How do you move back an exported book in calibre?

[pleiadesc]

Hello,

Sometimes when I read exported books from calibre, I add annotations to the books (highlights and notes), I would like this annotated book to replace the book in calibre. what is the most efficient way to do this? Thanks

Thank you!

[BetterRed]

If you drag-drop the amended ebook-file (EPUB, PDF, MOBI, whatever) into the relevant Book Details panel (right sidebar) it will replace the existing file.

But, I'm not sure that all e-reader devices/programs embed annotations etc within the ebook-file itself, I believe some create separate files, commonly known as sidecar, companion, or buddy files. So, what format and what device/program do you use?

BR

[pleiadesc]

Thank you BetterRed, I did not know that trick, nothing fancy, I'm reading books on PCs in PDF format, the annotations are saved in the PDF, what do you do if there are sidecar files?

Also, I think I found a bug, when you press Shift Key, the label would change from copy to move but then the drag+dropped book is not moved in calibre, it just copy it. where can i report this?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

Thank you BetterRed, I did not know that trick, nothing fancy, I'm reading books on PCs in PDF format, the annotations are saved in the PDF, what do you do if there are sidecar files?

I've never used a PDF reader that didn't embed its annotations/highlights in the PDF, and the only PDF reader I know of that does that is Skim, which runs on MacOS, see Annotating PDFs in OS X w/o modifying the file

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

Also, I think I found a bug, when you press Shift Key, the label would change from copy to move but then the drag+dropped book is not moved in calibre, it just copy it. where can i report this?

That's not a bug, it's a feature

If you add a file to an existing book via the Add Books drop down option Add file to selected book record it does not and never has deleted the file. Drag-drop of a file into Book Details is the same operation.

Added: If you're reading/annotating the PDFs on the same desktop where the library is kept, why are you exporting the PDF files, why not read and annotate the PDFs in the library?

BR

[pleiadesc]

Thanks BetterRed,

I save the annotations inside the PDF, its easier to move the PDFs around.

I was hoping its a bug since its showing the word move.

I also read in a laptop computer and sometimes using library computers

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

Thanks BetterRed,

I save the annotations inside the PDF, its easier to move the PDFs around.

I was hoping its a bug since its showing the word move.

The bug would be in showing a move operation. I can't imagine that calibre will change a long-standing policy of copying not moving (aka deleting) the files that are imported.

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC That menu comes from the OS, calibre will always copy, never move on drag and drop, regardless of what the menu shows.

[theducks]

Copy vs Move has been an OS thing (at least) since Windows 3.x

(I never used W1 or W2. I used MSDOS 2,3,4,5 and 6)

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

I also read in a laptop computer and sometimes using library computers

Got it, hoped it must be something like that

But I'm at a loss to figure out where the word "Move" appears in a regular left button down drag and drop from a file browser into calibre's Book Details panel.

This is what a I see when I do it in Windows:



BR

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Got it, hoped it must be something like that

But I'm at a loss to figure out where the word "Move" appears in a regular left button down drag and drop from a file browser into calibre's Book Details panel.

This is what a I see when I do it in Windows:

It is not at that point that pleiadesc was talking about. When you drag something in Windows, holding down the shift, ctrl or alt keys change the action. To show this, the cursor changes and any tooltip can also change. The action taken, and exactly what cursor is used, depends on the source and destination for the drag-n-drop application. For the move and link combinations of keys, calibre should strictly either show the cursor for not allowing the drop, or always show the copy icon. But, it is letting Windows show the default cursors and actions, but only ever doing a copy.

[kovidgoyal]

I dont like the idea of disallowing drops based on the proposed action. For one thing, drop events can have more than one proposed action. For another, it is confusing/unexpected.

As for changing the icons/menus/cursors, I dont think Qt has an API to do that.

[davidfor]

It's ages since I did this sort of thing, so I'm a bit rusty on it. And I was using the low-level Windows and OS/2 APIs with C and C++. Or with libraries that were just wrappers for these.

I'm a bit surprised that Qt doesn't have a way to set the cursor, but, I don't think this is needed. Setting the drop action to copy on the drag enter and drag move options seems to be all that is needed. As an experiment, in gui2/book_details.py, I changed the following:

    def dragEnterEvent(self, event):
        md = event.mimeData()
        if dnd_has_extension(md, image_extensions() + BOOK_EXTENSIONS, allow_all_extensions=True) or \
                dnd_has_image(md):
#             event.acceptProposedAction()
            event.setDropAction(Qt.CopyAction)
            event.accept()

    def dragMoveEvent(self, event):
#         event.acceptProposedAction()
        event.setDropAction(Qt.CopyAction)
        event.accept()

With that, when I drag a book from explorer over the details pane for a book, the copy icon and message is shown all the time. A very quick look at the other places that have these two methods, the same change should work.

And I disagree with you about disallowing the drops. The application should be telling the user what it can do. Changing the cursor to indicate the action tells me what the application can do and maybe that I don't want to drop something on it. And this discussion was started because someone was confused because calibre had the move cursor when it actually did a copy.

[pleiadesc]

Thanks everyone for the input, I'm fine with copying.

@BetterRed
Its very easy, simply drag a book file into the Book Details pane, you will see a "+Copy" label, when you see this, press the shift key and the label would change to "->Move", btw I'm using windows PCs, not sure about the other OS if they will show the same.

[pleiadesc]

Originally Posted by davidfor

    def dragMoveEvent(self, event):
#         event.acceptProposedAction()
        event.setDropAction(Qt.CopyAction)
        event.accept()

Hi davidfor,

Just a question here, can we change event.setDropAction(Qt.CopyAction) into
something like event.setDropAction(Qt.MOVEAction) so it will move the book file? will that work?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

Hi davidfor,

Just a question here, can we change event.setDropAction(Qt.CopyAction) into
something like event.setDropAction(Qt.MOVEAction) so it will move the book file? will that work?

That would be a lot more work. When the actual drop happens, the action is coded to always do the copy action (really an "Add to calibre"). This is a design decision and doing it as a move would be a change in basic behaviour. I know Kovid would be against this. And while I can understand people wanting the source file to be removed, I tend to agree with Kovid on this.