Can someone please help me understand cloud collections

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by cybmole

so will Amazon add that to my ~8 month old KF 9.8 HDX anytime soon ? , cos it's not there as at now.

I can put my apps into collections, but not my books ?

I had a HD6 yesterday and that did have collections. This is from the Amazon Cloud Collections page

"Cloud Collections are currently supported on Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX, Kindle for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and Kindle for Android. Previous Kindle devices and other reading apps currently do not support Cloud Collections, and any existing collections you created on those devices and reading apps will not change."

If you don't have collections maybe you need to ask Amazon why not?

[cybmole]

You are right, I'm wrong , I looked again at my KF books tab , googled it some, tapped the 3 bars icon... & do have a collections option. I don't recall seeing that when I first got the device - duh - & I read versions comments at amazon saying "ain't never gonna happen"

maybe it was in some recent upgrade & I missed it.

so how does it work- am I right in thinking that all books are still in the books folder, and the "collection" is a virtual tag, not a physical sub-folder.

do KF collections play nice with calibre ?

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I played with 'stars' for awhile, but don't like the way it looks, and it seemed to serve no purpose as far as giving quick access to the things currently being read, since you have to open them to access what's in them, an extra step.

The stars allow the collection folders to be shown in every view available, even none-collection views, i.e., All Items, Books, etc. There are two drop-down lists on the right side of the home screen at least 9 different options for content display. If the folders are unstarred they only show up under "Collections" on both drop down lists.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by cybmole

You are right, I'm wrong , I looked again at my KF books tab , googled it some, tapped the 3 bars icon... & do have a collections option. I don't recall seeing that when I first got the device - duh - & I read versions comments at amazon saying "ain't never gonna happen"

maybe it was in some recent upgrade & I missed it.

so how does it work- am I right in thinking that all books are still in the books folder, and the "collection" is a virtual tag, not a physical sub-folder.

do KF collections play nice with calibre ?

Yes your right in that the books will always be in books in list view but if you move them into collections and view the collections tab you will only see the collections.

And no no Kindle collections place nice with Calibre anymore

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

And no no Kindle collections place nice with Calibre anymore

I know. I hate that!

[cybmole]

thanks, well in theory it shoudl be possible to decode / reverse engineer how kindle fire tags books as belong to a collection, & then for a 3rd party program to help manage that - unless the tags are stored somewhere that requires root / privileged access ?

[summerdown]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Starred collections are local to the device for viewing on the home screen. For example DH and I have 35 collections between us. He sees 20 and I see 4 with the rest hidden away from view. The only time we see them is when we add new books into a collection or move existing books around during add/remove.

I think starred collections are still in the cloud, though. It gives me an error about not being able to sync, every time I try to add something to them.

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by summerdown

I think starred collections are still in the cloud, though. It gives me an error about not being able to sync, every time I try to add something to them.

You have to select and star your local collections, too. The sync error is about samples or docs.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by summerdown

I think starred collections are still in the cloud, though. It gives me an error about not being able to sync, every time I try to add something to them.

All collections are stored in the cloud and any changes you make will be replicated on any other device or app which uses Cloud Collections, however the stars are used to determine what collections a particular Kindle wants to see on its home screen when All Items are selected in the middle tab and Collections in the right tab.

If you select Collections in the middle tab then ALL collections are displayed on the home screen.

[summerdown]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

All collections are stored in the cloud and any changes you make will be replicated on any other device or app which uses Cloud Collections, however the stars are used to determine what collections a particular Kindle wants to see on its home screen when All Items are selected in the middle tab and Collections in the right tab.

That's what I suspected. It's a pity, because I really wanted local-only collections.

I raised the problem with Amazon, though (particularly the thing about having so many error messages in airplane mode) and got a nice email saying the rep had raised it at their local meeting, they are aware of it and working on it.

[speedlever]

Very good info folks. Now I know why my K3 collections did not come across as a mirror to my PW2.

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by speedlever

Very good info folks. Now I know why my K3 collections did not come across as a mirror to my PW2.

It's confusing at first, also, if you wait a while between Paperwhites it's easy to forget exactly how things are situated.

[Josieb1]

I always use my iPad to create and manage collections then let it sync, then sync my Paperwhite. It's just easier that way asthe app has much better functionality.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I always use my iPad to create and manage collections then let it sync, then sync my Paperwhite. It's just easier that way asthe app has much better functionality.

I always my paperwhite for collection management because it
1. easily identifies which books are not in any collections
2. it allows me to select multiple books at a time
3. it allows me to search for books and use that search to add/remove books into collections.

Does the iOs do this? I will have to play with the kindle app on my ipod to see which is easiest and quickest to use. I just know for sure the Fire is not the one for me when it comes to managing collections.