X-Ray Builder - Windows Application

[stoduk]

Do you get email notification for this thread? I got notification of the first update after subscribing, but seen nothing since..

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

Weird, that's usually the error when you didn't extract the dll when you got the app. I'm assuming it was unzipped and in place?

Yes, the DLL was there in the directory with the app. Installing the framework fixed it, so I assume that is the right place for the DLL to be..

No measurements were done, but when I was testing with Song of Ice and Fire books, the app was pretty quick and the plugin was ungodly slow. The slowness from Shelfari seems normal for whatever reason (coming from Canada with a quick connection). Caching seems like a good idea, how long are you keeping the cached content?

Cache was probably over selling it - I've just curl'd the file and have hacked the script to use it instead of fetching it each time. Very useful when ironing out bugs, but not practical long term!

I don't know if caching would be a useful feature - TBH doing an initial download and then keeping the file (or putting it in a user-editable format) might be more worthwhile.

Oh, the problem I was looking at was in the StartActions (menu button, About This Book). I think I've got it worked out either way. X-Rays themselves should work fine with unicode characters.

Sorry, I lied. No coffee today, I blame that If I looked at the "about this book" dialog, it would be the mosty empty one (the same you get if you have no StartActions file). Editing the unicode quote marks out of the file made it appear.

[eschwartz]

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[Ephemerality]

Originally Posted by stoduk

TBH doing an initial download and then keeping the file (or putting it in a user-editable format) might be more worthwhile.

There is the option in the app to download the Shelfari page to an XML file, though I'm not sure how many people use it.

Originally Posted by stoduk

Sorry, I lied. No coffee today, I blame that If I looked at the "about this book" dialog, it would be the mosty empty one (the same you get if you have no StartActions file). Editing the unicode quote marks out of the file made it appear.

Sounds good. Once I get confirmation from darrenmcg that it's working, I'll be putting up a new version that should work properly for unicode characters in the Start/EndActions files. There was also an issue with the StartActions that caused invalid JSON when the book wasn't part of a series, so that's been fixed as well.

[Ephemerality]

2.0.9 has been posted. Notable changes:

• Fix for unicode characters in Start/EndActions
• Additional overwrite option (overwrite AuthorProfile/XActions but not aliases/chapters)
• Goodreads info in StartActions

[Serenity23]

I keep getting the error "Database Name is the maximum length". It tells me to change it in calibre or manually. How do I change it in Calibre? How long should the title be?

[Ephemerality]

Originally Posted by Serenity23

I keep getting the error "Database Name is the maximum length". It tells me to change it in calibre or manually. How do I change it in Calibre? How long should the title be?

Usually it's not an issue, it's just a warning rather than an actual error. I believe it's controlled by the "title" field in Calibre's Edit Metadata section. In the past, if the title of the book didn't match the database name (which can only be 31 characters) it wouldn't load the X-Ray. I'm not even sure if that's the case anymore... I'll have to look into it.

Update: Best I can tell, this isn't an issue anymore on firmware 5.6+ (though it was quite rare on previous versions so it may be tough to trigger). I'll remove the message when building 'new format' for now.

[iheijoushin]

Originally Posted by camelx

I've messed with this off and on for a couple of months now, but could never get it to work consistent for me. So I spend a few hours on it yesterday and wanted to let the rest of you inconsistent results on how I got it to work for me, did at least 10 books with testing. Mobi and AZW3 and doesn't matter if they are put in the root of Kindle Documents folder or under author like Calibre moves them. I have the newest Voyager and the latest software.

This is the way I got it to work every time, but there may be things that aren't required, I just didn't have more time to prove it all out.

Procedure includes Calibre, the Quality check plug, and lookup metadata for Amazon.

Calibre output settings (preferences): mobi - personal doc tag: [EBOK} and new for file type. (keeps the new books going to kindle NOT as personal docs and brings nice covers

for XRAY config: checked: output UTF8, enable editing of chaps, use new xray format, use subdirs, overwrite existing files. Excerpt offset: 0

For the book you want to Xray:

1) double click on the book in Calibre and delete the existing Ids
2)turn on the Amazon metadata lookup for the sources (I only picked Amazon here, but I'm sure that doesn't matter, but you MUST have Amazon)
3) do a metadata lookup for Amazon and let it write the new metadata
3) Using the Quality Check plugin, choose Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire (don't worry if yours is not a Fire, I have a Voyager!) btw, I found even with Amazon lookup, Xray would NOT always work unless I did this procedure!!!
4) using Calibre, right click on the book and choose Save to disk - you will use either the mobi or the AZW3 from this.
5) run XRay builder and drag one of those files to the book input box
6) use browser and go to www.shelfari.com and look up your book page, once there grab the URL from browser and put it into the URL field of XRay
7) click the build Xray button at top and you should be fine
8) plug your kindle in with USB cable and go to documents directory
9) grab the specific book you used in Xray and the Xray output directory created in the process (in the out directory) and copy both of them directly to the Kindle's documents directory. They should be exactly the same name, but book with extension of mobi or AZW3 and directory ext of .sdr.
10) unplug the usb cable and your book will show up in the kindle and the Xray will be working.

Notes:
It's as only good as the Shelfari information.
XRay is reached by clicking the top part of menu area, not by highlighting a word.
I generally DON"T have Amazon turned on for metadata - not good for tags and book series, I generally only use Goodreads. So after I do the Amazon thing for this, I will go back and only chose Goodreads to fix my metadata the way I like it.

I can't get this to work following these instructions. I've tried with a number of different books and even tried specifying the Shelfari URL - but each time X-Ray Builder GUI reports it cannot complete the process because the ASIN is incorrect.

For example, here's the Calibre Ids field for one of my books:

isbn:9780345453747, amazon:B0043M4ZH0, google:Fu2VnsEW8S0C

That is the correct ASIN, but X-Ray Builder gives a completely different ID number that I cannot locate anywhere in my Calibre metadata. For the book above, I get the following error from X-Ray Builder:

Incorrect ASIN detected: 6e16d066-1505-4eb0-a9fc-82902a4c5698! Kindle may not display an X-Ray for this book. Do you wish to continue?

Any ideas where that crazy ASIN is coming from or how to get things working?

Thanks to everyone in advance for the assist!

[Ephemerality]

Originally Posted by iheijoushin

I can't get this to work following these instructions. I've tried with a number of different books and even tried specifying the Shelfari URL - but each time X-Ray Builder GUI reports it cannot complete the process because the ASIN is incorrect.

For example, here's the Calibre Ids field for one of my books:

isbn:9780345453747, amazon:B0043M4ZH0, google:Fu2VnsEW8S0C

That is the correct ASIN, but X-Ray Builder gives a completely different ID number that I cannot locate anywhere in my Calibre metadata. For the book above, I get the following error from X-Ray Builder:

Incorrect ASIN detected: 6e16d066-1505-4eb0-a9fc-82902a4c5698! Kindle may not display an X-Ray for this book. Do you wish to continue?

Any ideas where that crazy ASIN is coming from or how to get things working?

Thanks to everyone in advance for the assist!

The ASIN you're seeing is one inserted by Calibre automatically. Did you use the Quality Check plugin with the "Fix->Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire" option? That should insert the ASIN from your 'amazon' ID.

[iheijoushin]

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

The ASIN you're seeing is one inserted by Calibre automatically. Did you use the Quality Check plugin with the "Fix->Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire" option? That should insert the ASIN from your 'amazon' ID.

Thanks for replying. I applied that step a few times in case it didn't set the first time. I also deleted everything from the Ids metadata in Calibre before running the "Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire" but I still get the same error.

Could the issue be with the Quality Check plugin?

[eschwartz]

Um, yeah -- you deleted the "amazon" id from the IDs metadata.
So Quality Check didn't have a correct ASIN to fix the ebook with. And it resorted instead to generating a UUID, which won't work for X-Ray Builder.

[Ephemerality]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Um, yeah -- you deleted the "amazon" id from the IDs metadata.
So Quality Check didn't have a correct ASIN to fix the ebook with. And it resorted instead to generating a UUID, which won't work for X-Ray Builder.

Yep. When the 'amazon' or 'mobi-asin' ID is present it should detect it. When you run the Fix for Kindle Fire option, it gives you the View Log button. If it worked, you should see the proper ASIN listed there.

[iheijoushin]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Um, yeah -- you deleted the "amazon" id from the IDs metadata.
So Quality Check didn't have a correct ASIN to fix the ebook with. And it resorted instead to generating a UUID, which won't work for X-Ray Builder.

I regret I wasn't clearer earlier. I only removed the Amazon ID from Calibre when my attempts to get X-Ray Builder working with about 10 books all failed. Temporarily removing the Amazon ID was my attempt to troubleshoot and start the whole process over.

The issue persists even when the information is populated correctly in Calibre.

So here's one of the many books in question I attempted as it appears in Calibre's Metadata window:
[Oversized image removed by moderator]

Here's the log from Quality Checker immediately afterwards:


...and following the instructions posted earlier this is the result:


The instructions posted earlier claims that the process works with either mobi or AZW3, is this correct?

Thanks again for your assistance, guys.

[Ephemerality]

Originally Posted by iheijoushin

I regret I wasn't clearer earlier. I only removed the Amazon ID from Calibre when my attempts to get X-Ray Builder working with about 10 books all failed. Temporarily removing the Amazon ID was my attempt to troubleshoot and start the whole process over.

The issue persists even when the information is populated correctly in Calibre.
The instructions posted earlier claims that the process works with either mobi or AZW3, is this correct?

Thanks again for your assistance, guys.

Ah, sorry about the misunderstanding. I noticed that the builder is opening the mobi version from your desktop. Is that getting copied out of your Calibre library after it's been updated or is that a different copy? I always open mine straight from Documents\Calibre Library\whatever (Calibre makes a copy of the book once it's added to your library from elsewhere).
If it's definitely the same one that Calibre is modifying, you could upload and PM the book file to me and I can have a look at it.

[eschwartz]

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Thanks.

[eschwartz]

OK, sorry about the confusion.

That definitely seems to imply that the ASIN is not being embedded in the file you tried using X-Ray Builder on.

And since I know Quality Check works...
Ephemerality's suggestion is a good train of thought to follow.


You could use KindleUnpack (calibre plugin) to open the in-library MOBI and check the content.opf to see what the ASIN is.

Or calibre's command-line tool

ebook-meta "C:\path\to\Calibre Library\path\to\ebook.mobi"

Look at the Identifiers value for "mobi-asin"