[Android] Wish List

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

A relatively small request.

[...]

Thoughts about this from anyone else? Would this bother anyone?

Originally Posted by mgaillard

I noticed that hitting the back button while a grouping is set brings to no grouping, even if the grouping drawer is closed, whitch is very disturbing in that case (seeing the list of books change, as i was just thinking exiting the program).
So, I shall be OK whith kaufman, but with further change: the back key should not be used to set no grouping, but only closing the drawer (and once - or if - the drawer is closed, used to exit the program by clicking it twice).

In CC. grouping is considered a series of actions that the back button undoes. Each tap takes you one step back in the chain to wherever you might be. I don't in principle have a problem with closing the grouping drawer when the stack is empty, but I am not willing to change the behavior of "back" when some group has been selected. Such a change would be major, undoing years of similar behavior.

Note that the affordance icon on the left of the action bar will open & close the grouping drawer with a single tap. You don't need to swipe.

Originally Posted by OldLincoln

I understand you can change options and even swipe the drawers closed in portrait (narrow screen) mode, but my request has to do with wide screen view. No options or tricks I have found will close them. However, if the number of books does not increase to cover the widescreen view it doesn't matter. My request was simply a wish for maybe someday. I love CC and it allowed me to completely move away from the clunky, buggy, Kindle for Android.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying. There is an option to permit opening/closing the grouping drawer in landscape or on large tablets (Settings / Grouping Drawer / Leave grouping drawer open). Uncheck this option to allow the grouping drawer to close. If you uncheck it you will get more books shown per row.

This image shows my Nexus 7 in landscape with the grouping drawer permanently open. There are 4 books per row.


This image shows my N7 with the option set to allow closing the grouping drawer. There are 6 books per row, both with the drawer closed and the drawer opened.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by mgaillard

So, I shall be OK whith kaufman, but with further change: the back key should not be used to set no grouping, but only closing the drawer (and once - or if - the drawer is closed, used to exit the program by clicking it twice).

I appreciate the support, but I love the back key backing out of groups, and I hope that change isn't made. Sorry.

[OldLincoln]

Hard to describe. I have a Galaxy Tab 3 10" and old eyes so I use large icons. Mine looks like your first one with 4 books plus the drawers. I'm ready to abandon the notion as it isn't major. Kinda looking at something for a long time and wondering why it does that.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I don't in principle have a problem with closing the grouping drawer when the stack is empty, but I am not willing to change the behavior of "back" when some group has been selected.

Perfect. That is exactly the behavior I would like. I use it to back out of groups all the time.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by OldLincoln

Hard to describe. I have a Galaxy Tab 3 10" and old eyes so I use large icons. Mine looks like your first one with 4 books plus the drawers. I'm ready to abandon the notion as it isn't major. Kinda looking at something for a long time and wondering why it does that.

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Taking this discussion to its own thread.

[gypsyman]

I am trying to find a way to sync my library which is kept on a Windows 10 desktop to my Windows 10 tablet. Currently I have to put them into a library stored on OneDrive then just find the book on the tablet. Wish I had something like Companion to do this. My old tablet (Android) this worked great.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by gypsyman

I am trying to find a way to sync my library which is kept on a Windows 10 desktop to my Windows 10 tablet. Currently I have to put them into a library stored on OneDrive then just find the book on the tablet. Wish I had something like Companion to do this. My old tablet (Android) this worked great.

I have looked at porting CC to "Windows 10 devices". I even went as far as signing up for the Microsoft developer beta, only to discover that I had to buy a windows phone. There isn't (or wasn't) an emulator.

As for tablets, I am not sure if CC would work on one even if I ported it. The Surface Pro line runs "real windows". It might or might not support phone apps. When I looked at the development environment in September, it supported "phone" windows 10 but not "real" Windows 10.

I have no idea what would be required to support an ARM-based windows tablet.

Bottom line: I am not going to spend any significant time on supporting windows-based devices until things are more stable.

[BetterRed]

Maybe CC would work on under an Android emulator.

I installed Bluestacks the other day for someone who 'swapped' their Samsung Note for a new Surface 3. They use apps like Smartchat.

BR

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Maybe CC would work on under an Android emulator.

I installed Bluestacks the other day for someone who 'swapped' their Samsung Note for a new Surface 3. They use apps like Smartchat.

BR

I was thinking the same thing, but using AMIDuOS. If all of CC's features worked this would be ideal. Of course if either android emulator works I bet calibre would work too. Then you would have to manage syncing libraries or a subset to save space etc...

[SASSBS]

chaley +1 for Windows based version.

You mention that you couldn't find the emulator, it should be included in the Visual Studio 2015 release including the free version. I know there was a preview emulator available back in April that worked on a virtual PC so I can send the link if you need it.

A nice universal app would be ideal, I am not a developer but I have read recently that Microsoft is testing/making available tools to port Android and IOS apps to Windows with little to no code changes needed.

I also believe that Visual Studio can do some if not all of the conversion from Normal (x86) to ARM device - though not sure how good it works.

Hope this helps.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by SASSBS

chaley +1 for Windows based version.

There isn't any chance that I will do a specific windows version. If I was going to port to a new platform then I would pick iOS. And that probably isn't going to happen for reasons I have mentioned before.

A nice universal app would be ideal, I am not a developer but I have read recently that Microsoft is testing/making available tools to port Android and IOS apps to Windows with little to no code changes needed.

You are talking about Microsoft's Project Astoria, which supposedly allowed porting Android apps to windows more-or-less unchanged. That is the tool I was talking about a few posts back.

Unfortunately Microsoft seems to have delayed, or even canceled, Project Astoria. The iOS project seems to still be running.

@BetterRed, @DoctorOhh: I installed BlueStacks on my desktop PC. Both CC Demo and Full Versions run fine, with the exception that a few settings dialogs have an odd layout. Connecting as a wireless device requires entering an IP address for calibre visible to Bluestacks. I used calibre running on the same PC as the emulator. The full version required creating a Google Play account so it could do the one-time license check. I deleted the account as soon as the license check happened. CC crashes if it wants to do a license check and there isn't any GP account set up.

TBH I am not convinced if this is useful. As DoctorOhh said, calibre runs on the device so I can in theory use it directly. I suppose that having the emulator on a WinPro tablet with limited memory would permit easy downloading and managing subsets of books. It also permits access to reader apps.

[Guns4Hire]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I have been using calibrecompanion on my phone for some time now and now after I upgraded to a new reader Boyue T62D I have started using it on my reader as well.
Previously I had a nook touch with an old version of Android where most apps didn't work so I only used Coolreader. And as the developer of Coolreader had nook touch he put in the ability to change the screensaver to the last opened book.
Now that I have started using calibrecompanion and have multiple apps for different formats. I can't see a way for the current book cover to be set as a screen saver unless it is done by the app that I use to open all my books I.E calibre companion.
Now comes my request will it be possible for calibre companion to set the screensaver when a book is opened with calibre companion. For my reader you need to make SdCard\ScreenSaver\Standby.png does not matter if the file is a jpeg just naming it to Standby.png works.
I know all readers might not use the same setting but as far as I know boyue Android readers do and they are most sold Android ereaders. You can maybe add different options for different readers if other readers require some other settings.

This would be a nice added feature. I always liked that about my NST, Ive always felt other ereaders missed out doing this. Gives it a feel like a tree book.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Guns4Hire

This would be a nice added feature. I always liked that about my NST, Ive always felt other ereaders missed out doing this. Gives it a feel like a tree book.

The feature has already been added. Go to Settings / Covers and thumbnails / Reading book saves cover. When you check the box, CC will ask you where to store the cover and whether to rotate the image. The answers are device dependent.

There is some discussion of the feature in this thread.

[Guns4Hire]

Ahh I see. Thanks for the info....had no idea.

[rsmerritt]

Hi. I am new to this forum. I have been using Calibre and CC for about year between multiple devices. My library setup may be a bit different than most. I have upwards of three (3) main Calibre libraries that are each separately passworded on the Microsoft side. Each library has remote access with passwords. I have not found a way to either run multiple, independent versions of CC so I can work with each library independently (directory structures are different as well) or have a single CC instance that can be configured for multiple, unique libraries. It would appear that if we had a way to identify a library in CC and associate all settings with a given instance of a Calibre main library, this could be done. Each library today has between 2,500 and 5,000 books on various topics.

Thoughts?

Bob