT? You may have to use the arrow key to move it to the right column to install it on the menu bar yourself.

(When I installed this plug-in last week, I don't think there was an actual icon in the left column. I think it just said "Kindle Collections" in text.)

nor in the left column, neither in the right column

[meme]

Originally Posted by michalc

any other plugins are not installed

Can you install one of them, it doesn't matter which. And see if you have the same issue. My plugin doesn't do anything different than the other ones as far as the toolbar goes. Glay you are still trying to get this to work...

[meme]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

What is the proper procedure for deleting a collection?

Whatever works

I finished a series I was reading, so I selected them in Calibre and chose to delete them from the device, thinking that the next time I ran the collection plugin, the collection would be deleted as well. Instead, the collection remained, showed "0" books and its change message was "None (preserve Kindle-only is True)", which should not be the case.

Since you deleted the books from the Kindle, when the plugin scans all the Calibre books on the Kindle it doesn't find any books on the Kindle in that Series/Collection anymore - so it thinks Calibre doesn't know anything about that Collection so its treated as Kindle only.

I then went into "Edit Collections" and saw "Internal Kindle Files" where the books would normally be. So I added the books back to the Kindle, so that I wouldn't mess anything up.
What should I do in the future, should I want the collection manager to delete a collection?

The internal kindle file indicates book's in the collection file that don't have a file on the Kindle (which could be internal dictionaries or book files you deleted). You can use Edit Collections to unselect those books from the collection to safely remove them from the collection. You can also just select the '-' button to delete the collection from the Kindle.

Also, what happens if a collection no longer meets the chosen criteria?
I have it set up to only create collections for all Authors and/or Series with a minimum of 3 books. What will happen if I choose to remove one of the books, leaving only 2?

If a collection no longer meets the chosen criteria in the Customization settings (e.g. 2 books instead of a minimum of 3, doesn't match the patterns, isn't selected), then it is ignored by the plugin. The plugin will treat the collection as Kindle-managed and it will leave it on the Kindle (if you have preserve Kindle-only checked)


So far I've mainly been looking at adding collections to the Kindle. Deleting is another issue and the original approach I took was to just leave the collections there to avoid deleting them by mistake and let you use Edit Collections to clean them up. It may be necessary to change this and I need to consider the options.

If a collection name is ignored (or not included) (after any renaming), then I'll have the plugin ignore it completely as it does now and treat the collection as Kindle-only. That means it won't create/modify/delete the collection.

I think Minimum is a special setting. So it probably should be treated differently than ignore/include. I think the approach will be if a collection of books meets the minimum, create it. If a collection exists and is under the minimum but >0 then delete it. The issue is if the collection has 0 books.

If a collection has 0 books then at the moment the collection is ignored and treated as Kindle only. This is because I only collect collection names from books that are on the Kindle. If I change this, then I need to look at every possible collection name (ie look at every book in Calibre, not just the ones on your device) and I'll have to be careful about creating collections only for books actually on the Kindle. I would then delete any collections with matching names from the Kindle with 0 books or books under the minimum. This might mean changing the Create/Delete options on the Customization. It seems doable but I'll have to test it out.

[kiwidude]

It sounds like you intend to look into it anyways but I would +1 something being there for it. I confess to not having read your post in detail and you obviously know the issues better than anyone. From my "end user" perspective, given that I have already got the ability to specify what Kindle collections are to be preserved, I think anything outside of that is fair game to be blown away by your plugin. My fear is that if you bend over too far to try to be flexible for every situation it all just becomes too complex to use and know why collections appear/disappear.

Again this is based on a simplistic ignorance view - but surely if a user specifies what collections they want to keep (as you have already got the ability to do), it is perfectly reasonable to assume that anything else can be overwritten/removed?

[meme]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

It sounds like you intend to look into it anyways but I would +1 something being there for it. I confess to not having read your post in detail and you obviously know the issues better than anyone. From my "end user" perspective, given that I have already got the ability to specify what Kindle collections are to be preserved, I think anything outside of that is fair game to be blown away by your plugin. My fear is that if you bend over too far to try to be flexible for every situation it all just becomes too complex to use and know why collections appear/disappear.

Again this is based on a simplistic ignorance view - but surely if a user specifies what collections they want to keep (as you have already got the ability to do), it is perfectly reasonable to assume that anything else can be overwritten/removed?

I agree, its a good suggestion.

It wasn't there originally simply because, as you can tell with the number of versions, I've been building up the code as people have commented and as I've gotten to be more familiar with the Kindle and Calibre (part of the fun of writing this as I'm sure you're aware ). And the original code only read the files on the Kindle so wouldn't have known about the rest of the collections until I learned how to access Calibre's library. This should actually slot in quite well into the code, but I'm finding more and more of course that even with the code split into classes and separate areas, if you change one thing it can have unexpected consequences somewhere else

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by meme

The internal kindle file indicates book's in the collection file that don't have a file on the Kindle (which could be internal dictionaries or book files you deleted). You can use Edit Collections to unselect those books from the collection to safely remove them from the collection. You can also just select the '-' button to delete the collection from the Kindle.

I just wanted to make sure I hadn't messed anything up, since there is a part of the report that says "No collections selected to delete from the Kindle." If I understand all you've said, correctly, there actually will never be a collection selected to delete.

Originally Posted by meme

If a collection no longer meets the chosen criteria in the Customization settings (e.g. 2 books instead of a minimum of 3, doesn't match the patterns, isn't selected), then it is ignored by the plugin. The plugin will treat the collection as Kindle-managed and it will leave it on the Kindle (if you have preserve Kindle-only checked).

I do have "preserve Kindle-only checked, which is why I was expecting to changed collection to be deleted. I would like to see this behavior changed, if possible. I would love to be able to control all of my collections through Calibre and this plugin.

Originally Posted by meme

So far I've mainly been looking at adding collections to the Kindle. Deleting is another issue and the original approach I took was to just leave the collections there to avoid deleting them by mistake and let you use Edit Collections to clean them up. It may be necessary to change this and I need to consider the options.

If a collection name is ignored (or not included) (after any renaming), then I'll have the plugin ignore it completely as it does now and treat the collection as Kindle-only. That means it won't create/modify/delete the collection.

I think Minimum is a special setting. So it probably should be treated differently than ignore/include. I think the approach will be if a collection of books meets the minimum, create it. If a collection exists and is under the minimum but >0 then delete it. The issue is if the collection has 0 books.

If a collection has 0 books then at the moment the collection is ignored and treated as Kindle only. This is because I only collect collection names from books that are on the Kindle. If I change this, then I need to look at every possible collection name (ie look at every book in Calibre, not just the ones on your device) and I'll have to be careful about creating collections only for books actually on the Kindle. I would then delete any collections with matching names from the Kindle with 0 books or books under the minimum. This might mean changing the Create/Delete options on the Customization. It seems doable but I'll have to test it out.

Originally Posted by kiwidude

It sounds like you intend to look into it anyways but I would +1 something being there for it. I confess to not having read your post in detail and you obviously know the issues better than anyone. From my "end user" perspective, given that I have already got the ability to specify what Kindle collections are to be preserved, (1)I think anything outside of that is fair game to be blown away by your plugin. (2)My fear is that if you bend over too far to try to be flexible for every situation it all just becomes too complex to use and know why collections appear/disappear.

Again this is based on a simplistic ignorance view -(3) but surely if a user specifies what collections they want to keep (as you have already got the ability to do), it is perfectly reasonable to assume that anything else can be overwritten/removed?

Although I do not know the first thing about making these plugins, I can appreciate that it is a lot to build, maintain and coordinated. I agree with Kiwidude, on the three main points I "highlighted" from his post, above.

I am okay, however, using the "Edit Collections", now that I know it is the best way for collection deletions to be done. I really like this plugin, and will continue to use it regardless of whether you choose to expand it or not.

[rwg]

Hi,

I know this is not the place to introduce myself but it seems the best place to say thank you to Meme.

I discovered Kindle and was over the moon. Shortly after, I realised life was not all that cosy. Then I discovered Calibre and my Kindle became the flavour of the month again. For a little while anyway. I struggled with collections until I discovered your Kindle_collection_plugin. Now I have a life again.

Thank you.

[meme]

Thanks for the thanks, and welcome to Mobileread !

[dnolle]

Originally Posted by dnolle

Hello,
Just tried plugin with Calibre 0.7.52 (first version I have tried. I am gettign the follwoing error when trynig to "View Collections on Kindle"

calibre, version 0.7.52
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>KeyError</b>:'lastAccess'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\Ki ndle Collections.zip\kindle_collections_code.py", line 1583, in view_existing_kindle_collections
File "C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\Ki ndle Collections.zip\kindle_collections_code.py", line 1616, in generate_existing_kindle_collections_report
File "C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\Ki ndle Collections.zip\kindle_collections_code.py", line 651, in get_time_sorted_names
File "C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\Ki ndle Collections.zip\kindle_collections_code.py", line 651, in <lambda>
KeyError: 'lastAccess'

Just a quick update...I did a Factory Reset and simply re-added collection. Everything is working sweet and as advertised, Meme. The collections I can create now make more sense and take only seconds to create and play with! My thanks!

[saxondawg]

I have the following problems:

None.

What a wonderful world, where you can buy a gadget and a community of strangers out there in the aether can make that gadget do new things for you. I now have page numbers on all Kindle books, and I no longer have the aggravation of maintaining collections on the Kindle itself--just the ease of doing it on my laptop.

You guys are a treasure. Keep up the good work.

[meme]

Now that's a nice post to read. Appreciate your feedback (and dnolle's)

Now back to getting things in shape for 0.7.53 and finishing off the deletion of 0 book collections

[Cleemur]

Hello all,

I am new to this forum, new to Calibre, and new to kindle 3, but I am relatively tech-minded. However, after reading numerous posts on "managing kindle collections with calibre," I've come to the conclusion that I need some extra help.

Is there a simple collections management tutorial for the kindle 3 and Calibre?

Thanks for all your hard work and advice.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Cleemur

Hello all,

I am new to this forum, new to Calibre, and new to kindle 3, but I am relatively tech-minded. However, after reading numerous posts on "managing kindle collections with calibre," I've come to the conclusion that I need some extra help.

Is there a simple collections management tutorial for the kindle 3 and Calibre?

Thanks for all your hard work and advice.

Read the first post in this thread or any plugin thread for info on the plugin's use.

[hfpop]

Originally Posted by meme

Whatever works
The internal kindle file indicates book's in the collection file that don't have a file on the Kindle (which could be internal dictionaries or book files you deleted).

For better management of my books, at some point I reworked the documents folder and organized the files in folders. I know the folders are not actually seen as such by Kindle, but it still helps me.

Now, my problem: many items previously on documents/ and now on documents/whatever appear as internal kindle file, and not with their author. This was not fixed even after a factory reset. As such, those files may be added to collections only on Kindle. Of course, the files added after this reshuffle are fine, but fine are as well books from the initial series.

Do you have any idea about what to do? How to reset those missing files entries?

Thank you very much