[GUI Plugin] Count Pages - Page 46

Ripplinger · 11-04-2014, 08:58 PM

Is there a setting I'm missing so that the plugin will just add the page and word counts without the additional popup box that you need to click OK for each book where it says "Count Complete, Proceed with updating columns..."?

theducks · 11-04-2014, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

Is there a setting I'm missing so that the plugin will just add the page and word counts without the additional popup box that you need to click OK for each book where it says "Count Complete, Proceed with updating columns..."?

No. You must do the confirmation to prevent DB access clashes.

But you can queue 1 or 42 books at a time, still only 1 confirmation per batch.

AnotherCat · 11-04-2014, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theducks

No. You must do the confirmation to prevent DB access clashes...

That response infers that the user knows if there are access clashes or not and the application does not

.

So how does the user know when there are no clashes and so safe for them to hit "OK", and why does the application not know all by itself if there are any clashes or not?

If the application does know (which one would assume is the case) then why can it not automatically implement the action, at the completion of the count, that would otherwise follow the hitting of the "OK" button? Or is there some limitation in the plugins' API or Python that prevents files being rewritten without user sanction (which would be a surprise) even though the user's knowledge regarding whether it is safe to do so or not would appear to me to be non-existent.

It has seemed to me that apparently redundant "OK" buttons appear with a number of plugins e.g. Modify Epub.

Ripplinger · 11-04-2014, 11:13 PM

Ah, got the reasoning behind it, thanks for the info.

And I'd bet anything I never waited for the current jobs to finish and I just clicked that button OK, and it just increased the job count by 1 more if I remember. I'll have to purposely try forcing that situation and see if that's really what happens.

kiwidude · 11-05-2014, 09:42 AM

@anotherCat - it is pretty clear you are not a developer.

The point of the confirmations are that at the end of the day the library for integrity reasons can only have one action being performed on it at a time. This is a combination of the file system that books are stored in and the actual database that stores your library metadata.

You cant run the risk of having two simultaneous actions taking place that result in a conflict that potentially leaves either in a corrupted state. What if you were renaming the author at the same time as a plugin tries to write a new version of the epub into the folder? The action to move books into a new folder from the authot rename, and the action to write the book file are independent of each other, and depending on whether one completes first (or indeed both try at the same time) you get any number of potential problems happen. Like the new version of the epub gets written to the old (now orphaned) folder for that book. Or the book move fails because the file is in use because it is currently being written to. Or any number of other problems that leave you in a right messy state.

So the simplest solution is to prevent those two conflicting actions from occurring at the same time. And the way this is done is by the mere fact that by forcing the user to click ok on the button, control is not returned to you as a user until the action that the confirmation wants to perform is completed. This guarantees the plugin has exclusive access to your library to do its work without fear of conflicts.

So no the buttons are not "redundant". I do agree that they are something it would be nice to avoid, but I cant guarantee that the user will not do something "dumb" at the same time as the plugin tries to do its ing that results in some nasty errors in calibre. In the case of page counts, what happens if you do a page count, then delete the book before you do the confirmation for instance. Or delete or rename the custom column? There are just too many things that "could" have nasty consequences and potentially resulting in calibre crashes, which noone is happy about a plugin causing.

Sure people could swear black and blue that they would never do any sort of conflicting action (that they know of) but that 1 in x chance that someone does could have such dire consequences it is not worth the risk.

The one proviso I will add is that these plugins were written a long time ago, and calibre has moved on since then. Perhaps Kovid now has other protection available via the code to offer an alternative to the prompts, certainly there was not back then and this was the standard pattern every plugin that manipulated the calibre library in this sort of way followed...

AnotherCat · 11-05-2014, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@anotherCat - it is pretty clear you are not a developer......

No I am not a developer and have not claimed to be so I wonder why you are wanting to point that out.

However, I have managed some very big complex technology projects of values >$100millions and have had my own employees seconded into one of the worlds largest defence contractors as the client's software engineer contributors to the development. I am used to searching for reasons when software engineers claim something cannot be done and have often enough led them to discovering clues for themselves as to resolving issues in software through that questioning.

So, if I were to be of the same dismissive mindset (I am not) I could perhaps echo your own words along the lines of "it is pretty clear you have not managed large complex development projects". But I am in no position to know your background and make assumptions about it, just as you are in no position to make such judgements about mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwidude

...The one proviso I will add is that these plugins were written a long time ago, and calibre has moved on since then. Perhaps Kovid now has other protection available via the code to offer an alternative to the prompts, certainly there was not back then and this was the standard pattern every plugin that manipulated the calibre library in this sort of way followed...

So you see, it seems you are now saying it may be possible - just not as you believe the code now is. Perhaps it is too much work, I realise the resource constraints, or perhaps it would turn out that it is not possible, but none of those things disqualify me from asking the questions I did nor be deserving of a dismissive response as your first line.

kiwidude · 11-06-2014, 03:31 AM

Sometimes I wonder why I bother replying. Good grief. Whatever dude. You pissed me off with your "redundant" comment above and all this "would be a surprise" nonsense, making it sound like I had no clue what I was doing. Hence why you got the first line back. If I was really being dismissive I wouldn't have wasted the next 10 minutes writing the rest of the technical explanation as to why the plugin is the way it is.

Don't bother replying, MobileRead has a marvellous feature that allows me to be "truly" dismissive.

stevenlebeau · 11-12-2014, 01:48 AM

Fantastic plug-in!

I had an idea for a feature: Would it be possible to list the number of *unique* words, i.e., so you can see how many actual different words are in a book? I'm currently learning German, and I have a bunch of children's ebooks, with varying levels of vocabulary. If I could go through them from the most limited vocabulary to the largest, I think it'd be awesome. It'd be great for other language learners as well, and also be very telling about which writers use the most verbal variety.

BetterRed · 11-12-2014, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevenlebeau

Fantastic plug-in!

I had an idea for a feature: Would it be possible to list the number of *unique* words, i.e., so you can see how many actual different words are in a book? I'm currently learning German, and I have a bunch of children's ebooks, with varying levels of vocabulary. If I could go through them from the most limited vocabulary to the largest, I think it'd be awesome. It'd be great for other language learners as well, and also be very telling about which writers use the most verbal variety.

For EPUB and AZW it already exists. The Spellchecker in the calibre editor (press 't' on a book) can list all the different words in a book with counts of each, and there's a Filter feature - so list words with 'strasse'.

BR

theducks · 11-12-2014, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

For EPUB and AZW it already exists. The Spellchecker in the calibre editor (press 't' on a book) can list all the different words in a book with counts of each, and there's a Filter feature - so list words with 'strasse'.

BR

BR
Sigil's spell checker will show (also can be sorted) those also. Just tick the box at the bottom of the list.

Lots of ways to reach the destination

BetterRed · 11-12-2014, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theducks

BR
Sigil's spell checker will show (also can be sorted) those also. Just tick the box at the bottom of the list.

Lots of ways to reach the destination

But why would I send someone off to use, and maybe install, Sigil when what they want is available in calibre. I'm pretty sure the OP has calibre installed, because he/she popped their question in a calibre plug-in thread.

I can't think of anything in the Sigil word list that's not the calibre list - but there are things in the calibre list that are not in the Sigil list - numeric 'words', language, case sensitive filtering and clearer indication of misspellings are a few I can see.

BTW I use the Sigil spell checker because it is (was maybe, haven't checked in recent times) significantly faster when using large dictionaries.

Anyway the OP can decide - attaching a side-by-side comparison - the great Sigil v Calibre word list shoot-out

BR

theducks · 11-12-2014, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Anyway the OP can decide - attaching a side-by-side comparison

BR

Just tossing in OPTIONS

I use both editors, because they both (currently) offer different features

stevenlebeau · 11-12-2014, 06:26 PM

That's great, but what if I want to sort my book collection by NDW (Number of different words)? I want to read the books in my target language with the least amount of vocabulary first, and then move up to books with more lexical diversity later. I'd have to do that 't' thing for hundreds of ebooks and then manually add the data to a custom column. Is there a way to automate the process?

BetterRed · 11-12-2014, 07:57 PM

@stevenlebeau - counting unique words is probably not enough, you need something like the FK and GF Readability Indices PI already has, but for German - here's a paper I found on that ==>> Readability Classiﬁcation for German using lexical, syntactic, and morphological features

You could hack the PI source to add more indices - the source is in the ZIP.

If you're reading standard student texts there could be an external source that has something you can grab via a metadata download PI. The German language is regulated by the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, so they may have something, or you could try your local branch of Goethe-Institut.

BR

stevenlebeau · 11-12-2014, 08:11 PM

It's a crude metric for sure, but I think it'll still be beneficial.

I thought about hacking the source code and adding the code to do this myself, but was hoping to avoid it. I've programmed quite a bit in Python, but I've only ever done command-line stuff, and never anything with significant OO.

I'll look at the source code and see if I can figure something out, though.

11-06-2014, 03:31 AM	#682
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,733 Karma: 2197770 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	Sometimes I wonder why I bother replying. Good grief. Whatever dude. You pissed me off with your "redundant" comment above and all this "would be a surprise" nonsense, making it sound like I had no clue what I was doing. Hence why you got the first line back. If I was really being dismissive I wouldn't have wasted the next 10 minutes writing the rest of the technical explanation as to why the plugin is the way it is. Don't bother replying, MobileRead has a marvellous feature that allows me to be "truly" dismissive. Last edited by kiwidude; 11-06-2014 at 04:17 AM.

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11-04-2014, 08:58 PM	#676
Ripplinger 350 Hoarder Posts: 3,574 Karma: 8281267 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Midwest USA Device: Sony PRS-350, Kobo Glo & Glo HD, PW2	Is there a setting I'm missing so that the plugin will just add the page and word counts without the additional popup box that you need to click OK for each book where it says "Count Complete, Proceed with updating columns..."?

11-04-2014, 11:13 PM	#679
Ripplinger 350 Hoarder Posts: 3,574 Karma: 8281267 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Midwest USA Device: Sony PRS-350, Kobo Glo & Glo HD, PW2	Ah, got the reasoning behind it, thanks for the info. And I'd bet anything I never waited for the current jobs to finish and I just clicked that button OK, and it just increased the job count by 1 more if I remember. I'll have to purposely try forcing that situation and see if that's really what happens.

11-05-2014, 09:42 AM	#680
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,733 Karma: 2197770 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	@anotherCat - it is pretty clear you are not a developer. The point of the confirmations are that at the end of the day the library for integrity reasons can only have one action being performed on it at a time. This is a combination of the file system that books are stored in and the actual database that stores your library metadata. You cant run the risk of having two simultaneous actions taking place that result in a conflict that potentially leaves either in a corrupted state. What if you were renaming the author at the same time as a plugin tries to write a new version of the epub into the folder? The action to move books into a new folder from the authot rename, and the action to write the book file are independent of each other, and depending on whether one completes first (or indeed both try at the same time) you get any number of potential problems happen. Like the new version of the epub gets written to the old (now orphaned) folder for that book. Or the book move fails because the file is in use because it is currently being written to. Or any number of other problems that leave you in a right messy state. So the simplest solution is to prevent those two conflicting actions from occurring at the same time. And the way this is done is by the mere fact that by forcing the user to click ok on the button, control is not returned to you as a user until the action that the confirmation wants to perform is completed. This guarantees the plugin has exclusive access to your library to do its work without fear of conflicts. So no the buttons are not "redundant". I do agree that they are something it would be nice to avoid, but I cant guarantee that the user will not do something "dumb" at the same time as the plugin tries to do its ing that results in some nasty errors in calibre. In the case of page counts, what happens if you do a page count, then delete the book before you do the confirmation for instance. Or delete or rename the custom column? There are just too many things that "could" have nasty consequences and potentially resulting in calibre crashes, which noone is happy about a plugin causing. Sure people could swear black and blue that they would never do any sort of conflicting action (that they know of) but that 1 in x chance that someone does could have such dire consequences it is not worth the risk. The one proviso I will add is that these plugins were written a long time ago, and calibre has moved on since then. Perhaps Kovid now has other protection available via the code to offer an alternative to the prompts, certainly there was not back then and this was the standard pattern every plugin that manipulated the calibre library in this sort of way followed...

11-12-2014, 01:48 AM	#683
stevenlebeau Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2014 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Fantastic plug-in! I had an idea for a feature: Would it be possible to list the number of unique words, i.e., so you can see how many actual different words are in a book? I'm currently learning German, and I have a bunch of children's ebooks, with varying levels of vocabulary. If I could go through them from the most limited vocabulary to the largest, I think it'd be awesome. It'd be great for other language learners as well, and also be very telling about which writers use the most verbal variety.

11-12-2014, 06:26 PM	#688
stevenlebeau Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2014 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	That's great, but what if I want to sort my book collection by NDW (Number of different words)? I want to read the books in my target language with the least amount of vocabulary first, and then move up to books with more lexical diversity later. I'd have to do that 't' thing for hundreds of ebooks and then manually add the data to a custom column. Is there a way to automate the process?

11-12-2014, 07:57 PM	#689
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 21,881 Karma: 30277270 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	@stevenlebeau - counting unique words is probably not enough, you need something like the FK and GF Readability Indices PI already has, but for German - here's a paper I found on that ==>> Readability Classiﬁcation for German using lexical, syntactic, and morphological features You could hack the PI source to add more indices - the source is in the ZIP. If you're reading standard student texts there could be an external source that has something you can grab via a metadata download PI. The German language is regulated by the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, so they may have something, or you could try your local branch of Goethe-Institut. BR

11-12-2014, 08:11 PM	#690
stevenlebeau Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2014 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	It's a crude metric for sure, but I think it'll still be beneficial. I thought about hacking the source code and adding the code to do this myself, but was hoping to avoid it. I've programmed quite a bit in Python, but I've only ever done command-line stuff, and never anything with significant OO. I'll look at the source code and see if I can figure something out, though.