[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[meme]

Originally Posted by RichardN

Many thanks
I cleaned up my K3 by
(1) Deleting all empty directories using a Windows Utility
(2) Reloading all the categories for K3 loaded books back into Calibre, clearing up a few mistakes and then updating the categories on the K3
(3) A few unwanted books appeard on the K3 which I then deleted on the Kindle
(4) I used the edit collections to delete the spurious entries.

Two entries are sticky and won't go - but I have identified them as being my two Dictionaries on the Kindle - they seem to have some special status.

Thanks again, and I hope this summary helps others.

I suspect, in the long-term, we need plugin whose job is to check database consistency on the K3 and between K3 and Calibre.

Well you already have the ability to do cleanup as you did. The Edit collections shows you what books are in collections and aren't on the Kindle. And Calibre's Device view shows you what is on the Device and whether its in Calibre or not (also visible in Edit Collections). Doing cleanup automatically might be a bit dangerous as many people have items on the Kindle that aren't in calibre.

Dictionaries and some other items can be put into collections but they don't have any corresponding visible file entry on the Kindle. There's no easy way to distinguish these from the books that don't exist on the file system.

[SASSBS]

Can someone help me I finally got this to work today by improting all the books from my Kindle into Calibre (including purchased books) however if a book is in 2 collections it creates 1 new collection with both collections as 1.

i.e. if I have a book in History and in Military it will create a new collection called History; Military when I sync.

I have tried entering it as History, Military as suggested in this thread but it then creates it as History, Military

Can anyone advise me of any workarounds or am I limited to 1 collection per book?

Thanks

[meme]

Originally Posted by SASSBS

i.e. if I have a book in History and in Military it will create a new collection called History; Military when I sync.

What type of custom column did you create to use for importing/exporting?

You should use a comma separated like tags type field to allow multiple collection names.

If you use a simple text field, then you could modify the customization settings to split on the ";" or ",". But its best to use a comma separated type field.

[SASSBS]

Hi Meme
thanks for the response, it is set to text guess I will need to create a new ccolumn and reimport everything oh well - hopefully it will work now.
Thanks

[kmurph]

Hi

I'm creating collections fine if I use the default entries in the Calibre Source column, e.g. Authors, Publishers, Series etc, but if I want to add a different one, e.g. Date how do I do that? It's probably something really easy that I'm just missing.

The reason I ask is I want to create a collection based on the date that I've imported the book into Calibre. I usually add books constantly, but might only plug in my Kindle maybe a couple of times a month so would like to create collections initially according to the date the book was imported.

Thanks.

[SASSBS]

Just wanted to thank meme the solution he gave worked, the only thing I have noticed is if I create a new collection using Calibre only then it will not show up if I do a sync and merge collections on my other Kindle or Kindle for PC.

Not a major issue as the other Kindle will be done by using the Calibre software but shame the Kindle for PC doesn't work (yet)

[Pendragon]

OK I'm still having problems with my Kindle DXG, when I finish creating my collections and I eject the kindle exerything looks fine on the Kindle, as soon as it reboots all I have is a list of the collections with nothing in them, what am I doing wrong?
In fact the act of just plugging the USB into the kindle and unplugging it restores the collections it's really bizarre

[eteagle]

On using Kindle collection mgr plugin I get error ASIM whenever I use it.

[jduteau]

Originally Posted by eteagle

On using Kindle collection mgr plugin I get error ASIM whenever I use it.

I suspect that it was actually an 'ASIN' key error.

Here is the traceback that I get when I try to use Kindle Connections with the latest Calibre (0.8.16):


'ASIN'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 81, in run
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.create_preview ", line 61, in create
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.kindle_boo ks", line 36, in init
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.kindle_boo ks", line 59, in __init__
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.kindle_boo ks", line 146, in load_kindle_books
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.ebook", line 56, in __init__
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.ebook", line 251, in __init__
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.ebook", line 297, in get_metadata
KeyError: 'ASIN'

[meme]

Originally Posted by kmurph

Hi

I'm creating collections fine if I use the default entries in the Calibre Source column, e.g. Authors, Publishers, Series etc, but if I want to add a different one, e.g. Date how do I do that? It's probably something really easy that I'm just missing.

The reason I ask is I want to create a collection based on the date that I've imported the book into Calibre. I usually add books constantly, but might only plug in my Kindle maybe a couple of times a month so would like to create collections initially according to the date the book was imported.

Thanks.

Date was not one of the fields I thought people would want to create collections from, so I left it out of the plugin.

The attached version contains Date as a valid field to choose for collections. (Edit see a few posts later for more recent version).

[meme]

Originally Posted by Pendragon

OK I'm still having problems with my Kindle DXG, when I finish creating my collections and I eject the kindle exerything looks fine on the Kindle, as soon as it reboots all I have is a list of the collections with nothing in them, what am I doing wrong?

If there aren't any names showing up in the collections then it sounds like there is a problem with the Kindle mapping the codes in the collections file to the actual books on the Kindle. Check the collections.json file manually to see if any books are listed in the collections. If there are entries, then its a mismatch of books/codes. If there aren't any, then that's odd.

Have you tried using Edit Collections in the plugin and seeing if books appear to be in collections, maybe adding one or two to a collection, then saving and restarting the Kindle (restarting, not just turning off/on)?

In fact the act of just plugging the USB into the kindle and unplugging it restores the collections it's really bizarre

That does sound bizarre. Collections are stored on the Kindle in a file called collections.json. The Kindle reads this file only once after a restart. If you edit collections on the Kindle itself, it will update the file. But if you edit collections using the plugin or manually update the file, the file is not read until you restart the Kindle. So unless you've installed the Fonts or Screensavers hack and enabled fast boot (which will cause the file to be reread without restarting the Kindle), then its not clear why the collections would be ok after unplugging if they weren't ok before.

[meme]

Originally Posted by jduteau

I suspect that it was actually an 'ASIN' key error.

Here is the traceback that I get when I try to use Kindle Connections with the latest Calibre (0.8.16):


'ASIN'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 81, in run
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.create_preview ", line 61, in create
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.kindle_boo ks", line 36, in init
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.kindle_boo ks", line 59, in __init__
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.kindle_boo ks", line 146, in load_kindle_books
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.ebook", line 56, in __init__
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.ebook", line 251, in __init__
File "calibre_plugins.kindle_collections.ebook", line 297, in get_metadata
KeyError: 'ASIN'

I've tried the plugin on the latest Calibre and it still works ok for me, but then I don't know if I have any Topaz files loaded.

The issue seems to be a problem with one of your Topaz book files - its metadata information is incorrect.

You can try this attached version of the plugin which should generate a warning message about which book is causing the problem. I'd be interested to see if it catches it, and if you just recently updated this book.

Or you can run in debug mode (calibre-debug -g > out.txt) which will show the book its processing just before it crashes.

[kmurph]

Originally Posted by meme

Date was not one of the fields I thought people would want to create collections from, so I left it out of the plugin.

The attached version contains Date as a valid field to choose for collections. (Edit see a few posts later for more recent version).

Wow, wasn't expecting you to add it in specially but thanks very much.

Just tried it with some new books added and works exactly as I was wanting it to. Thanks again.

[jduteau]

Originally Posted by meme

You can try this attached version of the plugin which should generate a warning message about which book is causing the problem. I'd be interested to see if it catches it, and if you just recently updated this book.

Ha ha. With that version, I don't get the error. I was quite sure that I had the latest version of the plugin, but maybe I didn't?

In any case, that seems to have fixed the problem.

[Vandeervecken]

I've installed the plugin, but no button to make it do anything, and when I look at the books on my device (K3) only about 10% of those in collections, and entire collections do not show up. Cannot find ANY way to edit anything. Help?