Collections question

goldberry · 08-31-2012, 08:17 PM

My wife uses the Kindle and recently started setting up collections.

She finds them confusing as the books she put into the collection also stays in her general list. She thinks this is defeating the purpose the book being in 2 places.

I don't read a lot of books and use my Nook color for what I read so only load what I want at a time whereas she has hundreds on the Kindle.

Any suggestions on what others do to keep organized. I don't mess with her kindle except to load books from calibre so have no clue how collections work or are supposed to work.

pidgeon92 · 08-31-2012, 10:07 PM

If she sorts by collection - instead of by title or author - the books will only appear in the collections.

goldberry · 08-31-2012, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

If she sorts by collection - instead of by title or author - the books will only appear in the collections.

Peace again. Thank you she is quite happy, going to make more collections up.

HarryT · 09-01-2012, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldberry

Peace again. Thank you she is quite happy, going to make more collections up.

It's worth bearing in mind that a collection is not a folder, but simply a "tag" - a "label" - that's applied to a book. You can attach multiple tags to a file, but there will still only be one copy of the book on your Kindle. When you go into a collection, the Kindle is showing you a list of all the books that have that particular tag.

ihor · 09-01-2012, 07:34 PM

I suggest you to look at this application
http://www.kindlecollectionmanager.com/

I am using it, and I am very happy.

goldberry · 09-02-2012, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ihor

I suggest you to look at this application
http://www.kindlecollectionmanager.com/

I am using it, and I am very happy.

Thanks I will keep it in mind. Trouble is my wife would have trouble using a program such as that so it would just fall back on me to deal with it and right now things are simple. She is having a happy time organizing her collections on the Kindle. Time consuming but doing it all herself and proud.

RainingLemur · 09-03-2012, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

If she sorts by collection - instead of by title or author - the books will only appear in the collections.

I had to find this one out the hard way. Haha.

I had the same issue, until I saw the "sort by" happily teasing me.

SampleAndy · 10-27-2012, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's worth bearing in mind that a collection is not a folder, but simply a "tag" - a "label" - that's applied to a book. You can attach multiple tags to a file, but there will still only be one copy of the book on your Kindle. When you go into a collection, the Kindle is showing you a list of all the books that have that particular tag.

Harry, I hope you can clear this up for me. Reading through some of the other threads here, and exploring the directory tree on the Kindle, I've found out there is a file named collections.json. Opening it up in TextPad (free plug intended) I see that it has a list of all the collections, and theoretically the book ID number for each of the items within the book. Is this file something that's used to tag the files as you've described them, some leftover from Collection Manager, or something else that I can't imagine at this point. :-s

I guess I could do a factory reset, make a collection and see if the file turns up, but even if it did, I'm not sure what that would prove.

Thanks, guy.

NiLuJe · 10-27-2012, 05:50 PM

@SampleAndy: It's not a leftover at all, it's what the Kindle actually *uses* as the database backend to store/read the collections (at least on FW 2.5 to 4.x).

SampleAndy · 10-29-2012, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@SampleAndy: It's not a leftover at all, it's what the Kindle actually *uses* as the database backend to store/read the collections (at least on FW 2.5 to 4.x).

NiLuJe, thanks for responding. This is all pretty much a brand new world to me. Do you have any recommendations as to how to get started? I'm not a wannabe hacker, at least not yet. I'm still trying to figure out how things are supposed to work before I decide whether or not I like them. ;-)

I wonder if you have any thoughts on THIS post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...0&postcount=22

The whole thread is here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...60#post2281160

Thanks again.

NiLuJe · 10-29-2012, 01:46 PM

@SampleAndy: We're not quite sure how/when Amazon backups collections on eInk devices, so, yeah, the 'Import from another device' feature can seem a bit wonky, at times. You might have better success using K4PC/K4Mac as the 'source' (or not, never played with that

).

If you simply want to 'clone' collections from/to a non-touch (K2/3/4) Kindle, if both use the exact same content (meaning same metadata/exact same path for sideloaded content), you can simply copy the collections.json file from one to the other. A restart later on the target device, and voilà

.

That said, I'm (like a good deal of people), personally using this fantastic Calibre plugin, so I can't speak for any other tools

.

08-31-2012, 08:17 PM	#1
goldberry Groupie Posts: 199 Karma: 1105816 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindles (wife's), now obsolete Nook and Sony	Collections question My wife uses the Kindle and recently started setting up collections. She finds them confusing as the books she put into the collection also stays in her general list. She thinks this is defeating the purpose the book being in 2 places. I don't read a lot of books and use my Nook color for what I read so only load what I want at a time whereas she has hundreds on the Kindle. Any suggestions on what others do to keep organized. I don't mess with her kindle except to load books from calibre so have no clue how collections work or are supposed to work.

10-29-2012, 01:46 PM	#11
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,506 Karma: 26047190 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	@SampleAndy: We're not quite sure how/when Amazon backups collections on eInk devices, so, yeah, the 'Import from another device' feature can seem a bit wonky, at times. You might have better success using K4PC/K4Mac as the 'source' (or not, never played with that ). If you simply want to 'clone' collections from/to a non-touch (K2/3/4) Kindle, if both use the exact same content (meaning same metadata/exact same path for sideloaded content), you can simply copy the collections.json file from one to the other. A restart later on the target device, and voilà . That said, I'm (like a good deal of people), personally using this fantastic Calibre plugin, so I can't speak for any other tools . Last edited by NiLuJe; 10-29-2012 at 01:50 PM.

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08-31-2012, 10:07 PM	#2
pidgeon92 Wizard Posts: 3,144 Karma: 8426142 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Device: Kindle PW2, Kindle Voyage, Kindle DXG, Boox M90, Kobo Aura HD	If she sorts by collection - instead of by title or author - the books will only appear in the collections.

09-01-2012, 07:34 PM	#5
ihor Enthusiast Posts: 43 Karma: 42986 Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Lviv, Ukraine Device: Kindle DX Graphite	I suggest you to look at this application http://www.kindlecollectionmanager.com/ I am using it, and I am very happy.

10-27-2012, 05:50 PM	#9
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,506 Karma: 26047190 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	@SampleAndy: It's not a leftover at all, it's what the Kindle actually uses as the database backend to store/read the collections (at least on FW 2.5 to 4.x).