[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[ownedbycats]

It might make sense to just copy SeriesNumberFloat from Calibre series_index without modification.

[chaley]

Discussion about separating series_index (float) and series_index (text) is now in Kobo: Separate series index (text) and series_index (float)?

[Quality]

Is there a way to edit or delete an already existing columns? I only have the option to create a new one or to select on that already exists.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quality

Is there a way to edit or delete an already existing columns? I only have the option to create a new one or to select on that already exists.

You need to attach your images. The [img] tag rarely works and in this case, it's not working and your image in not showing. You need to make sure you are in the advanced edition and then click the manage attachments button under your message and go from there.

[Quality]

Thank you for the info, here is the image.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quality

Is there a way to edit or delete an already existing columns? I only have the option to create a new one or to select on that already exists.

Have you tried going into calibre's preferences? Preferences => Add your own columns then select the column you want to edit and click on the pen/paper icon to edit.

[Quality]

Oh I see thank you, I am not that well versed with calibre.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quality

Oh I see thank you, I am not that well versed with calibre.

Like most Swiss army knife tools, finding where to do something can be a pain.

[Lavender]

Can someone explain the current annotation options with koboutilities? I would like to be able to back up annotations made on my kobo, and in the event that I delete the kepub from device then resync the file with calibre in the future I want to restore the annotation data to that book. Can this be done? Is it a desire for the project if not?

[targosh]

I am getting a template error for the time spent read column but am unsure why? Anyone has any ideas?

Originally Posted by Majutsushi

Time Spent Reading / Rest of Book Estimate formatting

If you want to show the "Time Spent Reading" and "Rest of Book Estimate" values in anything other than seconds, you will have to create two new columns that are based on the "seconds" columns and format the value differently.

Here is how you can do this:

• Open the Calibre preferences.
• Click on "Add your own columns".
• Click on "Add custom column" or the green "+" sign on the right.
• Enter a lookup name, like "#my_time_spent_reading".
• Enter a column heading, like "Time Spent Reading".
• For column type, choose "Column built from other columns".
• Right-click in the "Template" entry field and click "Open template editor".
• Enter the code to format the seconds to something else.
  
  Here is an example:
  

  program:
  
  total = $#kobo_time_spent_reading;
  hours = floor(total/3600);
  minutes = round((total-hours*3600)/60);
  
  def format(v, str):
      if v == 0 then return '' fi;
      return v & ' ' & str & ' '
  fed;
  format(hours, 'hr') & format(minutes, 'min')

  This will format the time as something like "3 hr 27 min".
  
  Make sure to replace "#kobo_time_spent_reading" with the actual lookup name of the seconds column you want to reference.
• Press "OK"/"Apply" to close all the dialogs and restart Calibre.

For more information about writing such a template check out https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/template_lang.html.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by targosh

I am getting a template error for the time spent read column but am unsure why? Anyone has any ideas?

It would be useful to have the actual template and the error. Otherwise we are wasting time guessing.

[DNSB]

As @chaley said, it would help if you posted what you used as the template and the column definition.

For what it may be worth, here's my variant which gives hours, minutes, seconds:

program:

	total = $#kobo_time_spent_reading;

	hours = floor(total/3600);
	minutes = floor(mod(total, 3600)/60);
	seconds = mod(total, 60);
	def format(v, str):
    if v == 0 then return '' fi;
    return v & ' ' & str & ' '
fed;
format(hours, 'hr') & format(minutes, 'min') & format(seconds, 'sec')

[chaley]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As @chaley said, it would help if you posted what you used as the template and the column definition.

For what it may be worth, here's my variant which gives hours, minutes, seconds:

program:

	total = $#kobo_time_spent_reading;

	hours = floor(total/3600);
	minutes = floor(mod(total, 3600)/60);
	seconds = mod(total, 60);
	def format(v, str):
    if v == 0 then return '' fi;
    return v & ' ' & str & ' '
fed;
format(hours, 'hr') & format(minutes, 'min') & format(seconds, 'sec')

FWIW: I've seen several posts over the years that discuss formatting a duration in seconds into some "human readable" string. I decided to add a template function

format_duration(value, template, largest_unit)

that given a duration is seconds can produce things like "2 weeks 4 days 20 minutes". I'll post the documentation in the template changes thread if and when Kovid accepts the change.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by chaley

FWIW: I've seen several posts over the years that discuss formatting a duration in seconds into some "human readable" string. I decided to add a template function.

format_duration(value, template, largest_unit)

that given a duration is seconds can produce things like "2 weeks 4 days 20 minutes". I'll post the documentation in the template changes thread if and when Kovid accepts the change.

For me, I've only once had a reading time go over 17 hours (and that was an omnibus with over 1 million words).

OTOH, your new function looks good for some of my other uses and is much appreciated compared to my current multi-line mess for converting seconds to other time units.

Edit: downloaded calibre source and the format_duration seems to be working okay for me where a book has been opened to read. I still need to play handling entries where the book has not been opened.

[TheOnceAndFuture]

Hello I've been trying to use KoboUtilities and I have some questions and feedback about two things that came up that I'd like to share.

Unique device names in profile device dropdown

My partner and I have two of the same device. It's great that KoboUtilities allows you to setup profiles so that each device can sync to a unique set of columns in Calibre. However, when selecting the "Device this profile is used for", it's impossible to know which to select because the devices have the same label.

I tried to do the following, but ultimately I ran into issues:
- In the 'Devices' tab, add your first device.
- Go to both profiles and set that same device as the device for that profile.
- Eject that device and connect the other device.
- Go to the 'Devices' tab and add this new device.
- Go to the profile corresponding to whose device this actually is, and TAB to the 'Device this profile is for' dropdown. DO NOT CLICK IT WITH YOUR MOUSE. Tab over to it and press SPACEBAR — the currently selected device should be the device you initially set it to, thus the other one (the one that is not selected), should be the new device. Use the up/down arrows to select that device, and press ENTER.

This approach in theory should work, but it would be nice if the dropdown simply included a unique identifier for devices (say, the serial number) to make it easier. The reason why I say "in theory should work" is because I wasn't actually able to get my annotations from my second device, which is the next issue.

Issue retrieving device metadata with multiple profiles
While I have been able to successfully retrieve metadata from my device, such as 'reading location', which oddly appears to be a filename, 'rest of the book estimate', 'time spent reading', 'last read date', I cannot get it from my other device. I am not sure if this is a separate issue or related to the first issue.

To create a simple environment, both my devices only have a few annotations for 1 book (a different book on each device). I connect one device to calibre, select "Store/restore reading positions", and it pulled the relevant metadata from my 1 book. I safely eject the device and plugin the second device and try the same thing but I am unable to retrieve any data. And oddly, the first time I tried it actually just retrieved the same metadata as the first device, as if the first device was still connected (it wasn't—the second device was). However, I am unable to replicate the behavior and now nothing happens when I try to retrieve metadata from the second device.

In fact, in the process of writing this I'm trying again to pull the metadata, but it doesn't pull from either device now. The behavior is inconsistent and I'm not seeing any errors popup and there doesn't appear to be anything notable in the debug logs (it shows various koboutilities.action entries but nothing indicating an error or retrieval issue per se).

Are other people having issues with this or is it just me?

Backup annotations file does not appear to work

In my library, I added some annotations to a book. I connected the book to my PC/Calibre, and am able to successfully view those annotations with "Copy annotation for selected book". However, when I try to use "Back up annotation file", no file appears to be created.

Thanks for reading