[GUI Plugin] EpubMerge

[golly1]

Good Morning,
I cant attach the files here.
https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?c...Hh0TWSQ8YyXSQX
You will find 3 books 2x from project Gutenberg
Jerrold, Walter - Test 1 - The Danube.epub --> with calibre metadata jacket
Dane Coolidge - Test 2 - The Man-killers.epub --> with calibre metadata jacket

and
Jerrold, Walter & Dane Coolidge - - Test.epub --> merged with your plugin.
the metadata jacket are deleted

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Attached

2023-06-14
- Fix for writing relative paths in merged epub
- Update Translations

Okay, I see the issue now. These epubs have content.opf down a directory and then referring to the jacket.xhtml as "../jacket.xhtml" in the manifest.

EpubMerge isn't handling that correctly when it copies the file to the new epub, instead of 2/jacket.xhtml it's ending up in 2/OEBPS/jacket.xhtml.

Most epubs I've seen either have content.opf at the top level or have everything it refers to in the same dir. I'm also seeing the same issue with a fonts dir in the 2nd epub.

This test version works for me.

[golly1]

Good morning JimmXinu,
it work fine.
Many thanks for the fast solve my problem.
Best regards golly1

[arpeggioaccele]

I have been using the plugin to collate series and it has worked great so far!

I was wondering if there is a better way to merge different series into different anthologies all at once, as in selecting books A,B,C to anthology 1 and books D,E,F to anthology 2 in one step.

I just wanted to ask in case someone knew, it would really make it less of a hassle to merge lots of series quickly.

Additional info:

When I do this currently, I use the search
series:true OR comment:"Anthology containing:"
so I tell which anthologies I have already created. However, each time I merge a new series, I get sent back to the top of the list and have to resort by author to get back to where I left off.

I thought of three ways I could sort of accomplish this:
1. somehow ignore the epub merge dialog box and go back to calibre to select more books to merge before approving all the jobs later (is this possible?)
2. pause all jobs so that epub merge does not start until I finish queuing up each job (not possible according to a won't fix bug report)
3. figure out how to automate merging series automatically (learn how to write a plugin or script)

I know the easiest way to fix this "problem" is start using fanficfare and allow that to manage everything, but I didn't want to go back and redownload the thousands of stories I already had. And thus I have been doing things manually.

[arpeggioaccele]

Addendum: I researched modal windows in qt https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/dialogs.html
and looked through epub merge to find where _exec() which I think could change to show() just to get a nonmodal dialog box... idk, I really should learn python. And it's a terrible solution to try to collect up dialog boxes, might not work either.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by arpeggioaccele

I was wondering if there is a better way to merge different series into different anthologies all at once, as in selecting books A,B,C to anthology 1 and books D,E,F to anthology 2 in one step.

Not really. There isn't a good way to have different selections in a library at once in Calibre. Closest is probably Reading List plugin.

Attempting to stack multiple merge operations is, IMO, more work than it's worth. Figuring out an UI, adding all the checking for if the books to merge are still valid, explaining the more complicated UI, detecting/blocking/warning library changes with pending merges, etc etc etc.

Originally Posted by arpeggioaccele

When I do this currently, I use the search
series:true OR comment:"Anthology containing:"
so I tell which anthologies I have already created. However, each time I merge a new series, I get sent back to the top of the list and have to resort by author to get back to where I left off.

EM uses Calibre's Edit Metadata to edit the merged book's metadata. Added books go at the top of the library list and editing it moves selection and scrolls the list there. Current search and order shouldn't be changed, just current position and selection. I don't really want to skip the edit metadata step because that data feeds into the merged book.

I can, however, change EM to configurably re-selected the previously selected books again when Edit Metadata closes and the merge launches. Coming Soon.

Which of course would mean you'd instead have to go looking for your new merged book. I assume most users immediately after using the tool will be more interested in the output than the input, which is why it would be configurable and default to off.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version

2023-07-07
- Add Restore Selection option

2023-06-14
- Fix for writing relative paths in merged epub
- Update Translations

Looks like I never released that last test version.

[arpeggioaccele]

Oh wow that would be really helpful! Thanks for the advice and the much appreciated feature— it works flawlessly!


It definitely would be way too much work to create a way to stack merge operations. Also blindly changing all the _exec() functions to show() broke the plugin lol.

[JimmXinu]

I've been able to test this change with Win10 and MacOS.

Any Linux users who can check it, please?

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version

2023-07-15
- Show busy cursor during unmerge
- Consolidate FFF title/log page skipping code to fix cover issue
- Add option to not condense TOC for a book down to a single entry if there's only one chapter in it.

2023-07-07
- Add Restore Selection option

2023-06-14
- Fix for writing relative paths in merged epub
- Update Translations

Discussion:
https://github.com/JimmXinu/EpubMerge/pull/10
https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/issues/977

[JimmXinu]

New Version Released

Version 2.16.0 - 2023-07-19
- Show busy cursor during unmerge
- Consolidate FFF title/log page skipping code to fix cover issue
- Add option to not condense TOC for a book down to a single entry if there's only one chapter in it.
- Add Restore Selection option
- Fix for writing relative paths in merged epub
- Update Translations

[Archina]

Hi guys,

I need help with merging ebooks that have the same title in a series.
There are 12 ebooks in the series and there are 3 bundles of 3 books. Since the bundles are named the same I can't tell when bundle is the 1, 2 or 3 when they are the epubmerge.

I've tried everything I could think of. I changed them to pdf then renamed then changed back to epub but it didn't work. I tried to change the name in calibre first but it was a no go.

Can anyone help?

I know it's an old thread but I'm hoping someone will be able to help.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Archina

I need help with merging ebooks that have the same title in a series.
There are 12 ebooks in the series and there are 3 bundles of 3 books. Since the bundles are named the same I can't tell when bundle is the 1, 2 or 3 when they are the epubmerge.

I've tried everything I could think of. I changed them to pdf then renamed then changed back to epub but it didn't work. I tried to change the name in calibre first but it was a no go.

EpubMerge uses the Calibre book title for each input book in the merged epub TOC. Assuming you have Insert Table of Contents entry for each title in EpubMerge config checked--it is by default.

Perhaps you were changing the Series and not the Title?

[theducks]

identical titles (same author) in calibre is not wonderful.

Find duplicates will flag.
Using a simple (the default) template to transfer will lead to as the file will self stomp.

Always include a tie breaker in the title. (ep, Vol, Bk...)

Epic ep 1
Epic ep 2
Epic ep 3

[Archina]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

EpubMerge uses the Calibre book title for each input book in the merged epub TOC. Assuming you have Insert Table of Contents entry for each title in EpubMerge config checked--it is by default.

Perhaps you were changing the Series and not the Title?

Yes, "Insert table of contents" is checked.

For the 3 bundles the series is the title. When I view them on my laptop I can see which bundle is what but not when I bring it into calibre. I can only tell by looking at the cover, in calibre, which bundle is which but not when I use epub merge. The title has which books are in each bundle but I can only see that on my laptop

If in epub merge it showed the published date then it would be so easy to see which bundle was which.

I'm thinking I might not be able to merge them.