Mobiperl Mobiperl - Perl tools for handling MobiPocket files

[tompe]

It is possible but I think Calibre handles html2mobi conversions better.

But feel free to extend the code and submit the changes.

[smlombardi]

The installation instructions only are for using Mac Ports.

I have Mac OSX 10.7 (Lion) which already has Perl 5.8.8

I'd prefer to just copy Palm and MobiPerl to whichever directory the default install of Perl expects to find it.

Where is this?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by smlombardi

The installation instructions only are for using Mac Ports.

I have Mac OSX 10.7 (Lion) which already has Perl 5.8.8

I'd prefer to just copy Palm and MobiPerl to whichever directory the default install of Perl expects to find it.

Where is this?

There is no such thing. Perl doesn't expect to find stuff anywhere.

The directions tell you to use MacPorts because there are several CPAN modules needed that aren't by default on a Mac.

Of course you are welcome to not follow them.

BOb

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Perl doesn't expect to find stuff anywhere.

Well, actually, the default install of Perl on Mac OS X expects to find stuff in /Library/Perl/[RELEASE NUMBER]* and you can copy-paste from a backup of that when reinstalling the OS after wiping your boot drive due to irreparable file system corruption, without having to go through the entire reinstalling all the CPAN modules once more to have MobiPerl up and running again.

But yeah, you first need the CPAN modules installed to begin with and you can do that either via MacPorts (in which case it all ends up in a different directory) or manually.

* You will get an error message if it doesn't.

[DiapDealer]

You may want to check into Fink, as well. It can be used to get many non-standard Perl modules installed on OS X... and may be slightly less aggravating than MacPorts (depending on your personal preferences, of course)

fink install <modulename>-pm588

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, actually, the default install of Perl on Mac OS X expects to find stuff in /Library/Perl/[RELEASE NUMBER]* and you can copy-paste from a backup of that when reinstalling the OS after wiping your boot drive due to irreparable file system corruption, without having to go through the entire reinstalling all the CPAN modules once more to have MobiPerl up and running again.

But yeah, you first need the CPAN modules installed to begin with and you can do that either via MacPorts (in which case it all ends up in a different directory) or manually.

* You will get an error message if it doesn't.

What I meant was.. there is no specific directory that you put perl scripts in that you want to run. You can run a perl script from any folder. Yes, perl expects its own libraries to be in a certain location, which I think you can specify with evn variables or a config file.

That all said, I guess I don't see the problem with using MacPorts. It makes it so much easier. What difference does it make what folder the stuff is in, if it works.

I got it all working pre the Mac Ports directions, and I think they are still on the wiki.. but now all the versions are different and what works on various versions of OS x are different. So, letting MacPorts take care of all the dependencies is much simpler.

BOb

[bizzybody]

Trying to change the titles on some mobi files and mobi2mobi isn't liking some of them, even though they work with Mobi reader on Windows and Kindle reader on Android.

The error I get is
bogus database name! is this really a PalmOS file? at Palm/PDB.pm line 537.

No, not a Palm file, especially not when it opens with the latest Kindle Reader app for Android which has broken PalmDOC support. (I've gone back to a slightly older version that's not as bloated and buggy.)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by bizzybody

No, not a Palm file, especially not when it opens with the latest Kindle Reader app for Android which has broken PalmDOC support.

A mobi file is still part of a Palm db container.

Some Amazon ebooks no longer have a Palm db name... mobi2mobi chokes on that when trying to change the title. Just use mobi2mobi to give it a Palm db name first. Then change the title.

[Boris4Perl]

Hello Tombe and others,

I'm planning to release a Perl-Module on CPAN (the Perl Module-Archive) which uses parts of MobiPerls code. This means that the code in EXTH.pm, MobiHeader.pm and Util.pm would be released on CPAN. Since MobiPerl is published under the GPL3, I assume that there is no problem with that. Still I would like to announce my plans here so that people are aware and maybe point out some issues I have not thought about. I myself would like to get in contact with the author of MobiPerl (which seems to be the user 'tombe'), but I don't know how busy or interested he is (I can assure that the main work for the CPAN module is done, and I'm not interested in any contact because of technical questions).

One technical task which I have not yet solved is the fact that MobiPerl brings along its own copy of the Palm module which actually is on CPAN. As far as I know the reason for this is, because some changes to this module are made. It would be very nice if this changes could go to the official Palm module (if this makes sense), so that the design on CPAN would be more clean, meaning no local copy of the Palm module. If somebody (e.g. tombe) can give any advice in that I would be grateful.

Regards
Boris

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Boris4Perl

Hello Tombe and others,

I'm planning to release a Perl-Module on CPAN (the Perl Module-Archive) which uses parts of MobiPerls code. This means that the code in EXTH.pm, MobiHeader.pm and Util.pm would be released on CPAN. Since MobiPerl is published under the GPL3, I assume that there is no problem with that. Still I would like to announce my plans here so that people are aware and maybe point out some issues I have not thought about. I myself would like to get in contact with the author of MobiPerl (which seems to be the user 'tombe'), but I don't know how busy or interested he is (I can assure that the main work for the CPAN module is done, and I'm not interested in any contact because of technical questions).

Sound OK to me. If you need to change the licence to something else just ask me. I have not big opinion about it being GPL3, GPL2 or some other similar licence.

One technical task which I have not yet solved is the fact that MobiPerl brings along its own copy of the Palm module which actually is on CPAN. As far as I know the reason for this is, because some changes to this module are made. It would be very nice if this changes could go to the official Palm module (if this makes sense), so that the design on CPAN would be more clean, meaning no local copy of the Palm module. If somebody (e.g. tombe) can give any advice in that I would be grateful.

Or you can just rename the modified Palm module. I actually do not remember why the changes had to be made. But the standard module did not work for some mobipocket files.

[bizzybody]

Originally Posted by Boris4Perl

Hello Tombe and others,

One technical task which I have not yet solved is the fact that MobiPerl brings along its own copy of the Palm module which actually is on CPAN. As far as I know the reason for this is, because some changes to this module are made. It would be very nice if this changes could go to the official Palm module (if this makes sense), so that the design on CPAN would be more clean, meaning no local copy of the Palm module. If somebody (e.g. tombe) can give any advice in that I would be grateful.

Regards
Boris

One change that would be welcome to the Palm module is a built in function to swap Unicode and UTF-8 characters for their identical extended ASCII equivalents for output to Mobi format. For English text there's no reason at all to be using Unicode but there's a ton of HTML e-books using it, especially for punctuation.

Anyone who needs a substitution list, I have one. I also have a program someone wrote to do substitutions of text strings in any plain text file. It's a bit buggy, can only handle a certain number of swapping pairs in its list. I have the C# source code if someone wants it.

[Boris4Perl]

Originally Posted by Boris4Perl

I'm planning to release a Perl-Module on CPAN (the Perl Module-Archive) which uses parts of MobiPerls code.

The module is done, and available on CPAN: https://metacpan.org/module/EBook::MOBI

I have not done any relevant changes to the code of MobiPerl, it is all included into the namespace, see EXTH.pm as an example: https://metacpan.org/module/EBook::MOBI::MobiPerl::EXTH

Please note that the module is only of benefit for Perl-Developers who want to convert POD to MOBI.
(Although it can also handle primitive HTML, see https://metacpan.org/module/EBook::MOBI::Mhtml2Mobi for what kind of HTML is supported)

It is not very likely that I will have time to code any special features, since I have the features I need. But one can always ask... or send me patches.

Regards... and Thanks for contributing MobiPerl!!!
Boris

[Peter 1977]

I would like to bring this to the attention of the forum. Although i have programmed before I dont feel capable of playing around with the gui or tools to improve this feature. Its certainly more of an issue since kindle 4 has come out and dictionary placement in the list as well as what language is used is automatic. This is based on language metadata for the book which you can already alter to a limited number of languages and dictionary in/out metadata which you cannot with the gui. If they dont publish books and languages appropriately it will not work.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...32#post1973432

[Ensonic]

Wanted to get Mobi2Mobi GUI to work, but the download link for the PERL / win32 source is dead. Can someone help me, perhaps with a working DL link?

[DiapDealer]

I'm keeping v0.0.43 of the Win32 mobiperl programs on my Google Drive for purposes of posterity/nostalgia.

Anyone is welcome to download them if they like.

Links to the individual executables:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5Cp...JzSHVScE0/edit
(clicking on File->Download will also allow you to download a zip archive that includes ALL the executables)

If this is something the original creator or the forum moderators would rather not take place ... just let me know (or feel free to remove the links).