Calibre Companion 3 beta for Android released

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Strange. I just did a reboot to see if it would help, but it didn't. I wonder if anyone else with an original Nexus 7 has this problem. I am rooted, but have the stock rom and kernel. I am still on 4.2.2 though.

You definitely want 4.3 because it adds support for fstrim to run and helps clean-up/speed-up your ssd drive.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

So how's the Nexus 7 2013? I am waiting for the LTE version.

I like it. There have been a few random reboots. I think mostly due to the Scrabble App which after I installed it EA declared it incompatible with the new Nexus 7. And they are right a lot of features plain crash, but I still use it.

No more on the Nexus 7 since this is straying far off topic for this thread.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Did you try with the grouping drawer open or closed? I don't have a problem if the drawer is open, only if it's closed.

Open or closed, no difference. I think chaley still has the original Nexus 7, we'll have to wait for his input.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

You definitely want 4.3 because it adds support for fstrim to run and helps clean-up/speed-up your ssd drive.

I wonder if the 4.3 would help with this problem too. I am planning to upgrade this weekend so we'll see. I didn't upgrade right away so I wouldn't lose root and then other things just got in the way.

[chaley]

Thanks all.

I will respond to the many posts in order.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Grouping - can we get the grouping detail at the top of the page or somewhere? When I am grouped by tags for instance, I may not remember what tags I am looking at and don't want to have to slide back and forth to see what the tag is. The old grouping has what grouping you are in at the top and I find this very useful. I normally use my Nexus 7 in portrait view - in landscape I can see the grouping because the drawer stays open.

The old grouping scrolled off the top of the screen whenever you moved the list. You had to scroll back to get it back. It is much faster and does not require moving the book list to open the grouping drawer to see the grouping values.

Note that you can partially open the drawer by dragging. Not sure if that is better than fully opening it, but it is a possibility.

When I switched from portrait to landscape, the books stay on the shelves, but when I switched back to portrait there are no books or shelves until I touch the screen again. List view works properly here.

Although I can't repeat this on either of our personal N7s (old version), I can repeat it about 1/3 of the time on our Samsung Galaxy 10.1.

More below.

Cover grid view - I like it and I am getting seven covers across with portrait and four with square! I am also glad to see the choice for grey. The only problem is that every time I scroll up and down, I have to wait for the covers to appear no matter how many covers across I have. I left the cover size at normal.

On our Tab 10.1 with 5 rows of 5 covers, the covers paint in less than a second after flinging the view. It is finished before my eyes can stabilize on the screen. When scrolling, the books appear almost as fast as the rows appear. With 7 rows of 7 covers, it finishes in under 2 seconds, consistent with the per-cover time of the 5x5 display. It seems that it paints at around 30 covers per second.

It is slightly faster on my N7, tested with 6 rows of 7 covers.

Are you seeing slower paint times than this?

Regardless, memory constraints prevent us from caching covers in memory, and we already cache the covers in the database. There isn't a silver bullet here.

I see a problem that I had before and never mentioned still exists - I deleted a few custom columns in Calibre, but they are still in my book details after connecting wirelessly. I thought they would be removed.

This is a bug in calibre itself, which will be fixed in the new db code.

The problem: when you delete a column, the last modified time for the books is not updated. This means that CC doesn't see the changes, but more importantly means that the calibre backup OPF for the books is now wrong.

You can work around the problem by forcing a backup of the OPFs. In calibre, click on the down arrow on the library toolbar button, select "Library Maintenance" then Library metadata backup status. Push the "Queue all books for backup" button. This will correct the backup OPFs, and also change the last modified date so CC will see the changes on the next connect. Note that the backup can take a while. I think it does a book every 2 seconds.

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

This is a great idea when I select the Author Jane Austen it would be great (if possible) to have the view show Jane Austen next to the drawer icon vice Authors. Or if the Tag I selected is To Be Read, having the tag name vice the word Tags would be ideal. (obviously the same for series)

Will do this in the form "Tag: tag name" (or equivalent). Of course, for people with a phone (at least 50% of CC users) it won't be nearly as nice because of the lack of action bar real estate.

@chaley I experience a problem when switching between landscape and portrait in the grid view that I don't experience in the list view.

If I am in the middle of scrolling through a grid view accidentally shifting to landscape will cause the books to reset to the beginning, same is true changing back to portrait. Loosing your position does not happen if you are in list view.

I have changed this to use the same positioning rules as switching between grid and list view-- the book in the upper-left corner will be on the first row. I can't position exactly because the books move around on the bookshelves.

One side effect is that the grid view can gradually slide backwards up the book list. Reason: the upper-left corner book moves to the middle of the shelf, creating a new upper-left corner. Change orientation, and that new upper-left corner moves to the middle of the shelf, creating a new upper-left corner. Rinse and repeat.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I just did some further testing, and if I start out on landscape in grid view I can switch to portrait with no problem. If I then switch to landscape it's still ok, but if I then switch to portrait I get no books. The problem seems to happen when switching from portrait to landscape and then back to portrait again.

I (think I) have found the problem. There is a timing issue when switching orientations cause the drawer to change from always visible to slidable. Sometimes it totally lost track of the book list. I have a fix that in theory works, and in practice after 30 orientation changes seems to work.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Did you try with the grouping drawer open or closed? I don't have a problem if the drawer is open, only if it's closed.

It happens only when changing from drawers always open to the slideable drawer. In other words, on an N7 from landscape to portrait. And it is timing dependent, which must be why we haven't seen it on any of our N7s (I have two and Steven and Annie have one).

Open or closed, no difference. I think chaley still has the original Nexus 7, we'll have to wait for his input.

We have original N7s, all running 4.3.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

This is a bug in calibre itself, which will be fixed in the new db code.

The problem: when you delete a column, the last modified time for the books is not updated. This means that CC doesn't see the changes, but more importantly means that the calibre backup OPF for the books is now wrong.

Good to know you're on top of it. I did my test using the new backend, so the "bug" isn't fixed yet in the new code?

Originally Posted by chaley

You can work around the problem by forcing a backup of the OPFs. In calibre, click on the down arrow on the library toolbar button, select "Library Maintenance" then Library metadata backup status. Push the "Queue all books for backup" button. This will correct the backup OPFs, and also change the last modified date so CC will see the changes on the next connect. Note that the backup can take a while. I think it does a book every 2 seconds.

I'll give the work around a try, should only take 6 hours to complete.

Originally Posted by chaley

Will do this in the form "Tag: tag name" (or equivalent). Of course, for people with a phone (at least 50% of CC users) it won't be nearly as nice because of the lack of action bar real estate.

When you run out of real estate the old ... works wonders letting us know the space has run out. I wouldn't try to use multiple lines to fit things.

Originally Posted by chaley

I have changed this to use the same positioning rules as switching between grid and list view-- the book in the upper-left corner will be on the first row. I can't position exactly because the books move around on the bookshelves.

I think this will do nicely.

Originally Posted by chaley

I (think I) have found the problem. There is a timing issue when switching orientations cause the drawer to change from always visible to slidable. Sometimes it totally lost track of the book list. I have a fix that in theory works, and in practice after 30 orientation changes seems to work.

Excellent work.

I think we'll be running out of things to report or suggest soon (knock on wood).

BTW, my suggestion to be able to change background and font colors on the list view doesn't seem that important any longer.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Good to know you're on top of it. I did my test using the new backend, so the "bug" isn't fixed yet in the new code?

The fix was committed to source around an hour ago. We are now looking at some performance issues it exposed.

I'll give the work around a try, should only take 6 hours to complete.

Worked for me, so it has to work for you, right? Trust me ...

When you run out of real estate the old ... works wonders letting us know the space has run out. I wouldn't try to use multiple lines to fit things.

I thought of making a two-line action bar an option, then decided that would be overkill and confusing. People on phones can open the drawer.

I think we'll be running out of things to report or suggest soon (knock on wood).

I might ask Steven to build a beta 3 just to be sure that the two serious problems are fixed, the extra cover you pointed out and Purple Lady's orientation change problem.

BTW, my suggestion to be able to change background and font colors on the list view doesn't seem that important any longer.

Ohh, I like feature requests that go away.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by chaley

Worked for me, so it has to work for you, right? Trust me ...

I think I will trust you since it is minor and doesn't bother me in the least.

[DoctorOhh]

The third beta looks good.

I could not replicate my previously reported image anomaly. Switching between portrait and landscape in the cover grid now maintains its position. The Authors, Tags and Series now append what is selected in the closed (or open) drawer. It still connects fine and books transfer as expected.

Plus I finally have a cover large enough using the square box preserve aspect ratio setting that does not require me to wear my reading glasses.

[Purple Lady]

The third beta is looking good for me now too - I no longer see the orientation problem. Thanks for the grouping titles as well.

My screen doesn't seem to refresh as well as yours does Chaley. It's not a lot slower but I have a problem with the way it seems to make the screen flash as new books pop up. It's my problem with blinking things I think. I guess I expected it to be more like scrolling a web page - once things are finally downloaded, you can scroll up and down easily with no change to the page. I switched to medium thumbnails and scroll slower to help me not get disoriented from seeing the "blinking".

Thanks for the fixes.

[PatNY]

Charles ... The issue first reported by Purple Lady still exists on my device. See attached shots.

However, keep in mind I would never have even known about it had I not read this thread and tried to replicate it. It really doesn't impact me. I keep my device locked in portrait mode and only rarely (for games, movies) take it out of that orientation.

I just thought you might like to know.

I really like having the tag show in the grid view. It's easier than opening the drawer to see what tag it is. I was thinking of asking for something like this earlier but didn't want to be too greedy. Also, I could live without it, but it's nicer to have it there.

The large thumbs now show as larger than medium in square/AR mode. However since only 2 books fit across with this change I decided to stick with the medium-size thumbnails.

Thanks again for your receptive ear(s).

--Pat

[jackie_w]

In Cover view I can see spurious covers (number varies) after the last book in the bottom row. It only happens if I fling from top to bottom. One fling covers all 71 of my books. If I scroll more slowly it doesn't happen. No switching between Portrait/Landscape is necessary to reproduce. I can only make it happen when size is Med/Large, maybe because with Small they all fit on one screen and with Normal they still fit on <2 screens.

[Purple Lady]

I just encountered something that confused me at first. I was in a series grouping and changed the sorting to be by series. I then sorted by date(calibre). It ended up sorting by date(calibre) descending. I think this was because I had previously sorted by date(calibre) and when I choose the same sort a second time it switches it. I would have expected this if I hit the same sort choice twice in a row, but didn't expect it to switch if there was a different sort chosen in between.

It does the same thing in the current version on my phone. So do I count as one of the 50% of phone users since I have it on both phone and tablet?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I just encountered something that confused me at first. I was in a series grouping and changed the sorting to be by series. I then sorted by date(calibre). It ended up sorting by date(calibre) descending. I think this was because I had previously sorted by date(calibre) and when I choose the same sort a second time it switches it. I would have expected this if I hit the same sort choice twice in a row, but didn't expect it to switch if there was a different sort chosen in between.

It does the same thing in the current version on my phone. So do I count as one of the 50% of phone users since I have it on both phone and tablet?

Re phone users: yes. We can get statistics of installed devices. That statistic doesn't take into consideration who owns the device or how many devices a user owns.

I should also point out that the statistic really looks more like 35% are tablets, with 22% being original N7s. We don't know what is buried in the 50% "Other", so I made the arbitrary assumption that almost half of the "other" were tablets. I am probably wildly overstating the case, but who knows?

The statistics we can see are:

Google Nexus 7 (grouper)				21.64%
Samsung Galaxy Tab II 7.0 (espressowifi)		3.80%
Samsung Galaxy Tab II 10.1 (espresso10wifi)		3.59%
Samsung Galaxy S III (m0)				2.91%
Google Nexus 4 (mako)					2.32%
Google Nexus 10 (manta)					2.07%
Asus TF700T (TF700T)					2.02%
Barnes and Noble NOOK® HD+ (ovation)			2.02%
Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100)				1.84%
Others							57.79%

Re the sort: I don't see unexpected behavior. For example, I sort by title, see title ascending (expected) then I group by series. I see the series by title. I then sort by date(calibre) I see the books in descending date order, expected because all the dates sort descending by default. I then sort by series, and see the books in ascending series index order. I then sort by date(calibre) and I see the list again in descending date order. With these steps do you see something different?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

Re the sort: I don't see unexpected behavior. For example, I sort by title, see title ascending (expected) then I group by series. I see the series by title. I then sort by date(calibre) I see the books in descending date order, expected because all the dates sort descending by default. I then sort by series, and see the books in ascending series index order. I then sort by date(calibre) and I see the list again in descending date order. With these steps do you see something different?

Sorry, I must have confused myself with all the sorting I was doing. I think I was also used to using sort by date on my Sony to get a series in series order.

Btw, you can restore to the older version using Titanium Backup. I updated my phone to see if my orientation problem also existed there and I restored it to the previous version with no problem.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

Re phone users: yes. We can get statistics of installed devices. That statistic doesn't take into consideration who owns the device or how many devices a user owns.

I should also point out that the statistic really looks more like 35% are tablets, with 22% being original N7s. We don't know what is buried in the 50% "Other", so I made the arbitrary assumption that almost half of the "other" were tablets. I am probably wildly overstating the case, but who knows?

The statistics we can see are:

Google Nexus 7 (grouper)21.64%
Samsung Galaxy Tab II 7.0 (espressowifi)3.80%
Samsung Galaxy Tab II 10.1 (espresso10wifi)3.59%
Samsung Galaxy S III (m0)2.91%
Google Nexus 4 (mako)2.32%
Google Nexus 10 (manta)2.07%
Asus TF700T (TF700T)2.02%
Barnes and Noble NOOK® HD+ (ovation)2.02%
Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100)1.84%
Others57.79%

So no significant stats on Nexus 7 tilapia? That's what I have.

[DoctorOhh]

Since my new tablet has the space I went ahead and transferred my finished library of 9830 books to my tablet. Of course it makes the All by Author User collection a little impractical, but CC does handle that group without any noticeable slow down.