[GUI Plugin] Modify ePub

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Jon, as you are with jackets so am I with covers, the reason I first used Modify was to remove them. I like to have a jacket with all the metadata in the book, because the readers I have on my Tab are limited to displaying the DC elements only.

As I usually have some sort of net access, I look up any books I need/want to on Goodreads. I like to have my books as slim as possible. I find the jacket is just another page to have to move past.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Jon, as you are with jackets so am I with covers, the reason I first used Modify was to remove them. I like to have a jacket with all the metadata in the book, because the readers I have on my Tab are limited to displaying the DC elements only.

The two things I'm practically guaranteed to do on any book are hack the cover-page code and standardize the OPF metadata. I have my own template for both, and "fixing" the metadata usually involves going online to find the missing pieces. For instance, I love having the dc:description field populated with the publisher's blurb, in case I need a reminder, and I frequently have to change the text of the author's name from "Last, First" to "First Last" and add the opf:file-as="Last, First" attribute. I'm also funny about dc:identifier, in that I prefer for it to be the ISBN (where available) instead of a UUID, and I set all my series book titles to "Series X: Title" - where X is the place in the series, with a leading zero if necessary. That last mod is critical for me, as it keeps me organized. Then there are the CSS mods, where if the book uses something other than medium/default for the size of the main text, I go through and rescale everything.

I'd love to have a plugin that did all of that for me, but it's a complicated enough process that it requires human oversight.

[zephyrot]

@rev.bob.

Stupid question time:
If the goal is to avoid duplicates, because Calibre is making duplicate files, why not remove the Calibre-made files? That should be much easier to control.

I do want to delete files created by humans. I'm completely fine with calibre generated files. Calibre does it in the way I like, which is something I can't tell about humans

The two things I'm practically guaranteed to do on any book are hack the cover-page code and standardize the OPF metadata. I have my own template for both, and "fixing" the metadata usually involves going online to find the missing pieces. For instance, I love having the dc:description field populated with the publisher's blurb, in case I need a reminder, and I frequently have to change the text of the author's name from "Last, First" to "First Last" and add the opf:file-as="Last, First" attribute. I'm also funny about dc:identifier, in that I prefer for it to be the ISBN (where available) instead of a UUID, and I set all my series book titles to "Series X: Title" - where X is the place in the series, with a leading zero if necessary. That last mod is critical for me, as it keeps me organized. Then there are the CSS mods, where if the book uses something other than medium/default for the size of the main text, I go through and rescale everything.

Maybe you know already, but with "Last,First" books I use calibre bulk metadata editor to properly fix them. I do prefer also "First Last" as you. With the series, I was using Calibre Metadata Plugboards to add the series name and index to filenames when uploading files to my old reader. My new ereader does automatic collections with the series names, so now I only have to put the series index in the filename so they are sorted when I check the ereader library. Removing the series name from the filename was a good thing, there are crazy long series names out there (World of Darkness, I'm looking at you!).

@Terisa de morgan:

But the main point is: the removed file isn't "sobrecubierta" in English, but the standard name and extension (that's important: jacket.xhtml works, jacket.html doesn't) that calibre uses for including this jacket. You're not removing something which is a normal part of the book, but something calibre has added.

I agree with you. Certainly, "file names + extension" has to be properly set in the plugin. Thanks for pointing it out.
Poor Kiwidude, we are giving him lot of troubles

@BetterRed & Jswolf:

Jswolf: That would be a nice option to have Modidy ePub present us with a list of files in the ePub for us to select which ones we want removed and then they can be removed from the OPF and NCX ToC (if there).

I think you would need a page preview too, I just looked at an epub from PG, the file names give no clue as to what's in the file.

My personal taste is that "preview" or "file selection" windows would disturb you when processing many books at once, as you have to review one after another and not all books might have the same name for the offending files. Maybe you can use "calibre epub editor" or Sygil when adding one or two books at once. That's what I was doing before finding Kiwidude plugin.
But I do understand your points here.

Poor Kiwidude, indeed

[JSWolf]

Take a look at the EpubSplit plugin. It presents a list of all the XML files in a fairly usable way. It doesn't show the content, but if you really need to see, you could use Edit Book to double check before deleting.

[theducks]

The Quality Check Plugin will tell you which have jackets (or other stuff)

Why not run that first (apply a cleanup needed tag via bulk metadata edit)

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Take a look at the EpubSplit plugin. It presents a list of all the XML files in a fairly usable way. It doesn't show the content, but if you really need to see, you could use Edit Book to double check before deleting.

FYI, EpubSplit shows you the beginning of each (x)html file as a tooltip when you mouse over the file name.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

FYI, EpubSplit shows you the beginning of each (x)html file as a tooltip when you mouse over the file name.

I forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder.

[JSWolf]

I have a request for Modify ePub. I'd like to have an option to remove all Amazon media queries found in the CSS. This is ePub, we don't need them. Thanks.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I find the jacket is just another page to have to move past.

That's why I hacked Modify to put it at the back. Most of my metadata is created by me, sadly Goodreads don't feature 'books' published by BCG, McKinseys, ECB etc :lol:

BR

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

- I have a hacked version of Modify that puts the calibre jacket at the back of the book.

It would be nice if Modify had an option to put the jacket.xhtml after the titlepage.xhtml (as it does now) or as the last file in the book. I won't offer my hack - because it removes functionality that others undoubtedly use.

BR

Thank you, you have given me an idea. I'm going to do the first option and another for adding link to the toc.ncx. It it works, perhaps I'll go to the configuration route

[Francois_C]

I love the Modify ePub plug-in and use it very often, but I'd like to have an option in "Add/Replace Cover" that would prevent the cover from being stretched on my Kobo, so that a slim girl on a chick-lit book cover becomes an overweighted matron, for instance, that is, writing preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" instead of preserveAspectRatio="none" without using the Calibre editor afterwards.

Thanks.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Francois_C

I love the Modify ePub plug-in and use it very often, but I'd like to have an option in "Add/Replace Cover" that would prevent the cover from being stretched on my Kobo, so that a slim girl on a chick-lit book cover becomes an overweighted matron, for instance, that is, writing preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" instead of preserveAspectRatio="none" without using the Calibre editor afterwards.

Thanks.

Try setting Preserve cover aspect ratio in Preferences - Output Options - Epub output, see attached. I'm not sure but I think the Modify epub plugin respects this setting.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Try setting Preserve cover aspect ratio in Preferences - Output Options - Epub output, see attached. I'm not sure but I think the Modify epub plugin respects this setting.

From reading the code it does seem to respect that setting.

[theducks]

As does 'Polish'

[Francois_C]

Thanks, DoctorOhh.
It seems to work, but I did only one try, and maybe this was not an experimentum crucis:
I changed the Calibre output setting, then dropped an ODT source I made with a cover as first page, into the books list, converted it to epub, then dropped a new cover into the folder, and launched the plugin with only "Insert or change cover" checked, and the cover was "xMiYMid meet". I did not open the ebook editor before using the plugin, as it automatically reloads the new cover.jpg.