[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ThePyrite

Hello, I'm fairly new to using fff and I am having some trouble understanding the Saved Metadata column and how it can be used. This forum has been a massive help to me so far but I cannot figure out how to use the saved metadata to update other custom columns.

You use do an FFF update, but you use "Update Calibre Metadata from Saved Metadata Column" mode.

There's a wiki page about the update modes that may help.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by books_and_yarn

I'm having an issue getting updated anthologies to replace the older version on my Kobo Libra Colour. This has previously worked fine, but since FFF was throwing errors when trying to update anthologies for awhile, I haven't actually had the opportunity to try it in a little while. This time I successfully updated an anthology, which is how I discovered the transfer error.

If the epub in Calibre is updated correctly, then this is a problem with Kobo, not FFF.

One of Calibre 8's major new features is more native Kobo support, so settings may have moved around? I don't actually know much of anything about Kobo.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by books_and_yarn

I'm having an issue getting updated anthologies to replace the older version on my Kobo Libra Colour. This has previously worked fine, but since FFF was throwing errors when trying to update anthologies for awhile, I haven't actually had the opportunity to try it in a little while. This time I successfully updated an anthology, which is how I discovered the transfer error.

I'm running Calibre 8.0.1 on Windows 11 and FanFicFare 4.43.0.

I have FFF set to update anthologies if there are new chapters, and the epub is definitely updating correctly in my Calibre library. Kobo Touch has "Do not treat replacements as new books" checked, so it should overwrite the old version of the anthology. When I send the updated anthology epub to device, Calibre says the job worked fine. However, when I eject the Kobo, the book has not updated. When it is connected, I can see the date of the file on the Kobo is the old date, while the one in Calibre has the new update date.

I don't think this info is relevant, but yes, I always reconnect the Kobo after send to device/eject to be sure metadata updates. That shouldn't (and doesn't) have an impact on the file transfer, but I figured someone might ask.

I tried looking for this issue in the forums and on Reddit in the Calibre forum, but I haven't found a fix yet.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Might be the ToC needs updating.

https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFa...d-fics-to-kobo

Note the "errors when updating ToC" as it usually applies with anthologies.

[applegaa]

I thought this had been asked before, but my search skills are not finding it.

Is there any way to have FanFicFare recover/continue after an application crash or power failure?

I'm pretty sure the downloads were completed prior to my computer losing power, but I had not had a chance to hit Yes to start the actual update process. It took a bit to download them, so I'd prefer to not have to start completely over.

- Andrew

[ThePyrite]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

You use do an FFF update, but you use "Update Calibre Metadata from Saved Metadata Column" mode.

There's a wiki page about the update modes that may help.

Thank you for the link, however I am still getting no changes when I use "Update Calibre Metadata from Saved Metadata Column" mode to update an existing story. I still don't understand how the information gets from the Saved Metadata column to wherever I want to use it when updating using this update mode.

If I make a new custom column meant to hold freeform ao3 tags, it will not populate when I update an existing AO3 story using "Update Calibre Metadata from Saved Metadata Column" mode. I have tried using different types of columns and different lookup names, but nothing has worked and "Columns built from other columns" types require a template, which I am not familiar with yet.

I thought I might be missing a setup step after configuring the Saved Metadata column. Either that or that I was trying to use the Saved Metadata column in a manner that simply isn't possible to begin with.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by applegaa

Is there any way to have FanFicFare recover/continue after an application crash or power failure?

Not as a feature, no.

However, the FFF temp directory inside Calibre's temp dir may still be there.

On my win10, that's something like:

C:\Users\YourUser\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre-1n_7b9sq\fanficfare_kguhqfps

Note that the calibre-XXXX changes with every Calibre session and the fanficfare_XXXX part changes with every FFF download session.

The quickest way I know to find where Calibre writes its temp dirs to is to run Calibre in debug mode and a run a FFF download, then look at the log for outfile. That won't give you the temp dir you want, but it should be in the same tree.

If you find the correct temp dir, and the download finished, the output epubs should be there named Title-Author-XXXX.epub. You can import them normally and do a FFF Update Metadata from web site if you to get (most) normal metadata processing.

Note that the temp dirs are deleted by Calibre and FFF when no longer needed on successful completion. And that one of the new features of Calibre 8 was "Ensure calibre temp files are deleted even on program crash". So this technique may not be feasible when just Calibre crashes.

[ownedbycats]

Sort by modified data will help to find the folder.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ThePyrite

I thought I might be missing a setup step after configuring the Saved Metadata column. Either that or that I was trying to use the Saved Metadata column in a manner that simply isn't possible to begin with.

Nothing jumps out. In most cases, update metadata from Saved Metadata works the same as update metadata from web site. If one works, so should the other.

You could try it after restarting in Calibre in debug mode (under Calibre's Preferences dropdown) and see if the debug log gives any more detail.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2025-03-29
- adapter_storiesonlinenet(et al): Add always_login option. Closes #1185

[ownedbycats]

Question: I know wrangling AO3 tags is hopeless. I wanted to extract specfic tags to a column instead for easier searching, leave full tags in the title page. This works when I tested:

[defaults]

add_to_extra_valid_entries:,oneshot,tagscategory,covertype,subtitle,fictags

# fanfictags is a copy category for freeformtags 
include_in_fictags:freeformtags
include_subject_tags: fictags

custom_columns_settings: 
 fictags=>#fanfictags

include_metadata_pre:
 fictags==Reader-Insert

If I wanted to add, other entries (characters) to the include_in_fictags, separate line or csv?

EDIT: Also this added to general tags. Mistake?

ANOTHER EDIT: include_subject_tags was not needed.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

If I wanted to add, other entries (characters) to the include_in_fictags, separate line or csv?

Comma separated list.

[ThePyrite]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Nothing jumps out. In most cases, update metadata from Saved Metadata works the same as update metadata from web site. If one works, so should the other.

You could try it after restarting in Calibre in debug mode (under Calibre's Preferences dropdown) and see if the debug log gives any more detail.

I got it working! Debug log didn't show anything helpful so I tested using the Saved Metadata with a new library and got it to populate metadata columns there. Compared it to my usual library and found an issue with my personal.ini code to correct. Knowing I didn't skip a step somewhere helped me realize that I was overthinking the source of the issue a little bit.

Thank you so much for the help!

[ownedbycats]

It's a good idea to have a test library on hand.

[ownedbycats]

New question: Added "ships" to fictags. Stories not tagged 'reader-insert' but just tagged with Character/Reader, this doesn't work. Regex wrong? (Works in Regex101.)

# fanfictags is a copy category for freeformtags 
include_in_fictags:freeformtags,characters,ships

include_metadata_pre:
 fictags==Reader-Insert
 fictags==Reader/.*
 fictags==*./Reader

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

New question: Added "ships" to fictags. Stories not tagged 'reader-insert' but just tagged with Character/Reader, this doesn't work. Regex wrong? (Works in Regex101.)

# fanfictags is a copy category for freeformtags 
include_in_fictags:freeformtags,characters,ships

include_metadata_pre:
 fictags==Reader-Insert
 fictags==Reader/.*
 fictags==*./Reader

Typo. You have == for string match and you want =~ for regexp.