Best of 2 worlds (CBR & ePub

sOnO · 03-10-2012, 03:38 AM

Hi all,

I'm looking for advices concerning eBooks management.
I do have 2 separate libraries:

A first one with CBR European and Japanese comics (I mean , not marvel style), organized by series name / volume / title (3.5K).
A second handling ePub books managed through Calibre (3K).

One of my objective is to use the nice calibre features to display ebooks and CRB on my iPhone. I also would like to use its embed metatada scraper (amazon & google) to retrieve missing comics metadata.

The real pain here is the Calibre's files management behavior... If i import my CR directories into Calibre, I would duplicate all my CBR. If I choose to keep only the Calibre version to fill comics metadata, I won't be able to use CR on the Calibre files system because I couldn't find any metadata transfer feature between both tools (therefore the comics organization within CR would be terrible).

The ideal situation would be to enhance both tools integration so that I can Import CBR into Calibre (retrieve metadata & use the great ebooks server to read both ePub and CBR on my device), but could also use CR on Calibre file system to use all nice CR display features.

If someone knows a how-to, I'll go for it. ^^

Thanks for your advices

sOnO

ilovejedd · 03-10-2012, 11:41 AM

Have you already tried using the metadata scrapers on Calibre to scrape for manga metadata? I've found it to be more of a miss rather than hit most times. You're better off sticking to Comic Rack for comics. What app are you using to read your manga anyway? CBR files don't support embedding metadata unless you count plain text readme.txt or info.txt supported by some comic readers.

theducks · 03-10-2012, 12:12 PM

I am going to ignore the fact you did not absorb the stickies in this section before posting.

Calibre does not do as well withe Periodical collections:

Mine is: Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Analog SF&F)

You can't use the Short name because all issues have the same name

That leaves a choice. The title must include a Tie Breaker.

You can include Volume#/Issue # with the title
That begs 2 (or more) questions: how to find a issue by date or odd date ranges, what happens if the numbering changes.

Analog is Monthly, Except... They publish a Yearly Double Issue (2 months in one volume(#)

that broke the volume=date method)

I use a mixture of Month# Year with the title to allow a sort (within the base title) by Month

Analog 07 1974
or
Analog 07-08 2003 <the double issue. It did not always exist in the early years

I chose title as the place to show the range naming because series indexes (numeric here) don't allow ranges or 3rd levels and I wanted the sort to work for Export as well)

I use the (Hierarchical) Series to allow grouping:
Analog SF and F[1974.07]
Analog SF and F[2003.07] The lower month. There is no 2003.08

The title allow grouping by Month in year order

I used Leading 0 Numeric Months to keep the sort in Month order.
April August December

01 02 12

All this leads to heavy Metadata editing and great difficulties in downloading metadata (my names do not match other sources known names. And those are really inconsistent anyway)

Be prepared for work

sOnO · 03-10-2012, 06:45 PM

Thanks for your answers

@theducks: I'm very sorry I didn't explain correctly what i was thinking about. Give me another chance.

I don't have periodical comics. That's the reason why i referred to "European" comics... like Tintin for example.
The great feature I love in Calibre is his webserver. I can choose from bed a book from my library and transfer it to my iPhone without turning on iTunes. When trying with comics, it proposes me to transfer the comic in my iPhone comic reader ComicZeal.

Today, all my CBR are managed in ComicRack because I love its native comic reader. But to have them available in the Calibre Webserver, I have to insert them all. At this point I would have All my CBR physically duplicated in 2 different files system. To avoid this situation, we could imagine having CR pointing on the Calibre File System... OK if CR could handle Calibre opf metadata into the file NTFS substream... Which is the main question. Workaround are ok if they do the trick (like a similar CR webserver, but it's also a solution I would like to avoid)

I didn't find any stickies on this subject, but I might have forget some of them.

@ilovejedd: I use the internal CR comic reader and ComicZeal on iPhone.

sOnO

theducks · 03-10-2012, 06:57 PM

The middle sticky approaches it from the side (in your case).
Calibre needs control of the files and can't guarantee that if the if they are at the mercy of other programs (or the user

)
Books Added or Removed must be don by Calibre to sychronise the DB with the files. Anything else will usually end a mess.

Tell your ComicRack to use the Calibre Library... It probably has the same problem.

Choose your poision... That is your best choice.

ilovejedd · 03-11-2012, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sOnO

The great feature I love in Calibre is his webserver. I can choose from bed a book from my library and transfer it to my iPhone without turning on iTunes. When trying with comics, it proposes me to transfer the comic in my iPhone comic reader ComicZeal.

Today, all my CBR are managed in ComicRack because I love its native comic reader. But to have them available in the Calibre Webserver, I have to insert them all. At this point I would have All my CBR physically duplicated in 2 different files system. To avoid this situation, we could imagine having CR pointing on the Calibre File System... OK if CR could handle Calibre opf metadata into the file NTFS substream... Which is the main question. Workaround are ok if they do the trick (like a similar CR webserver, but it's also a solution I would like to avoid)

If that's the only reason, then I suggest you keep using Comic Rack for your comics. It really is better suited for the task. If you're fine not having metadata information when browsing your comics, I suggest you use something like Rejetto HFS and add your Comic Rack folder to it (as Real Folder). It's a simple HTTP file server that would allow you to download your comics via web browser. Pretty basic but it works.

Comic Rack has a pretty nice Android app that integrates nicely with Comic Rack on Windows. Perhaps you can suggest that the developers create a similar app for iOS?

kovidgoyal · 03-11-2012, 01:08 AM

Note that you can use any viewer you like to view files in calibre. Just go to Preferences->Behavior and uncheck use internal viewer for cbr, then calibre will use whatever viewer is default for cbr in your OS.

micster · 11-11-2012, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Note that you can use any viewer you like to view files in calibre. Just go to Preferences->Behavior and uncheck use internal viewer for cbr, then calibre will use whatever viewer is default for cbr in your OS.

Thanks for that tip Kovid, I didn't realize that was possible and I have been wrestling with using Calibre or not because I thought I was tied to it's reader.

MTR · 12-21-2012, 11:51 AM

+1 on Calibre's flexibility with 'other' readers. I''m still partial to good old CDisplay as a light weight reader myself. CR failed for me precisely because it didn't have server functionality. I guess Calibre spoiled me (no complaints here

).

I've been 'testing' Calibre's server for comics use as well. With a limited selection it seems to work just fine. I'm now considering adding the rest of my collection as well as over 2000 work papers (document scans archived as cbz), but how will Calibre handle over 75GB in files?

theducks · 12-21-2012, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTR

+1 on Calibre's flexibility with 'other' readers. I''m still partial to good old CDisplay as a light weight reader myself. CR failed for me precisely because it didn't have server functionality. I guess Calibre spoiled me (no complaints here

).

I've been 'testing' Calibre's server for comics use as well. With a limited selection it seems to work just fine. I'm now considering adding the rest of my collection as well as over 2000 work papers (document scans archived as cbz), but how will Calibre handle over 75GB in files?

Calibre only copies the actual file to the Library folder.
The file size has no other impact on calibre storing a 100 byte file or a 5 Megabyte file
The quantity of books (line items) will start having impact after many thousands (fairly big number) of books. 2000 is a breeze

OTOH The Viewer will take longer to digest a big file

MTR · 12-21-2012, 03:46 PM

OK, I wasn't sure if it was just the # of items or that file size mattered as well. 2k items indeed is nothing compared to the rest of my library

. I probably will make a separate library for 'non-books' once I figure out exactly how to run multiple libraries/servers. I remember it being possible, just have to read up on it I guess.

03-10-2012, 03:38 AM	#1
sOnO Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: iPhone	Best of 2 worlds (CBR & ePub Hi all, I'm looking for advices concerning eBooks management. I do have 2 separate libraries: A first one with CBR European and Japanese comics (I mean , not marvel style), organized by series name / volume / title (3.5K). A second handling ePub books managed through Calibre (3K). One of my objective is to use the nice calibre features to display ebooks and CRB on my iPhone. I also would like to use its embed metatada scraper (amazon & google) to retrieve missing comics metadata. The real pain here is the Calibre's files management behavior... If i import my CR directories into Calibre, I would duplicate all my CBR. If I choose to keep only the Calibre version to fill comics metadata, I won't be able to use CR on the Calibre files system because I couldn't find any metadata transfer feature between both tools (therefore the comics organization within CR would be terrible). The ideal situation would be to enhance both tools integration so that I can Import CBR into Calibre (retrieve metadata & use the great ebooks server to read both ePub and CBR on my device), but could also use CR on Calibre file system to use all nice CR display features. If someone knows a how-to, I'll go for it. ^^ Thanks for your advices sOnO

03-10-2012, 12:12 PM	#3
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 30,896 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	I am going to ignore the fact you did not absorb the stickies in this section before posting. Calibre does not do as well withe Periodical collections: Mine is: Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Analog SF&F) You can't use the Short name because all issues have the same name That leaves a choice. The title must include a Tie Breaker. You can include Volume#/Issue # with the title That begs 2 (or more) questions: how to find a issue by date or odd date ranges, what happens if the numbering changes. Analog is Monthly, Except... They publish a Yearly Double Issue (2 months in one volume(#) that broke the volume=date method) I use a mixture of Month# Year with the title to allow a sort (within the base title) by Month Analog 07 1974 or Analog 07-08 2003 <the double issue. It did not always exist in the early years I chose title as the place to show the range naming because series indexes (numeric here) don't allow ranges or 3rd levels and I wanted the sort to work for Export as well) I use the (Hierarchical) Series to allow grouping: Analog SF and F[1974.07] Analog SF and F[2003.07] The lower month. There is no 2003.08 The title allow grouping by Month in year order I used Leading 0 Numeric Months to keep the sort in Month order. April August December 01 02 12 All this leads to heavy Metadata editing and great difficulties in downloading metadata (my names do not match other sources known names. And those are really inconsistent anyway) Be prepared for work Last edited by theducks; 03-10-2012 at 12:14 PM. Reason: Continued

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03-10-2012, 11:41 AM	#2
ilovejedd hopeless n00b Posts: 5,110 Karma: 19597086 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: in the middle of nowhere Device: PW4, PW3, Libra H2O, iPad 10.5, iPad 11, iPad 12.9	Have you already tried using the metadata scrapers on Calibre to scrape for manga metadata? I've found it to be more of a miss rather than hit most times. You're better off sticking to Comic Rack for comics. What app are you using to read your manga anyway? CBR files don't support embedding metadata unless you count plain text readme.txt or info.txt supported by some comic readers.

03-10-2012, 06:45 PM	#4
sOnO Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: iPhone	Thanks for your answers @theducks: I'm very sorry I didn't explain correctly what i was thinking about. Give me another chance. I don't have periodical comics. That's the reason why i referred to "European" comics... like Tintin for example. The great feature I love in Calibre is his webserver. I can choose from bed a book from my library and transfer it to my iPhone without turning on iTunes. When trying with comics, it proposes me to transfer the comic in my iPhone comic reader ComicZeal. Today, all my CBR are managed in ComicRack because I love its native comic reader. But to have them available in the Calibre Webserver, I have to insert them all. At this point I would have All my CBR physically duplicated in 2 different files system. To avoid this situation, we could imagine having CR pointing on the Calibre File System... OK if CR could handle Calibre opf metadata into the file NTFS substream... Which is the main question. Workaround are ok if they do the trick (like a similar CR webserver, but it's also a solution I would like to avoid) I didn't find any stickies on this subject, but I might have forget some of them. @ilovejedd: I use the internal CR comic reader and ComicZeal on iPhone. sOnO

03-10-2012, 06:57 PM	#5
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 30,896 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	The middle sticky approaches it from the side (in your case). Calibre needs control of the files and can't guarantee that if the if they are at the mercy of other programs (or the user ) Books Added or Removed must be don by Calibre to sychronise the DB with the files. Anything else will usually end a mess. Tell your ComicRack to use the Calibre Library... It probably has the same problem. Choose your poision... That is your best choice.

03-11-2012, 01:08 AM	#7
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,176 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Note that you can use any viewer you like to view files in calibre. Just go to Preferences->Behavior and uncheck use internal viewer for cbr, then calibre will use whatever viewer is default for cbr in your OS.

12-21-2012, 11:51 AM	#9
MTR Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-505/iPad/NC/RT	+1 on Calibre's flexibility with 'other' readers. I''m still partial to good old CDisplay as a light weight reader myself. CR failed for me precisely because it didn't have server functionality. I guess Calibre spoiled me (no complaints here ). I've been 'testing' Calibre's server for comics use as well. With a limited selection it seems to work just fine. I'm now considering adding the rest of my collection as well as over 2000 work papers (document scans archived as cbz), but how will Calibre handle over 75GB in files?

12-21-2012, 03:46 PM	#11
MTR Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-505/iPad/NC/RT	OK, I wasn't sure if it was just the # of items or that file size mattered as well. 2k items indeed is nothing compared to the rest of my library . I probably will make a separate library for 'non-books' once I figure out exactly how to run multiple libraries/servers. I remember it being possible, just have to read up on it I guess.