Since Kobo update, series information doesn't transfer to device

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Thanks, davidfor, for this very lengthy response.

(One quick, unrelated query about this forum: The little box next to "Quote message in reply?" is greyed out, so I can't easily quote chunks of your post. Is there something I need to do to activate this function?)

Just to clarify one thing: the problem I was talking about, which my H2O didn't (still doesn't) have relates to my Libra 2 repeatedly, and frequently, freezing. In fact it's going to be replaced, becuase Kobo have agreed it's a fault. I didn't mean that I'd used it successfully to handle collections information.

As to the rest, it's all very informative - thanks. Without going through it piece by piece, though, one thing seems to be clear; or, rather, I'd be grateful if you could confirm it for me either way. Namely, the Collections functionality on Kobo devices allows books to belong to several different collections. For example, a book on the Vietnam War might be in a collection titled "US Politics" and another one titled "War" - in fact, the possibilities are endless, obviously: "Southeast Asia", "Cold War", etc. etc. The column-based functionality you're explaining doesn't seem as if it would be able to achieve that.

On the other hand, perhaps that's not the case - becuase you say Calibre can draw collections information from the settings on a Kobo device - and that's the way my H2O is set up, for example.

If you could clarify that one point for me, I would, as ever, be very grateful. Because if Calibre can't work with "overlapping" collections, then it won't be of any use to me for that purpose.

Liudprand

Your #collections column needs to allow multiple entries (like Tags) if you want more than 1 member.

Quote being grey is probably an Anti-Spam tactic applied to new users. I'm not sure if a Greenie Mod can whitelist a user early

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

Your #collections column needs to allow multiple entries (like Tags) if you want more than 1 member.

Quote being grey is probably an Anti-Spam tactic applied to new users. I'm not sure if a Greenie Mod can whitelist a user early

That Lime is a horrid color. The below looks much better.

Greenie

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That Lime is a horrid color. The below looks much better.

Greenie

Jon My vision is heading South. I click on what has contrast to my (good) eye.

[Liudprand]

Thanks, Terisa.

This sounds as if each column would be a different collection, as opposed to having a single "Collections" column in which each book is associated with a different collection. Is that right?

[Liudprand]

Originally Posted by theducks

Your #collections column needs to allow multiple entries (like Tags) if you want more than 1 member.

Quote being grey is probably an Anti-Spam tactic applied to new users. I'm not sure if a Greenie Mod can whitelist a user early

Thanksf or this.

Does this mean that, if you get Calibre to incporporate the Collections already set up on the device (which I'm assured is possible, though I haven't worked out how yet), it will automatically do what you're talking about - i.e. generate multiple tags for the purpose?

Thanks again!

Liudprand

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Thanks, Terisa.

This sounds as if each column would be a different collection, as opposed to having a single "Collections" column in which each book is associated with a different collection. Is that right?

Yes, that's right.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Thanks, Terisa.

This sounds as if each column would be a different collection, as opposed to having a single "Collections" column in which each book is associated with a different collection. Is that right?

Not quite right. Each value in the column becomes a collection. As an example, I have a column called "Status". This is the status of my books. It is a tag-like column. Which means it can have multiple values for each book. It is primarily for the reading status, so has "ToRead", "Reading", "ToRate" and "Finished". But, it can be used for statuses such as "ToBeCleaned" or "Cleaning" (books with problems to be fixed or in the process of being fixed), "InProgress" or "InComplete" (for books published serially so I know to look for another chapter), "Updated" (books that have had a change that need to be reflected on the ereader). And probably some other things that I can't think of at the moment.

I use this column as one of my collection columns. So each book will have at least one of those values. A new book gets "ToRead" and when it gets on the device, it gets put into the "ToRead" collection. When I start reading it, the book status gets changed to "Reading" and at the next connect the book gets moved between collections. If it is a serial, then it will have "InProgress" as well (the columns will show "ToRead, InProgress") and be in that collection as well. When it is finished, that will be removed. If I discover it will never be finished it get moved to "InComplete" and gets moved to that collection.

I use other columns as well for collections. One is "Source" meaning where I obtained the book (Kobo, Amazon, etc.). This only allows a single value, but the books will be in a collection named for its value.


And, as I always mention it, the status column is actually handled using the Reading List plugin. Each status has a list. Adding a book to the list adds the status value to the column. Removing the book from the list removes the value.

[Liudprand]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is a method to fetch collections from the device to a column in calibre. This is part of the Kobo Utilities plugin. The function is there and described in the help.

Thanks again for this reply, davidfor. But I've just installed Kobo Utilities, and then followed the link within it to the help page. That page does not contain either the word "collection" or "collections". Is there somewhere else I should be looking?

[Liudprand]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And, as I always mention it, the status column is actually handled using the Reading List plugin. Each status has a list. Adding a book to the list adds the status value to the column. Removing the book from the list removes the value.

And thanks for this. So (again, with apologies if I'm asking that that seem obvious), taken together with the query I just posted responding to your mention of using KoboUtilities to extract Collections information from the device, could that process (which I still haven't worked out) be tweaked to put all Collections info. automatically into a single status column (i.e. with the potential for multiple tags for any given book)?

And one final, small point: It looks, from the examples of tags that you give, as if tags can't contain wordspaces. So, for example, if one of mine is "Ancient History", how would that be rendered when transferred in the form of a tag into Calibre? Or would I need to manually go through all of my Collection names and remove the spaces?

As ever, many thanks.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Thanks again for this reply, davidfor. But I've just installed Kobo Utilities, and then followed the link within it to the help page. That page does not contain either the word "collection" or "collections". Is there somewhere else I should be looking?

You want "Get Shelves From Device". When Kobo first added this to the firmware, they called them shelves. There are still evidence of this a few places.

Originally Posted by Liudprand

And thanks for this. So (again, with apologies if I'm asking that that seem obvious), taken together with the query I just posted responding to your mention of using KoboUtilities to extract Collections information from the device, could that process (which I still haven't worked out) be tweaked to put all Collections info. automatically into a single status column (i.e. with the potential for multiple tags for any given book)?

That's how the "Get Shelves From Device" function works. You select an existing column and all the collections are copied into that. The column has to be either text or tag-like column. If you use a text column, the collections will be fetched as a list of the collection names separated by a comma. For a tag-like column, it will look the same, but calibre will treat it as a list of tags.

And one final, small point: It looks, from the examples of tags that you give, as if tags can't contain wordspaces. So, for example, if one of mine is "Ancient History", how would that be rendered when transferred in the form of a tag into Calibre? Or would I need to manually go through all of my Collection names and remove the spaces?

No, spaces are fine. Those examples are just a reflection of me. I don't tend to use spaces in file names and other places like this. I definitely have spaces in other tags and they are fine as collections.

[Liudprand]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You want "Get Shelves From Device". When Kobo first added this to the firmware, they called them shelves. There are still evidence of this a few places.


That's how the "Get Shelves From Device" function works. You select an existing column and all the collections are copied into that. The column has to be either text or tag-like column. If you use a text column, the collections will be fetched as a list of the collection names separated by a comma. For a tag-like column, it will look the same, but calibre will treat it as a list of tags.


No, spaces are fine. Those examples are just a reflection of me. I don't tend to use spaces in file names and other places like this. I definitely have spaces in other tags and they are fine as collections.

This is really helpful - many thanks!

[Liudprand]

Looks like I spoke too soon! I mean, it is very helpful information - its just that I can't find "Get Shelves From Device" anywhere in the plugin.

I really am beginning to wonder if I'm losing my (usually reasonably sharp) faculties, since clearly plenty of people are using Calibre and this plugin without too much difficulty. But I've just spent 20 minutes staring at each tab (there are only three, right - Profiles, Devices and Other?), unable to locate what you're talking about. Also, the help page doesn't include the words "Gets shelves from device" - or, as far as I could make out, anything equivalent to it.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Looks like I spoke too soon! I mean, it is very helpful information - its just that I can't find "Get Shelves From Device" anywhere in the plugin.

I really am beginning to wonder if I'm losing my (usually reasonably sharp) faculties, since clearly plenty of people are using Calibre and this plugin without too much difficulty. But I've just spent 20 minutes staring at each tab (there are only three, right - Profiles, Devices and Other?), unable to locate what you're talking about. Also, the help page doesn't include the words "Gets shelves from device" - or, as far as I could make out, anything equivalent to it.

That sounds like you are looking at the configuration dialog. It isn't there. With the device connected, right-click on the button for the plugin. "Get Shelves From Device" should be about halfway down the menu.

The help might be out of date, but, I thought that would be there. I'll have to check and update it.

[theducks]

It is there.
It only appears when the devices is in Connected mode (On Device column is showing), not simply plugged in

[Liudprand]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That sounds like you are looking at the configuration dialog. It isn't there. With the device connected, right-click on the button for the plugin. "Get Shelves From Device" should be about halfway down the menu.

The help might be out of date, but, I thought that would be there. I'll have to check and update it.

Thanks - that's great. Worked like a charm!

One (I think!) final follow-up question. In all the documentation, and on this forum, can I ask precisely what "device database" refers to? I mean, should I understand it to include everything - collections and series information, reading progress for each book, bookmarks, highlights, annotations, etc. (i.e. all metadata)? Or is it more limited than that?

EDIT: And, by extension, is it possible in principle to back all of that information up within Calibre, and then restore it on, say, a new device. And, if so, does that device have to be exactly the same model - or would it work when switching to a different model of Kobo reader?