Marvin 3.0

[incumbent]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Still nothing in that regard in Marvin 3. It's a bit easier to sync manually now (using AirDrop, for example, instead of emailing annotations back and forth between devices), but there's still no automatic syncing of highlights, annotations and bookmarks for now. This has been, from my and many other users' perspective, Marvin's no. 1 missing feature for almost 5 years now – ever since Marvin was born. We've just got to be patient.

I really think this is the most important enhancement request I could make. It's the one thing iBooks actually does better than Marvin just because annotations and bookmarks are ubiquitous, though I rarely *read* at the computer, being able to refer to things easily is nice. Sending things into DayOne all the time is a bit fiddly for me.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by incumbent

Sending things into DayOne all the time is a bit fiddly for me.

Ah, you use Day One for syncing annotations? That hasn't occurred to me, even though I'm a heavy Day One user (and I wouldn't know how to begin using Day One that way, to be honest).

I do use Day One in conjunction with Marvin, heavy-handedly, to supply the missing "audio annotations" functionality in Marvin. What I often do is, I highlight a passage in Marvin, then I launch the superb DropVox voice-memo app, I dictate the annotation there, it gets automatically submitted from DropVox to Dropbox, and there, an IFTTT recipe notices the newly arrived MP3 recording, and submits the link for downloading it as a new Day One entry back to my reading device. Then, from the Day One entry, I can (optionally) copy the link to the recording and paste it into Marvin's text-only annotations window.

That's quite a gigantic run-around, isn't it? A cooperation of 5 different pieces of software (Marvin -> DropVox -> Dropbox -> IFTTT -> Day One -> Marvin) is needed just to record an audio annotation in Marvin... But despite it being a run-around, I often do this, because I find audio annotations invaluable. Yeah, when you only need to jot down a word or two as an annotation, then typing the note (or scribbling it free-hand) will do... but if a rather complex idea occurs to you as your annotation (and I immensely enjoy "arguing back and forth" with my favorite writers, who are mostly dead) – then it really becomes a lot more efficient (despite the gigantic run-around) to capture that annotation as an audio-note (in future, perhaps even as a selfie video-note), instead of a text-based annotation.

The good news is, Kris has confirmed he is considering the implementation of both free-hand (scribbled) annotations and of audio annotations in Marvin, so perhaps making annotations will become a lot easier in future in Marvin.

Other than that, I agree with you: annotations syncing is the no. 1 missing feature in Marvin, and has been from the start. And Kris knows that, because we've been requesting it from him for 5 years or so. And so, there is hope.

[incumbent]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Ah, you use Day One for syncing annotations? That hasn't occurred to me, even though I'm a heavy Day One user (and I wouldn't know how to begin using Day One that way, to be honest).

I should've been more specific —*Not for syncing; just for even having them collected in one place at all. I am much too tightly wound about annotations/bookmarks I guess, because if I pick up reading on my phone or my iPad I rely on having access to those annotations and notes too. And it makes me really annoyed that I can't access them easily on my Macs.

So I just send them into DayOne because I can access that from any device including my workstation or laptop. It's the only tolerable workflow I can come up with that doesn't just have me using iBooks. And I'd be fine using iBooks except that getting annotations and bookmarks out of iBooks has too much friction. Truncated notes/excerpts, one at a time? Yanking them out of a SQLite database? NOPE NOPE NOPE.

I'm very comfortable in markdown and since DayOne is my journal for everything else it's a perfectly good place to store my notes and annotations about what I'm reading. I am kind of angry about DayOne (2)'s use of a private sync service and ignorance over iCloud data storage or even Dropbox for that matter, but until recently there was nothing that was nearly as polished.

The only thing that changed is that I'm also an avid DEVONthink user, and their new iOS app isn't at all the tire fire it used to be, so I may well start clipping my notes and annotations directly into DEVONthink for the same ubiquity (and honestly better search and reference capabilities than DayOne could possibly offer). Heck DEVONthink even makes .csv files look nice.

[jaxl1200]

Hi Kris or any expert Marvin user.
I've been using Marvin 3 for a while now and have been using the OPDS Calibre Server to load multiple books from Calibre on a PC. Until the Marvin Calibre plugin is re-established I find OPDS to be the best method especially as you now have the option to select multiple books.
Recently this has stopped working. From Marvin I get the following message:
"Oops
Cannot download feed. The service might not be available or you are not connected to the internet."
On Calibre under Connect/Share I have the Content Server and Wireless device connection started so the service is available. From the Ipad my browser works fine so I am connected to the internet.
Can anybody suggest a fix for this?? Under the old release of Marvin I could delete the ODPS Calibre connection and re-establish it, required when it's IP address changed which happens sometimes. However I can't find a way to do this under Marvin 3. Any ideas??
Many thanks in advance.
PS Is anyone working on a new Calibre plugin for Marvin 3?

[Turtle91]

Hi Jaxl1200,

I just attempted a multi-book download via opds and it worked as expected. I performed the download from the internet instead of from inside a LAN, but I don't think that should make a difference. I have had to delete/recreate the OPDS server within Marvin before, but not on Marvin 3. It certainly wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

To remove an OPDS all you need to do is swipe the name of the server from the OPDS selector page (either way, left or right, works) and select the trashcan icon.

I have heard Kris is working on something, trying to get the Calibre plugin to work, but I don't know what the status is on the fix. Sorry.

[jaxl1200]

Hi
Thanks very much for the advice. I successfully deleted the entry and redefined it, however I'm getting the same problem.
Here is some more detail. This has been working successfully for me. When I select OPDS it finds the Calibre Server and brings up the headings "By Newest, By Title, By Authors". However when I select one of these, eg By Newest, I get the error 'Cannot download feed...' Could this be a numbers limitation as I have a large library in Calibre, is there a limit to the number of books OPDS can handle? The other OPDS servers that appear in the OPDS Favourites list, such as Project Gutenberg, still work ok.

[Turtle91]

I am certainly not an expert on the technicalities of server/client communication via OPDS so I'll leave the technical answers to someone else.

However, I don't think it's a numbers issue in any way. I also have a very large collection of books - several thousand - on my Calibre server and have had no problems with any of those header feeds. If those other feeds, like Gutenberg, are working correctly, then I would think that it has something to do with how you have Calibre setup for your server. I would start looking there.

Are you running Calibre - and accessing the OPDS - from within your home network? I seem to remember having problems if you're OPDS address is set with 192.168.1.xxx as your Calibre server needs to have a static IP address. There are several threads in the Calibre forum that I had to mull over to figure out how to set mine up.

If you are trying to access your home OPDS from out in the internetz (as I do from all around the world) you would need to make sure you have the correct address as well...I use a dynamic DNS name service (such as FreeDNS although there are several ones out there) that allows me to put a name as my OPDS address which is automatically updated whenever my Internet Service Provider decides to change my home's IP.

eg.
//myhomeopds.freedns.com:8080/opds
instead of
//29.42.31.67:8080/opds or
//192.168.1.25:8080/opds


I hope that at least points you in the right direction. Maybe someone else will have more details.

Cheers,

[JKenP]

I tried OPD and found using Dropbox a lot easier. You have Calibre disk copy to your dropbox folder on the Calibre machine. Those files then show up in Marvin and I copy/delete/whatever as needed. When it is on dropbox it is available for all my mobile devices.

[gryn]

I usually just lurk here, but created an account because I had the same problem as jaxl1200 and stumbled upon an answer of sorts. Since it was occurring on all of my devices, I figured the issue had to be in Calibre or on my Mac. I had just recently updated Calibre, so I went back and downloaded an older version and the problem disappeared. Something appears to have changed in Calibre to cause the issue.

I can't tell you exactly where the change occurs, but version 2.67.0 did not work for me, but version 2.52.0 does.

Hope that helps.

[jaxl1200]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for your replies regarding my OPDS problem. I've since been using dropbox and find it is a bit better, there is an upload all function which is great for large numbers of books. I'll look at Gryn's suggestion and reload an earlier version of Calibre to see if the problem goes away.

[Luddite]

Nothing to see here, move along

[Luddite]

Originally Posted by gryn

I usually just lurk here, but created an account because I had the same problem as jaxl1200 and stumbled upon an answer of sorts. Since it was occurring on all of my devices, I figured the issue had to be in Calibre or on my Mac. I had just recently updated Calibre, so I went back and downloaded an older version and the problem disappeared. Something appears to have changed in Calibre to cause the issue.

I can't tell you exactly where the change occurs, but version 2.67.0 did not work for me, but version 2.52.0 does.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, this worked for me

FWIW I just filed a bug with Calibre around this. Take a look here and add comments as appropriate.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1623709

[Turtle91]

According to Kovid the fix for this error has been updated to the Master file (sorry if that offends someone ) and should be released Friday!

[upnseams]

Originally Posted by JKenP

I tried OPD and found using Dropbox a lot easier. You have Calibre disk copy to your dropbox folder on the Calibre machine. Those files then show up in Marvin and I copy/delete/whatever as needed. When it is on dropbox it is available for all my mobile devices.

What do you mean disc copy from Calibre. Thanks

[JKenP]

Calibre will let you copy selected files to a folder. When you have dropbox, you have a dropbox folder. Sending it there sends it to the cloud which Marvin 3 can copy from.