Tips for a large number of books

[hfpop]

Hello,

My Kobo A1 LE, even with 32 GB of memory available, moves a lot slower with about 15.000 books on it, organized in collections via the autoshelf addon.

Are there some tips and tricks for managing such a large number of books in a more efficient way?

For instance, is there a way to make books folders not processed and not visible by Kobo, but I should see them (and "download" them) only via the web browser (for example)?

[cramoisi]

all folders named dot something will not be processed by kobo like .hidden ; but i'm not sure you will be able to download inside them from the browser (they will be hidden so I'm not sure the browser will see them)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by hfpop

Hello,

My Kobo A1 LE, even with 32 GB of memory available, moves a lot slower with about 15.000 books on it, organized in collections via the autoshelf addon.

That 32GB is not memory, but storage. There is no change from the Aura ONE in the amount of RAM in the Aura ONE LE.

Are there some tips and tricks for managing such a large number of books in a more efficient way?

To be honest, the only way to make it faster is to not put so many books on the device. But, what is slow? The home page, reading, opening a book, the library or something else?

For instance, is there a way to make books folders not processed and not visible by Kobo, but I should see them (and "download" them) only via the web browser (for example)?

As cramoisi said, a directory whose name starts with a dot will be ignored. But, there is no way to load books from there later without connecting to a PC. You could enable telnet, and use that to copy the books somewhere that will be processed, but then you need a method to trigger the processing.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That 32GB is not memory, but storage. There is no change from the Aura ONE in the amount of RAM in the Aura ONE LE.

In fairness, storage is a type of memory - persistent or non-volatile. It's just that "memory" is often used as shorthand to refer to volatile memory.

[hfpop]

When I say memory I do mean storage memory, not RAM.

The user interface is very slow, with waiting times. With 15000 books and 22 GB still available. I miss the point to offer 32GB if the whole architecture cannot process that number of books.

The process to copy books from the hidden library can be a simple file manager that knows to do one thing: copy books from their place to a folder visible for kobo.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

In fairness, storage is a type of memory - persistent or non-volatile. It's just that "memory" is often used as shorthand to refer to volatile memory.

But, it also depends on how it is used. The 32GB of "stuff" in the Aura ONE LE is used as storage, not RAM or anything else that would normally be called "memory" when referring to computers.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by hfpop

When I say memory I do mean storage memory, not RAM.

The user interface is very slow, with waiting times. With 15000 books and 22 GB still available. I miss the point to offer 32GB if the whole architecture cannot process that number of books.

The process to copy books from the hidden library can be a simple file manager that knows to do one thing: copy books from their place to a folder visible for kobo.

Kobo purchased manga tend to range from 100-200MB per volume. Factor in binary-decimal discrepancy and operating system, you likely only have ~28GB available. It's very easy to fill that with less than 500 books.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by hfpop

When I say memory I do mean storage memory, not RAM.

I commented because your first post made it seem you expected the Aura ONE LE to be faster than the standard Aura ONE. The only change is the amount of storage for books in them.

The user interface is very slow, with waiting times. With 15000 books and 22 GB still available. I miss the point to offer 32GB if the whole architecture cannot process that number of books.

For comics and manga. This has been one of the complaints about the fixed memory devices, they don't have enough space to carry many comics.

The process to copy books from the hidden library can be a simple file manager that knows to do one thing: copy books from their place to a folder visible for kobo.

And how would you run it? You would need to connect to the PC or have someone write a filemanager for the device that you can run and also, as I said before, triggers the import into the library process.

Alternatively, you can try one of the alternative reader apps such as Koreader.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, it also depends on how it is used. The 32GB of "stuff" in the Aura ONE LE is used as storage, not RAM or anything else that would normally be called "memory" when referring to computers.

Volatile and non-volatile memory does refer to computers. An example of volatile memory is RAM. Examples of non-volatile memory include floppies, hard drives, tapes, etc. Heck, I think that lesson was from my first ever computer science class (back when we still used floppies). It's just that "memory" is often used colloquially to refer to volatile or random access memory nowadays.

Mind, I seem to recall RAM also referred to as primary storage and NVM secondary storage in the above-mentioned class.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by hfpop

When I say memory I do mean storage memory, not RAM.

The user interface is very slow, with waiting times. With 15000 books and 22 GB still available. I miss the point to offer 32GB if the whole architecture cannot process that number of books.

The process to copy books from the hidden library can be a simple file manager that knows to do one thing: copy books from their place to a folder visible for kobo.

As far as I can tell, the raison d'être for the Aura One Comic/Limited Edition was not so much to allow epub lovers to have thousands of books available but for manga/comic lovers whose book file sizes often exceed 100MB each to have hundreds of books available (I seem to remember that one announcement mentioned 700 manga).

The 512MB of RAM is likely the source of some of your issues -- take a look at the size of your SQLite databases for instance, add in the size of the font files (all 4 files for fonts offering variants) for whichever fonts you are using and suddenly RAM is becoming a scarce commodity.

[hfpop]

David, in principle you are right. But take a look at the official web page of Rakuten Kobo for A1-LE: https://us.kobobooks.com/products/ko...imited-edition . You see there their formal specs description: "32 GB on-board memory, holds up to 28,000 eBooks or 700 graphic novels and manga volumes".

They advertise their product is operational with 28,000 eBooks. They do know how much space the sqlite file takes (750 MB for half of that capacity). And they still advertise the 28,000 eBooks.

I am not opening a debate here. I simply would like to know how I could best use 15,000 ebooks (never mind 28,000 ebooks) on my Kobo A1-LE.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by hfpop

David, in principle you are right. But take a look at the official web page of Rakuten Kobo for A1-LE: https://us.kobobooks.com/products/ko...imited-edition . You see there their formal specs description: "32 GB on-board memory, holds up to 28,000 eBooks or 700 graphic novels and manga volumes".

They advertise their product is operational with 28,000 eBooks. They do know how much space the sqlite file takes (750 MB for half of that capacity). And they still advertise the 28,000 eBooks.

I am not opening a debate here. I simply would like to know how I could best use 15,000 ebooks (never mind 28,000 ebooks) on my Kobo A1-LE.

As other people have already told you, for that quantity of books, nickel (the standard app for Kobo is not a great solution). Check koreader thread and an alternate reader app.

As far as I know, there's nothing that allows you to get a book from a hidden (dot beginning) folder in the ereader, move it to a non-hidden folder and the ereader reads the ebook on the fly, adds it to the database and it appears in the Kobo library.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by hfpop

David, in principle you are right. But take a look at the official web page of Rakuten Kobo for A1-LE: https://us.kobobooks.com/products/ko...imited-edition . You see there their formal specs description: "32 GB on-board memory, holds up to 28,000 eBooks or 700 graphic novels and manga volumes".

They advertise their product is operational with 28,000 eBooks. They do know how much space the sqlite file takes (750 MB for half of that capacity). And they still advertise the 28,000 eBooks.

I am not opening a debate here. I simply would like to know how I could best use 15,000 ebooks (never mind 28,000 ebooks) on my Kobo A1-LE.

You are right about all that. But, nowhere does it say that it is a good idea to put 15000 books on the device. And based on what you have said, you can actually use the device, it just isn't very fast.

[PeterT]

Just curious as to what sort of directory structure you're using for all these books.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[hfpop]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Just curious as to what sort of directory structure you're using for all these books.

This forum has a lot of threads with shared experiences on what people consider an optimal directory structure. This is besides the point here.

With respect to my original question. Let me try a complete answer. You do need programming experience for this.

(1) Your library will have to stay in a dot folder, for instance /mnt/onboard/.books. This is the only useful information I learned on this thread.

(2) You will use a file manager to copy whatever you need to the right place, for instance /mnt/onboard/books.

The closest thing you have is KOReader. You need to set it to read hidden files, and to read files from that .books folder. You need to modify the lua sources to add a context sensitive menu option to do the file copy.

(3) After exiting that file manager you will need to fire the books refresh function that happens after usb disconnect. This is the only thing not yet working correctly. An advice here is most welcome.

And please, do not say it cannot be done.