[GUI Plugin] Reading List

[Debby]

Please forgive my ignorance if this is obvious…..is it possible to use this with Stanza on an ipad? When I plug in the ipad it is not seen as a device. Should I create a list and then use the Calibre server?

Thank you!

[itimpi]

There is no way (as far as I know) to integrate Calibre with any iOS based reading app except iBooks.

[underdunne]

Hi all,

Noob question here. I can't load the plugin. I'm running calibre ver0.8.38 on ubuntu 12.04 and below is the error message
calibre, version 0.8.38
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>AttributeError</b>:'module' object has no attribute 'ReadingListAction'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/preferences/plugins.py", line 313, in add_plugin
self.check_for_add_to_toolbars(plugin)
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/preferences/plugins.py", line 401, in check_for_add_to_toolbars
plugin_action = plugin.load_actual_plugin(self.gui)
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/customize/__init__.py", line 543, in load_actual_plugin
ac = getattr(importlib.import_module(mod), cls)(gui,
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'ReadingListAction'

[kiwidude]

Welcome to MobileRead.

Did you remember to restart calibre after installing the plugin?

[underdunne]

Thanks for the welcome.
Yes I did, got that error message when trying to add the plugin. Panic over, rebooted in windows, redownloaded. installed and working fine. Happy days

[darkmiss]

Hello kiwidude,

I'm quite a newbie to all things eBooks and I just discovered this great plugin. I have a basic question: is it possible to create a custom column that will show me if a book is on a reading list? Probably it has to be one column for every list, right?
If yes, how can I do this?
I am sorry if this is a stupid question, but I am a total beginner with Calibre and only managed to edit Metatags and sync lists to my device up to now and I don't understand the concept of custom columns. Everybody here seems to have much more indepth knowledge about these things, so maybe someone can point me the right way

[kiwidude]

@darkmiss - welcome to MobileRead.

Definitely not a stupid question and yes you can certainly do that. Whether you have one or multiple columns is up to you - it is possible to do it in a single column if you want to. Think of the "tags" column in calibre - if you gave each list its own unique tag value, then you can see the combined result in the tags column.

Using a custom column is fundamentally no different - you could create a column which allows storing multiple values like tags does, or you could create a single yes/no column per list, or you could create a single text value column per list. It is entirely up to you.

As to the mechanics of creating a custom column, you might find this blog post useful if you are new to them - they are a wonderful feature of calibre. Once you have your column setup, it is just a case of going into the Reading List plugin configuration and for each list setting the column name you want to update, the value you want to put into it.

[darkmiss]

Thanks for the help, I worked it out. Calibre has so many great features and your plugins make it even more powerful.

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Add a create_list function to the internal API for use by other plugins
• Add further refresh_screen overloads to the API functions and improve command line testability

Nothing functionally different in this update. The changes were essential to support an upcoming Import List plugin - see the discussion thread with screenshots.

[gwe]

This plugin has been very helpful.

I have a couple of computers that are running calibre but share the same library across my network. Is there any way to share the reading list on each system?

for example:

If I am working on my laptop and save a book to my reading list I have to remember to also save it on my PC so the lists stay in sync.

Thanks for the help

Gordon

[kiwidude]

@gwe - the lists are stored in the "Reading list.json" file in your plugins subfolder (Preferences -> Misc -> Open calibre configuration directory).

Other than manually syncing that file between your machines the only other suggestion I have is to make sure that calibre configuration folder is in a network location that can be shared by the two machines. Then alter the CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY environment variable on the machines to point to that new location. Note that just like sharing a library you would have to be careful to not have calibre open on both machines at once if you do this, and it will share *all* of your settings which may not be desirable. For instance if things like dialog positions are serialized you might have issues when you try to open on your smaller laptop screen etc.

Just like calibre isn't designed to be used from multiple machines, neither are plugin settings I'm afraid. The only other possibility is to change the plugins to store their settings in the library itself - though there are always some settings/plugins that work across libraries, and people who "rebuild" libraries would lose all their plugin data too. There are performance implications of putting the data into calibre's library, and there may not even be an appropriate place in the library structure to put it.

These are the "hard" questions that I avoided by storing the list data locally outside of the database. However with Kovid making efforts to rewrite the calibre back-end for multi-user use I can forsee you are not going to be the last person to hit this issue. So for this particular plugin I think I need to change the design to support this - I'll take the technical questions I have around that to the Development forum rather than this thread...

[Firedancer885]

Hi,

I don't know if my problem is a Calibre one or a plugin one, so I'm asking here. For some reason the Reading List menu won't display itself. It's an intermittent problem, sometimes it displays sometimes not. And when it doesn't show up, it's still there, just "invisible". I have an icon in the secondary toolbar and a submenu in the books local menu. Both show the problem. I can't recreate the bug, because I don't know why it happens. A Calibre restart solves the problem for a while. "Reading List" is the only plugin that's affected, that's why I think it's a plugin problem, and not a calibre one. I use Ubuntu 12.04 and the latest Calibre and plugin. I've updated both calibre and the plugin since the problem first appeared, it's still there. Can you help?

[kiwidude]

Let me guess... sometimes you have your device plugged in, and sometimes you don't... there are different toolbars for each mode of calibre, go to Preferences -> Toolbars and make sure you have the plugin on all the relevant ones of interest. It has caught many users out

[Firedancer885]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Let me guess... sometimes you have your device plugged in, and sometimes you don't... there are different toolbars for each mode of calibre, go to Preferences -> Toolbars and make sure you have the plugin on all the relevant ones of interest. It has caught many users out

Nope Not a toolbar problem. I very rarely plug my SGT into the laptop. I use the calibre server set up on my laptop to transfer books through my home network.
The icon is always there. When I click it, the popup menu won't display properly. It can't be seen, but it's there, and the items are still clickable. And once it disappears it remains invisible until I restart Calibre. (Sorry, I'm not a native english speaker.)
I put the icon of the plugin into the "optional second toolbar" and the "context menu for the books in the Calibre library". Those won't change when a device is connected.

[kiwidude]

What happens if you rearrange your toolbar to put some other menu in that place. or if you add another plugin with a menu. Do they all have this issue or is it specific to this one particular plugin? Certainly no-one else has reported an issue with this plugin and there are linux users of it out there. At a guess I would blame some library/OS specific issue on your machine, but linux really isn't my thing nor will it ever be.