[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[hrbngr]

I was able to determine that if any previously downloaded stories are selected, then it will try to update them and bypass the regular 'dload from url' option. calibre tends to highlight previously downloaded stories, so if you are downloaded multiple stories, will need to confirm that nothing is selected.

I would also like to confirm that if you paste in multiple URLs, is it always an anthology, or is there a way to have each URL dload into a separate story OR make it into an anthology instead?

[applegaa]

Originally Posted by hrbngr

I was able to determine that if any previously downloaded stories are selected, then it will try to update them and bypass the regular 'dload from url' option. calibre tends to highlight previously downloaded stories, so if you are downloaded multiple stories, will need to confirm that nothing is selected.

I would also like to confirm that if you paste in multiple URLs, is it always an anthology, or is there a way to have each URL dload into a separate story OR make it into an anthology instead?

If you click on the little down triangle on the right side of the FFF button, you get the menu. The top option is Download from URLs, which ignores any selected books and opens a window for you to add URLs. If you have any valid URLs in the clipboard, it will automatically add them to the list.

Anthology controls are the first option in the second section, which then splits into three options. Make from web page, make from URLs, and update (although not in those exact words).

[culytera]

The behavior when clicking the FanFicFare button can also be changed in the settings.

Click the down arrow beside the FanFicFare button on your toolbar -> Click "Configure FanFicFare" -> Under the "Basic" tab -> Under "GUI Options" -> Check "FanFicFare button opens menu?" -> Optionally, uncheck "Default to Update when books selected?" if you want to always download a link even if you have a book selected.

What I did was I assigned keyboard shortcuts for the actions "Download from URLs" and "Update Existing Fanfiction Books", it's faster this way.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by culytera

The behavior when clicking the FanFicFare button can also be changed in the settings.

Click the down arrow beside the FanFicFare button on your toolbar -> Click "Configure FanFicFare" -> Under the "Basic" tab -> Under "GUI Options" -> Check "FanFicFare button opens menu?" -> Optionally, uncheck "Default to Update when books selected?" if you want to always download a link even if you have a book selected.

What I did was I assigned keyboard shortcuts for the actions "Download from URLs" and "Update Existing Fanfiction Books", it's faster this way.

This is it exactly.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2026-09-18
- New update_preserve_deleted_chapters feature, see #1414, thanks, kitoma
- New update_check_recent_chapters feature, see #1414, thanks, kitoma
- adapter_sofurrycom: Fixes for login, closes #1416
- Document ffnet only try_shortened_title_urls setting
- Update translations

New features as implemented by kitoma. Only apply to epub and basically only tested on RoyalRoad.

Usually I try to personally use complicated new features for a few days before posting, but I don't have any stories that these would be useful for. So it's a bit less tested than usual.

## When updating an existing epub, FanFicFare normally reuses old
## chapter content without re-downloading. This means author edits
## to existing chapters are never detected.
##
## update_check_recent_chapters, if set to a number > 0, will cause
## FFF to re-download the last X chapters during each update to check
## for changes. Changes are detected by comparing text content against
## the stored chapter body (ignores html tags/image links).
##
## Only applies when updating (not initial download).
## Recommended only for stories where the author frequently edits
## after posting chapters.
## Warning: will overwrite local edits.
## Warning: looks at the *last* X chapters, which are not necessarily
## the X most *recent* chapters if the author inserts chapters.
#update_check_recent_chapters:0

## When updating, if the website has removed chapters that were
## previously downloaded, should FFF preserve them in the epub?
## When true, old chapters are kept even if no longer on the site,
## inserted at their original position relative to the remaining
## site chapters so chronological order is maintained.
## Honors ignore_chapter_url_list.
## Supersedes force_update_epub_always for this use case.
## Recommended specifically for royalroad and similar sites.
##
## Warning: Not currently compatible with chapter ranges([1-5] after
## URL, -b/-e CLI options or first_chapter/last_chapter settings).  An
## exception will be raised and download stopped.
##
## Warning: If a preserved chapter was still marked (new) by
## mark_new_chapters, FFF will not be able to 'unnew' it.
#update_preserve_deleted_chapters:false

## Preserved deleted chapters will have this set in
## ${preserved_chapter_mark} available in chapter_start/chapter_end.
## For details, see:
## https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/wiki/CustomOutput
#preserved_chapter_mark:(Preserved Deleted Chapter)

[gthesob]

For anyone getting 525s on AO3, I've found it often helps to go to the previous chapter and then back to the current chapter.

Maybe it's anecdotal, but I've had faster success than just retrying or coming back later.

[Snomad]

Hi Jimm,

Thanks so much for your hard work on this indispensable Calibre add-on. I have a small feature request for AO3 I'd like to make that I feel might strongly benefit the community. As you probably know, when you download a fic directly from AO3 a small comment is added at the end of the fic "Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!" with the 'drop by the Archive' part containing a hyperlink to the full work with '/comments/new' added on the end of the work's URL.

I've done some testing and it appears that adding '/comments/new' to any work's URL will open a page with a functional comment box. I am hoping that you could add an option that will re-add the "Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!" to the work with the option to have it at the end of each chapter or only at the end of the work. It appears the URL scheme is very simple:
Full work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/<WorkIDNumber>/comments/new
Per Chapter: https://archiveofourown.org/works/<WorkIDNumber>/chapters/<ChapterIDNumber>/comments/new

The addition of this feature would make it much easier add a comment to work that has been downloaded, and I hope also encourage people to still comment on works that they have downloaded when they are able to.

[culytera]

Originally Posted by Snomad

I've done some testing and it appears that adding '/comments/new' to any work's URL will open a page with a functional comment box. I am hoping that you could add an option that will re-add the "Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!" to the work with the option to have it at the end of each chapter or only at the end of the work. It appears the URL scheme is very simple:
Full work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/<WorkIDNumber>/comments/new
Per Chapter: https://archiveofourown.org/works/<WorkIDNumber>/chapters/<ChapterIDNumber>/comments/new

You can do this with chapter_end.

chapter_end:
 <div class="comment-box"><hr/><p class="message">Please <a href="${url}/comments/new">drop by the Archive and comment</a> to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!</p></div>
 </body>
 </html>

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by culytera

You can do this with chapter_end.

chapter_end:
 <div class="comment-box"><hr/><p class="message">Please <a href="${url}/comments/new">drop by the Archive and comment</a> to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!</p></div>
 </body>
 </html>

Exactly what I was going to say.

[Homer55]

I know this have nothing to do with the plugin but seeing as is a problem people might have when using this I gotta ask. When uploading the book with new chapters and uploading them to koreader, is there a way for koreader to detect the update and actually update the info like for example instead of the book saying read 100/100, said like read 100/105, or something lie that but without having to open all the books that were just updated?

[JimmXinu]

I ended up creating my own solutions for FFF+Calibre+KOReader and documented the process here. Start at Where I ended up if you want to skip the back story.

I don’t plan to make any official releases of my tools, but you are welcome to use what is there.

[Elaine T]

Is there some setting I need to check (or uncheck) to get the ini snippet option to show when I'm updating an anthology?


So far I have tried all the varieties of anthology update and get Ao3's 525 error before seeing anything else. I have the setting for FFF's button to show the FFF menu upon clicking, too. So that's not it.


After several hours I tried again and this time did not get the error, and the option to use the INI snippet after FFF got all the URLS. If that's not changeable, that's ok, but I'm wondering if I've missed something.


Thanks

[vscogirl]

Hey, so the 525 errors is driving me up the wall. I'm on a mac and I use the "get story url from email" to keep my library of ao3 fics update on calibre. so I don't really open the links on any browsers - but I downloaded firefox and logged into ao3, opened the link I am trying to download/update there so I could set up the browser cache method. I've followed all the steps but I still can't make it work. I keep getting the "list index out of range" error and I don't know enough to figure out what to change or where the issue lies. I have added the tweak in the preferences of calibre for the openers by scheme

Here's my relevant config from the ini file:

browser_cache_path = /Users/NAME/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/PROFILE/cache2
openers_by_scheme = {'http*': '/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox %%u'}

[www.archiveofourown.org]
is_adult: true
collect_series: true
use_archiveofourown_gay: false
slow_down_sleep_time:4
browser_cache_age_limit: -1
use_browser_cache:true
use_browser_cache_only:true
open_pages_in_browser:true

ALSO may be relevant, but i use one of the releases from this forked version https://github.com/natruok/FanFicFare/tree/v1 of FFF and then made changes to my preference for the organisational stuff of the cover pages. But i don't believe it should be impacting the browser cache bit?

Please let me know how I can go back to updating my fics because the 525 error has not taken a break in the last three days :(

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Elaine T

Is there some setting I need to check (or uncheck) to get the ini snippet option to show when I'm updating an anthology?

There isn't currently a way to use ini snippet with anthology update.

I would have to add a GUI dialog step to the anthology update process to present it. I will think about it.

Originally Posted by vscogirl

Hey, so the 525 errors is driving me up the wall.
...
ALSO may be relevant, but i use one of the releases from this forked version https://github.com/natruok/FanFicFare/tree/v1 of FFF and then made changes to my preference for the organisational stuff of the cover pages. But i don't believe it should be impacting the browser cache bit?

It's very relevant. The fork is based on FFF from May 2026, and there was a browser cache fix for Firefox in Jun 2026.

And that's as much I'm going to look into it. If you want to use someone else's fork, that's up to you. But I only support my own releases.

[Elaine T]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

There isn't currently a way to use ini snippet with anthology update.

I would have to add a GUI dialog step to the anthology update process to present it. I will think about it.

Ok. thanks for considering it.