[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[meme]

Originally Posted by GirlCami

So my dad upgraded his Kindle Collections plugin on calibre to the most current after he reformatted his computer (simply b/c the most current version is the only option).
I need one of two options to work out regarding this newer version.
1. We previously used 1.4.3 without any problems which is why we never upgraded to newer versions. (I did once to 1.5 [I think], and it did not work the same....so promptly switched back. I wish the way the plugin is now integrated into Calibre made it doable to access a previous version. It shows the previous versions, but will not allow you to run them.

2. So since I doubt above will happen, I feel I am left with having to use this newer version. We create collections based on author name. We sort by collections on our Kindle 3. And before, it worked beautifully & sorted it in alphabetical order every time we freshly created, so to speak. Of course, if you accessed one of the Author Collections it would move to the top of the pile. Now they are all mixed up & the Kindle Collection says it is sorted by most recent. It is so unorganized looking. We hate it. In 1.4.3, all we had to do was add prefix _ and it worked like a charm. Not with this version. Somebody help please. I have spent too many hours tonight trying to get this to work the way we want it to. I don't know what else to do.

Unfortunately, trying to support multiple versions of calibre and multiple versions of the plugin isn't possible. It would just be too hard to support.

The current version should certainly be able to do what you want - that functionality hasn't really changed. But in order to help it may be useful to have a copy of your settings (from the detailed report that is generated when you run Preview or Create).

First, confirm that the Kindle is in fact set to "Sort by Collections". Yeah, I know, kind of like being asked to check if the computer is plugged in... If you click the "Home" button, then under the wireless/battery symbols on the top right does it say "By Collections" (or "By Most Recent First" or something else)?

Now check the plugin settings. Go the the plugin's Customize screen. Make sure that only Author is set to "Create" (or "Author Sort" if you want to sort by last names as defined by calibre). Enter "_" (without quotes) in the Prefix column for Author (or Author Sort). Make sure there is a checkmark in the box next to "Reset collection times...". Save, and run Create Collections. Restart your Kindle and check.


Now if its not doing what you want, paste your settings section from the detailed report to make it easier to see what you have set up in Customize. If you are using Sort By Collections, then you don't really need the "_" prefix since only collections will show up in that view. The "_" is really meant for when you sort "By Most Recent First" on the Kindle because then the "_" will force the collection names to be before all the book names.

And as you mentioned, the "By Collections" screen is really just listing collections by most recent first. The plugin sets the timestamps of the collections so that they appear in alphabetical order when you first create them. Once you open a collection it will go to the top of the list, until you run the plugin again.

[kiwidude]

@meme or others. Apologies if this has been asked before. A colleague I put onto using this plugin is doing the following:
- generating collections in the plugin using authors
- maintaining a "currently reading" collection on the Kindle
- also maintaining a "read" collection on the kindle

Now as he has just setup his Kindle with loads of books with this plugin, he has quite a number that he would like to add to his "read" collection to begin with. Doing it manually on the Kindle will be the ongoing behaviour, but to setup his initial set is way too slow/clunky to do on the Kindle itself.

He was trying to use the "Edit collections manually" function in the plugin, but couldn't really get it to do what he wanted in a convenient way (he didn't really want to scroll down lists of thousands of books within there).

Is there a recommended way to do that with this plugin? My own usage is of the most basic functionality that you stuck way back in the original versions and I haven't paid close attention to all the stuff since then that might help. Right now he has no record other than in his head of which books he has "read" and wants to put in this collection (i.e. no special tags or custom column in calibre).

Perhaps one way might be to mark them all in calibre using a tag or custom column (which is a bit more convenient for searching/filtering), use the plugin to create a specific collection based on that column as a once off, then remove that mapping so he can then maintain it manually on the Kindle (or something). But I am just guessing, perhaps someone here has a better idea.

[pchrist7]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@meme or others. Apologies if this has been asked before. A colleague I put onto using this plugin is doing the following:
- generating collections in the plugin using authors
- maintaining a "currently reading" collection on the Kindle
- also maintaining a "read" collection on the kindle

Now as he has just setup his Kindle with loads of books with this plugin, he has quite a number that he would like to add to his "read" collection to begin with. Doing it manually on the Kindle will be the ongoing behaviour, but to setup his initial set is way too slow/clunky to do on the Kindle itself.

He was trying to use the "Edit collections manually" function in the plugin, but couldn't really get it to do what he wanted in a convenient way (he didn't really want to scroll down lists of thousands of books within there).

Is there a recommended way to do that with this plugin? My own usage is of the most basic functionality that you stuck way back in the original versions and I haven't paid close attention to all the stuff since then that might help. Right now he has no record other than in his head of which books he has "read" and wants to put in this collection (i.e. no special tags or custom column in calibre).

Perhaps one way might be to mark them all in calibre using a tag or custom column (which is a bit more convenient for searching/filtering), use the plugin to create a specific collection based on that column as a once off, then remove that mapping so he can then maintain it manually on the Kindle (or something). But I am just guessing, perhaps someone here has a better idea.

I would definately try to use a custom column, and having a Kindle (2 or 3 ? ) I would use Fetch Annotations.
See more here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=137

I don't remember if You can create collection based on costum columns, but I'll check once I get a chance (maybe tomorrow)
Cheers, Per

[pchrist7]

Originally Posted by pchrist7

I would definately try to use a custom column, and having a Kindle (2 or 3 ? ) I would use Fetch Annotations.
See more here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=137

I don't remember if You can create collection based on costum columns, but I'll check once I get a chance (maybe tomorrow)
Cheers, Per

Hi kiwidude
I've used the custom column Read Status for my K3 for quite a while.
I had a short chance to connect my K3 and check the Collections plugin.
It SHOULD be possible to configure the Collections Plugin to use the Read Status column to create a collection. Just for one run..
Your buddy would probably like the custom column just to show Read (instead of read date ). So you should look at:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=172
A bit confusing maybe, since you have to follow 2 sets of instructions.
Testing ? Well, I can't handle that at the moment; don't have time/energy to restore/rebuild my own K3

Hope this makes sense, and is helpfull.
Give me a shout if needed, and let's know how it works out.

BTW: THANK YOU for all your efforts and contributions !
Cheers, Per

[ElizabethN]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@meme or others. Apologies if this has been asked before. A colleague I put onto using this plugin is doing the following:
- generating collections in the plugin using authors
- maintaining a "currently reading" collection on the Kindle
- also maintaining a "read" collection on the kindle

Now as he has just setup his Kindle with loads of books with this plugin, he has quite a number that he would like to add to his "read" collection to begin with. Doing it manually on the Kindle will be the ongoing behaviour, but to setup his initial set is way too slow/clunky to do on the Kindle itself.

He was trying to use the "Edit collections manually" function in the plugin, but couldn't really get it to do what he wanted in a convenient way (he didn't really want to scroll down lists of thousands of books within there).

If I understand the request correctly, this is what I do using calibre. I hardly edit anything (except active content) with the kindle anymore, everything is done through calibre and sent back to the kindle.

I take advantage of calibre's rating status and use a custom column (text, column like tag browser) "read status" that I then use to create collections on my kindle.

But my use is pretty basic:
select books by rating status, i.e. all 4 star books
bulk edit those books = stars_4 in column "read status"
run collection manager to create collections using tags in read status.
So I end up with collections such as: digital version unread, TBR_urban fantasy, stars_4...

When I read a book, I update the rating and the read status column and the next time I run collection manager, the kindle updates accordingly.

Thanks for all the great plugins.

Dropping back into lurker mode so I can keep decreasing the quantity of books in my TBR collections.

[meme]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@meme or others. Apologies if this has been asked before. A colleague I put onto using this plugin is doing the following:
- generating collections in the plugin using authors
- maintaining a "currently reading" collection on the Kindle
- also maintaining a "read" collection on the kindle

Now as he has just setup his Kindle with loads of books with this plugin, he has quite a number that he would like to add to his "read" collection to begin with. Doing it manually on the Kindle will be the ongoing behaviour, but to setup his initial set is way too slow/clunky to do on the Kindle itself.

He was trying to use the "Edit collections manually" function in the plugin, but couldn't really get it to do what he wanted in a convenient way (he didn't really want to scroll down lists of thousands of books within there).

Is there a recommended way to do that with this plugin? My own usage is of the most basic functionality that you stuck way back in the original versions and I haven't paid close attention to all the stuff since then that might help. Right now he has no record other than in his head of which books he has "read" and wants to put in this collection (i.e. no special tags or custom column in calibre).

Perhaps one way might be to mark them all in calibre using a tag or custom column (which is a bit more convenient for searching/filtering), use the plugin to create a specific collection based on that column as a once off, then remove that mapping so he can then maintain it manually on the Kindle (or something). But I am just guessing, perhaps someone here has a better idea.

No need to apologize - its almost impossible to tell if a question has been asked before around here, and even if it had I'm sure I wouldn't remember if it had

I assume the "read" collection is "Done reading"? Its not relevant, but "Read" always drives me crazy when I use it because I can never remember which way I meant it

If he wants to keep his "Read" collection editable only on the Kindle, and it already contains data we can't generate it from Calibre, maybe.

If the only record of what is 'read' is in his head then he will have to identify the books as read at some point. Using the Edit Collection manually function lets him select which books to add and still update it on the Kindle. But you say he doesn't want to scroll through all the books (even though they can be sorted by title, author, date) to find the books. Hmmm. Well, what would make it easier to find them? (And if you say a search box, then I might reduce some of your Karma )

I can understand it if there are thousands of books - you mark a few, leave it, mark some later. With the manual edit it takes a while. So maybe marking it in Calibre is an approach.

I think the recommendation of moving to keeping track of this data solely in calibre and exporting it is best, but not everyone wants to work that way, at least at first.

Here's one probably way to do this, although I haven't tested it as it starts to get a bit messy...

Make a backup copy of collections.json from the Kindle to the PC just in case!
Setup a custom column, "My Kindle Collections" as comma separated like tags, and another one called 'Red' ().
Use the plugin to Import Collections into the column 'My Kindle collections'
Select "Read" from that column in the tag browser
select all the books
Edit metadata
Add a new tag to the "Red" column called "Read"
In the main book window, add "Read" to that column for all the books that have been read for as many as you want until done
When ready Customize the plugin to create the "Red" column
Run create collections
Remove the "Red" column from Customization when done using it so that it doesn't get written out again
Edit the "Read" collection on the Kindle as necessary
Run Create Collections as needed to just generate your author collections leaving "Read" alone

I suppose you could also just import into My Kindle Collections, delete all the tags that are not "Read", add "Read" to any book already read, and customize/run create to generate collections based on My Kindle Collections one time too - saves the extra column.

[kiwidude]

Thx folks, I shall point him at this thread to pass the info on.

@meme - he does indeed have several thousand books on his Kindle. Which makes the "one giant list without search" rather unwieldy to use.

You ask what other ways would he like to use (other than search, haha). What he "tried" to do was to select one of his author collections (which of course has the books for that author ticked up the top). Then he wanted to simply just right-click and be able to add that book to another one of his collections. Instead it appears it works a different way around - you choose the collection that is your "target" and then tick/untick the books.

I'm sure he can find one way or another to get what he needs out of it, thanks again all for the time to reply.

[inpariswithyou]

Before using this plugin, I created several collections on my Kindle. I used punctuation marks to get them to sort in a specific way on the BY TITLE screen. Some examples:

- Currently Reading
! All-Time Favorites
* Fiction
** Fantasy
** Science Fiction
** Mystery
# Poetry
+ Nonfiction
++ Memoirs
++ Reference

Before using the plugin, these sorted exactly as I wanted them to sort. Now, after employing the plugin, they're no longer sorting correctly. In fact, the way they sort now is downright baffling. I have categories preceded by double asterisks (**), which signifies fiction, separated by hash-sign categories, which indicates poetry. Here's an example:

** Mystery
** Paranormal
# Poetry
** Thriller

How bizarre is that? It makes no sense!

Yes, I'm in the BY TITLE view. No, I haven't changed the collection titles at all.

Any thoughts about how to return to the intended sorting pattern? I'm a bit OCD, and having these things out of order will drive me utterly insane.

Thanks,
MAM

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by inpariswithyou

** Mystery
** Paranormal
# Poetry
** Thriller

How bizarre is that? It makes no sense!

I don't use this plugin or a Kindle, but it looks like it is sorting on alphabet ignoring the special charaters. If you read the first post under the customization details you will see the following.

Prefix:

• Choose text to add to the start of collection names to allow sorting
• You can change the prefix once the collection is created
• For example: "_" or "~" or ":" or "__" - force collection names to appear at the start of sort By Title. Don't include quotes (") in any of the fields unless you need them.
• You can use more than one character to allow indenting ("_", "__", "___")
• Leaving the prefix blank will sort collections by title along with books - works best if just using Collections view
• Sort order on the Kindle is not straightforward. The plugin attempts to sort titles exactly as they'll show up on the Kindle 3 when you use View collections or see them in the detailed report, but this may not always be accurate.
  • These characters are useful for sorting and will be sorted in this order: _`^~'([{$+<=>|"
  • The full order of the characters used when sorting by Title on the Kindle 3 is: - _,;:!?/.`^~'"()[]{}@$*&#%+<=>|0-9a-z (case is ignored)
  • You should avoid using a comma (",") to avoid issues with import into comma separated custom columns
    
    But the following characters are invisible to the sort order: -?/]#.\'\\*})&:@%;"!,

I think if you can wrap your head around this section you will be able to get it to work the way you want.

Good Luck.

[Nyssa]

Meme, I'm wondering if you would be willing/able to create an if/then scenario for creating collections. What I'm looking for specifically is:

If the books in the Author collection exactly match the books in the Series collection then only create the series collection.

I'm trying to cut down on what amounts to duplicate collections. I know that I can have it ignore certain authors but my list is excruciatingly long.

Please & Thank you.

[inpariswithyou]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

I don't use this plugin or a Kindle, but it looks like it is sorting on alphabet ignoring the special charaters. If you read the first post under the customization details you will see the following.
I think if you can wrap your head around this section you will be able to get it to work the way you want.

Good Luck.

Luckily, I have three degrees, so I was able to wrap my head around the section. What I don't understand, though, is why the plug-in apparently disregards the Kindle sorting order... since my collections before the plug-in sorted exactly as intended, with those special characters marked as ignored. Is there no way around this?

[Vaesse]

Nyssa, would a custom column work for you? I have one that fills series if there is one, author sort if not, and I use it to create my Kindle collections. That way I only get non-series books under the author collection.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Vaesse

Nyssa, would a custom column work for you? I have one that fills series if there is one, author sort if not, and I use it to create my Kindle collections. That way I only get non-series books under the author collection.

Most certainly! Will you please tell me the parameters you used? T.I.A.

[Vaesse]

Sure. My custom column is "built from other columns" with the following template:

{series:'ifempty($, field("author_sort"))'}

Hope that helps.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Vaesse

Sure. My custom column is "built from other columns" with the following template:

{series:'ifempty($, field("author_sort"))'}

Hope that helps.

I may be missing something. It created all of the series collections but did not create any of the author collections that did not have series.