[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[ownedbycats]

Couple questions regarding the IMAP email thing:

1. Will forwarded emails work? (Want to auto-foward notifications to one of my throwaway emails, just for security reasons.)
2. Any known problems with either GMail or Yahoo? Those are the two throwaways I have.
3. What happens if I leave Calibre on overnight and emails come through at different times? Will I get multiple "update this library" dialogs?

[vcovas]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

If you attach your KOBO to your computer and look at the file (from your computer), does it show all 10 chapters?

It's been a few years now, but I bought a KOBO once and returned it because it was designed to assume that once loaded an ebook would not later change thus ignoring updates, causing the same kind of problem you're seeing.

Yes, if I open the fic within Calibre and go to Index, I see the 10 chapters.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by vcovas

Yes, if I open the fic within Calibre and go to Index, I see the 10 chapters.

What @JimmXinu said is correct. The way that calibre sends a changed book to Kobo devices is so that the reading status on the device is maintained. Unfortunately, this means the ToC on the device is not updated. That doesn't work well with book that are updated. There is an option in the driver, whichever of the the KoboTouch or KoboTouchExtended driver that you are using, to turn this behaviour off. If you do, this means that updated books will be reprocessed as new books. And it means the reading status and bookmarks will be lost.

[vcovas]

Originally Posted by davidfor

What @JimmXinu said is correct. The way that calibre sends a changed book to Kobo devices is so that the reading status on the device is maintained. Unfortunately, this means the ToC on the device is not updated. That doesn't work well with book that are updated. There is an option in the driver, whichever of the the KoboTouch or KoboTouchExtended driver that you are using, to turn this behaviour off. If you do, this means that updated books will be reprocessed as new books. And it means the reading status and bookmarks will be lost.

Ok, that's it. Changed it and it seems to do the trick, thank you!

As i don't use much bookmarks it's ok for me and in what reading status concerns, i never had it correct as after each update the status goes to unread... maybe you can help to understand it also

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Couple questions regarding the IMAP email thing:

1. Will forwarded emails work? (Want to auto-foward notifications to one of my throwaway emails, just for security reasons.)
2. Any known problems with either GMail or Yahoo? Those are the two throwaways I have.
3. What happens if I leave Calibre on overnight and emails come through at different times? Will I get multiple "update this library" dialogs?

1. Yes. Assuming the story URL is still visible.
2. GMail needs to have 'insecure third party access' (aka IMAP) turned on. There are noises they may try to take that away some day. No idea about Yahoo, but probably.
3. No. FFF can't automatically cron check email, it only checks when you tell it to. There's previous discussion about why it can't in the thread.

[JimmXinu]

New Version Released

Version 3.21.0 - 07 Jul 2020
- New site: chireads.com -- Thanks, Kolbo!
- Fix for recursion in add_genre_when_multi_category caching bad value.
- Change INI edit highlight colors when dark theme.
- Add cover_min_size setting.
- Fix add_genre_when_multi_category so it can include_in_ without breaking and move above doreplacements.
- Add .SHOW_EMPTY feature for titlepage_entries.
- Check for epub before polishing cover into it.
- Change site efiction.esteliel.de to faerie-archive.com, also changed siteabbrev eesd->fae
- Allow for no genre stories in adapter_fanficauthorsnet.
- Fix adapter_webnovelcom sitetags for site changes.

[ownedbycats]

Ok thank you. I don't know why I was under the impression that it was an automatic thing.

Also thanks for putting up with all my silly questions. I have a hard time understanding and remembering things sometimes.

[ownedbycats]

Is "Update ePub cover" in the fic update dialog supposed to cause a pre-existing cover inside the ePub to disappear entirely when "Generate covers only for new books" is checked in preferences? (I also have inject ePub cover turned on.)

For some reason I was under the impression that "update ePub cover" would override the new ePub thing, though that turned to not be the case.

EDIT: Ok thinking on it that might be intended. It didn't generate a cover because "new books only" was turned on, and it injected the non-existing cover.

Also, what's the best way to make FFF search multiple stories for cover images? I just found out that the metadata update just automatically falls back to an auto-generated cover (assuming that "new books" is unchecked). Now I'm not sure how many covers I inadvertently overwrote this way.

EDIT: I figured that one out too. Update epub always will make the cover appear as long as "update epub cover" is checked.

[ownedbycats]

On the topic of covers, is it supposed to fall back to auto-generated covers when "update ePub cover" is unchecked and cover images exist?

I've been trying to track down the cause of my disappearing cover images and I was able to replicate this consistently. I'm not sure if that's by design though.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

On the topic of covers, is it supposed to fall back to auto-generated covers when "update ePub cover" is unchecked and cover images exist?

I've been trying to track down the cause of my disappearing cover images and I was able to replicate this consistently. I'm not sure if that's by design though.

FFF cover behavior and settings evolved over time due to requests by different users with different desires. I don't use a fraction of it, nor do I keep it all in my head.

Since you can replicate it, please describe in detail the steps you take and the cover settings you are using, along with what you get and what you think you should be getting instead.

[ownedbycats]

1. Have a fanfiction that has a cover image. (Here's one that I've been having disappearing-cover issues with. Should note the issue occurs for both FFNet and AO3, though.)

2. Generate Cover settings: I have two cover profiles, named AO3 and FFNet respectively.

2. Settings in Calibre Cover tab:
Update EPUB cover from EPUB: Yes, if EPUB has a cover image
Generate Calibre Cover: Yes, unless FanficFare found a cover image
Generate covers only for new books: Disabled
Inject/update the cover inside EPUB: Enabled.
Allow generate_cover_settings from personal.ini to override: True

AO3 and FFNet cover generate profiles are associated with archiveofourown.org and www.fanfiction.net sites, but see 3. for more details.

3. In personal.ini

## If set, an image (regardless of source) will only be used as a
## cover image if it is >= both the dimensions listed here.  When not
## set, any size image will be used.  Note that some sites, like ffnet
## use relatively small images(180,240).
cover_min_size: 100,100

replace_metadata: 
## Prettyizes fanfiction publishers.
 site=>www.fanfiction.net=>FanFiction.net
 site=>archiveofourown.org=>Archive of Our Own

generate_cover_settings:
## Makes the cover generation work after replace_metadata on site
 ${site}=>^FanFiction.net$=>FFNet
 ${site}=>^Archive of Our Own$=> AO3

(Note: All the covers I've been having issues with were over 100x100. Commented out the line anyways and it didn't change anything.)

4. Update the fic, either with "Update if new chapter" or "update EPUB always."
Update Calibre Metadata: Enabled
Update EPUB cover: Disabled
Background Metadata: tested both, same results

Expected results: That the previously downloaded cover image remains.

Actual results: Instead, it generates a new cover with plugin and injects that into the ePub. Thankfully cover image returns if I update it again with "update cover" checked.

I hope this was detailed enough information to replicate the issue.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

...
I hope this was detailed enough information to replicate the issue.

Yes, thank you.

Okay, here's what is going on:

When deciding whether there is an existing image or not before generating a new one, the code looks at the internal metadata entry cover_image for values 'specific', 'first', or 'default' indicating if a cover is an explicit cover image, the first image in story or a default cover setting respectively. It's not, however, looking for the value 'old', for a cover image from the existing epub.

If you have 'Update EPUB Cover?' unchecked, FFF literally injects [overrides] never_make_cover:true into INI settings behind the scenes. (It's actually one of the oldest options in the FFF plugin.) That prevents cover_image from being 'specific' or 'first'.

It's debatable whether 'old' should be considered in this case. Because a cover previously created from Generate Cover (or cal equiv) will also have cover_image='old'. So if you wanted to generate a new cover from updated metadata to replace a previously generated cover, it wouldn't; because there's already a cover.

There's additional possible complexity when using a GC setting that also uses the existing image as part of the generated cover, just to muddy the waters some more.

Right now, the only solution I see for a case where you don't want the site cover and want your own cover and don't want a generated cover is: turn 'Update EPUB Cover?' back on and set never_make_cover:true for that specific story URL in INI. Or unclicking 'Update EPUB Cover?' while updating that particular story.

This is all more complicated than it looks: FFF maybe putting a cover in the epub, then maybe setting calibre's cover from the epub, then maybe generating a new cover (maybe using the existing calibre cover), then maybe injecting it back into the epub again. While several of the maybes can also be significantly configured as well. And then all the complexities of coming back around to update it later.

It is admittedly a bit of a mess and you've wandered into a corner case that is probably ill served. But I don't see a good solution right now.

[ownedbycats]

That makes sense. Thank you.

[dwraith0877]

Since the last update, I have been unable to download any stories, either from FanFiction.net or StoriesOnLine.net. It keeps showing Status as Waiting, and Progress as Unavailable... Don't know what is going on with it... When I click on job details, it shows No details available...

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by dwraith0877

Since the last update, I have been unable to download any stories, either from FanFiction.net or StoriesOnLine.net. It keeps showing Status as Waiting, and Progress as Unavailable... Don't know what is going on with it... When I click on job details, it shows No details available...

I'm not seeing that problem. And if it were happening to everyone, it would have been reported by now.

Please provide a couple story URLs that exhibit the problem for you. It would also be helpful to see a debug log--run Calibre in debug mode before trying to download (under Calibre's Preferences dropdown).

Note that long stories can take a long time to download--sometimes hours.

IMO, it's extremely unlikely that any change in the newest version caused this, but past releases are available if you want to try rolling back.