Freda - ebook reader program for Windows Mobile - Page 20

chaley · 06-07-2010, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starrigger

I'm unclear on the Calibre integration someone mentioned. Does this mean that Freda can download books via the Calibre content server, when the device is connected to the web? What about when it's connected via USB?

Can't say anything about the content server, but assuming that the device presents its memory as a removable disc, with Calibre 0.7 you can mount your Freda folder as a Calibre 'folder device'. You can then use Calibre to manage the device's library in the same way you would a dedicated e-reader.

The OPF question is interesting. Calibre will insert all the metadata it knows about into the book's embedded OPF file, including tags, series, etc. Freda would have a lot to play with.

starrigger · 06-07-2010, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaley

Can't say anything about the content server, but assuming that the device presents its memory as a removable disc, with Calibre 0.7 you can mount your Freda folder as a Calibre 'folder device'. You can then use Calibre to the device's library in the same way you would for a dedicated e-reader.

As it happens, I just updated to Calibre 7. But I don't see how to mount the Freda folder as a device in Calibre. Can you explain?

chaley · 06-07-2010, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starrigger

As it happens, I just updated to Calibre 7. But I don't see how to mount the Freda folder as a device in Calibre. Can you explain?

Plug in your device. You should get a mount point. If you are running windows, that will be a drive letter. Linux and Mac's will put it under /media or some such. Make mental note of where it is. Start Calibre. Click on the small downward-facing triangle immediately to the right of 'Send to Device'. You will see a menu, with one option being 'Connect to Folder'. Choose that and navigate to the folder on the device you want Calibre to play in. Upon OK, calibre will do its thing and another library icon should appear.

One note: if you point at a folder with books in it, calibre will see them. However, calibre stores books using its own scheme, which you can control using calibre's preferences. If the existing books don't use the same scheme, then calibre won't overwrite them if you send the book again. You will get another copy. To simplify things, I made a new ebooks folder and populated it using calibre, pointed Freda at this new folder, then deleted my old one.

starrigger · 06-07-2010, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaley

Plug in your device. You should get a mount point. If you are running windows, that will be a drive letter. Linux and Mac's will put it under /media or some such. Make mental note of where it is. Start Calibre. Click on the small downward-facing triangle immediately to the right of 'Send to Device'. You will see a menu, with one option being 'Connect to Folder'. Choose that and navigate to the folder on the device you want Calibre to play in. Upon OK, calibre will do its thing and another library icon should appear.

One note: if you point at a folder with books in it, calibre will see them. However, calibre stores books using its own scheme, which you can control using calibre's preferences. If the existing books don't use the same scheme, then calibre won't overwrite them if you send the book again. You will get another copy. To simplify things, I made a new ebooks folder and populated it using calibre, pointed Freda at this new folder, then deleted my old one.

Nope, my PDA shows up with the drives in Windows Explorer, but not with a drive letter. I can navigate to the folder on the SD card that way. But it doesn't show up in Calibre's dialogue box.

Hmm. But maybe it'll work if I pop the SD card into the computer, and do it that way... I'll have to try.

EDIT: Aha, yes! I see the new Calibre also marks which items in the library are also in the device, and vice versa. I found some stories on my SD card that I actually had neglected to add to Calibre.

starrigger · 06-07-2010, 07:35 PM

Wait a minute. Calibre renamed my SD Card "SD Card2." What the frak? And then Freda seems to have created a folder called SD Card in my main memory, in response. and now I've got duplicate entries in my library for all these books, and Freda crashed when I tried to open a book in my bookshelf. No, no, this is not good.

Now I've got to see if I can repair the damage.

EDIT: It took a few resets and removing some folders, but I seem to be back to normal. I wonder if that was expected behavior on the part of Calibre. I guess I should ask over in their forum.

chaley · 06-08-2010, 02:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starrigger

Wait a minute. Calibre renamed my SD Card "SD Card2." What the frak? ... I wonder if that was expected behavior on the part of Calibre. I guess I should ask over in their forum.

To the best of my knowledge (and I wrote the code for the feature), Calibre renames nothing. It opens a folder, point finale.

Any chance your OS renamed it because of a conflict with something else plugged into the machine? I suspect that your PDA is managed by ActiveSync, and who knows what it does.

If you try any more experiments (and I will understand if you don't, but it would help if you did

), post the results in the calibre forum. Thanks

starrigger · 06-08-2010, 02:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaley

To the best of my knowledge (and I wrote the code for the feature), Calibre renames nothing. It opens a folder, point finale.

Any chance your OS renamed it because of a conflict with something else plugged into the machine? I suspect that your PDA is managed by ActiveSync, and who knows what it does.

If you try any more experiments (and I will understand if you don't, but it would help if you did

), post the results in the calibre forum. Thanks

Hm, well, if you wrote the code, then you're the right person to talk to.

If I can find another SD card not in use, I'll do some further tests. I don't think I want to mess this one up again.

I didn't do this through the PDA and ActiveSync. As I mentioned above, Calibre wasn't able to see the SD card when I tried that, although Windows Explorer could. The device shows up in WE as a device, but not a drive letter. (Maybe you could find a way to tweak it to get around that problem.)

I did the Calibre connection with the SD card removed from the Axim and plugged directly into my laptop. Then I put the card back into the Axim. I didn't look at its contents before I tried Freda again, so I can't say at what point the renaming occurred.

Hey, wait. I think I did have the Axim plugged into a USB cable charging when I removed the SD card from it and put it into the card slot on the laptop. So maybe it was Windows that did the renaming.

I'll report more in the Calibre forum if I can.

Back to Freda and Calibre, though...what does the option mean when you go to Add books to the library, and one of the choices is Calibre [mumble mumble] catalog?

JBlyth · 06-08-2010, 03:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starrigger

I did the Calibre connection with the SD card removed from the Axim and plugged directly into my laptop. Then I put the card back into the Axim.

Sometimes Windows Mobile can be "helpful" by seeing the re-inserted card as a "new" SD Card, and so it renames it SD Card 2 within the PDA device itself - not the SD Card Volume Name.

If a soft reset with your SD Card out of the Axim doesn’t solve the problem, the solution is to carefully check the contents of the Axim SD Card folder (just to be sure) then delete the SD Card folder on the Axim – making sure your "real" SD Card is still safely out of the AXIM !

Do aother soft reset for good measure, and then reinsert you SD Card into the AXIM, and all should be right with the world!

This is a "feature" of Windows Mobile and its earlier versions and I don't think it has anything to do with Calibre or Freda at all....

Have fun
John in Sunny Carnarvon - Western Australia

Jim Chapman · 06-08-2010, 06:09 AM

An alternative way to make your Calibre books available to Freda is to use Calibre2opds. It goes like this:

1) On your desktop PC, install DropBox (an application that creates a special folder on your PC that is, in effect, visible on the internet)
2) Install Calibre and calibre2opds, and follow the calibre2opds instructions (which, in short, consist of telling Calibre to put your Calibre library into DropBox's special internet-visibile folder).

Calibre2opds will create, in that special folder, a library catalog file. That file is in OPDS format (an internet standard for representing catalogs of books).

Then make a note of the URL of that catalog file, and enter that into Freda's "Library > Add OPDS Catalog" screen; you can then use that Freda screen to navigate around your Calibre library and add to your Freda library whatever book(s) you want. When you open one of these books, it will download onto your phone.

The calibre2opds manual gives more detailed instructions, with pictures.

This procedure will work for any OPDS-compatible book reader (not just Freda) - so you can use it also with Stanza and Aldiko, among others.

Provisos:
1) To access your library and download books, your phone will have to have a connection to the internet (so WiFi or an all-you-can-eat data tariff is recommended). Though once you have opened - i.e. downloaded - a book, you will be able to read it without using the internet, because Freda will cache it locally on your phone.
2) The procedure involves putting your Calibre library in a location that is visible to the world - or at least to anyone who can guess your DropBox user-id. You might not want to do that.

Jim

Jim Chapman · 06-08-2010, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silkshadow

The things I might like to see starts with the lock backlight.

Is there a way to make this permanent?

Because the setting is such a battery-killer, I decided not to make it permanent. Switching it on only takes a single tap on the shortcut screen after all

Quote:

Originally Posted by silkshadow

-Is it possible to have an option to return the former "go" menu (chapters, TOC, bookmark nav) for one of the hotspots then assign the other to shortcuts?

I see what you mean, but I'm afraid it would make the GUI too complicated. Also, it would involve quite a bit of menu-coding and screen-coding for comparatively little benefit - so I don't think I will make it a priority. But if I hear many votes to the contrary, I will look at it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silkshadow

-The library, is it possible to add a "source" dropbox?

Good idea. I will implement it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silkshadow

-The auto-open option doesn't seem to stick.

I will investigate and fix.

Thanks,

Jim

chaley · 06-08-2010, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

An alternative way to make your Calibre books available to Freda is to use Calibre2opds

On a similar vein, you can use the calibre server and keep things private (on your home network). If a)
your device has wifi, and b) you have wifi at where you want to access your library (home), and c) you have calibre on a machine where you want to access your library, then the server could work for you. The server supports both OPDS and 'standard' web access.

I don't use it, so I can't give detailed information. There are people on the calibre forum who swear by it and are very willing to help, so go there if you have questions.

silkshadow · 06-08-2010, 10:12 AM

The ability of Freda 2.0 to support Calibre's server function is really awesome. And so far I have no bugs to report, its working nicely, if a bit slowly before caching the db. I used to be jealous of Stanza's ability to do this (though you would have to pay me a lot before I would ever use a crapple mobile

).

Chaley, I would add a "d)" to your list.

WM supports VPN pretty well (albeit clunkier than it needs to be like everything WM OS related), so you could VPN into your home network from anywhere in the world and directly access your Calibre library on your WM device via HSDPA or Wifi. I haven't tested it with Freda off my LAN yet, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.

Thanks for all the replies Jim! The more I am using it, the better it gets.

I am posting back to report that a clean uninstall and reinstall fixed my auto-open sticking issue. It seems to now be gone.

I fully understand about the backlight and top menu, forget I mentioned it

.

Awesome news on the source drop down, that would make library navigation a ton easier.

The only new thing I have is that it seems, after the first book I opened (Larrson's The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo), Freda is not finding/populating the series name/number info. Its populating the author and title with no problem. I've now opened about 60 books (excluding Calibre news) and only Larrson's book has a series name/number.

I don't know how many of these books were originally ePub or converted to ePub by Calibre, but what is Freda looking for to get the series name/number? Is it looking at the opf? I exported opf for a couple of these books, flushed the Freda cache and it still didn't pickup this metadata.

Again, loving v2.0. Thanks!

starrigger · 06-08-2010, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaley

On a similar vein, you can use the calibre server and keep things private (on your home network). If a)
your device has wifi, and b) you have wifi at where you want to access your library (home), and c) you have calibre on a machine where you want to access your library, then the server could work for you. The server supports both OPDS and 'standard' web access.

I don't use it, so I can't give detailed information. There are people on the calibre forum who swear by it and are very willing to help, so go there if you have questions.

I tried using the Calibre server (I've used it previously with my wife's iTouch and Stanza), but couldn't get it to connect to Freda. I tried using the computer's name on the home network (http://computer:8080/) w/o success, then tried using the IP number. Nada. I was able to make the default Feedbooks connection, however, so the basic function works.

I guess I'll ask in the Calibre section.

starrigger · 06-08-2010, 07:14 PM

Couple more observations:

Deleting books from the library is tricky, and a bit confusing. I just deleted the whole library, meaning only to delete one book. (It's easy enough to recreate the library, but the bookshelf info is all gone, and your place lost in anything you were reading.) What's confusing is, you get this prompt asking about the source. I still don't quite understand what I'm supposed to choose there, even after fumbling with it several times.

Question: Is it possible to restore Bookshelf info, if one happens to have backed up the Bookshelf folder prior to messing around? Can I just write the old Bookshelf folder over the new?

I was just experimenting with copying from Calibre directly onto the SD card (as before, but more carefully). Seems to have worked okay this time. But when I checked in File Explorer afterward on the PDA to make sure nothing weird had happened again, I saw a bunch of apparently empty folders in the Freda program folder in the PDA's main memory. The names of the folders are odd distortions of names of books, folders, and even of Kovid:

e_Starda.nce
__Spider
bre.kovi.dgo
SD.ard

It's pretty strange. Can I safely delete these folders, as long as they are empty?

EDIT: I just tapped on one called "Booksplash," and I got an apparent image of a book's text page--in the picture viewer. Several of them are listed as being over a GB. (Which is more than the memory in the device.)

ANOTHER EDIT: A lot of these files and folders are dated in the years 2028 and 2035. They're from the future! (I wonder if they contain stock prices.)

And they're all locked and I can't delete them. I wonder if I should uninstall, scrub, and reinstall Freda.

Can I do that without losing all my settings again?

cbarnett · 06-09-2010, 12:14 AM

I'm currently running the second beta on an Axim X50v running WM6.0, with the app installed to program memory and temp files on the SD card (I've found that with certain apps I need to have them installed in program memory to keep them from crashing when left running and the device is turned off and on again).

It's running well so far, with comparable speed to 1.*. The only niggle I've seen so far (and it doesn't seem to follow a pattern) is the weird screen corruption when turning a page - the colour varies and it looks like a vertical line running across a mostly blank screen. Sometimes it comes back by changing the page again or even tapping the screen with the stylus or my finger. Like I said, it doesn't happen often, but has happened in several different ebooks I tried of varying sizes.

Apart from this, it's a great improvement all round.

06-07-2010, 07:35 PM	#290
starrigger Jeffrey A. Carver Posts: 1,355 Karma: 1107383 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Massachusetts, USA Device: Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus, Droid phone, Nook HD+	Wait a minute. Calibre renamed my SD Card "SD Card2." What the frak? And then Freda seems to have created a folder called SD Card in my main memory, in response. and now I've got duplicate entries in my library for all these books, and Freda crashed when I tried to open a book in my bookshelf. No, no, this is not good. Now I've got to see if I can repair the damage. EDIT: It took a few resets and removing some folders, but I seem to be back to normal. I wonder if that was expected behavior on the part of Calibre. I guess I should ask over in their forum. Last edited by starrigger; 06-07-2010 at 07:44 PM.

06-08-2010, 06:09 AM	#294
Jim Chapman Addict Posts: 310 Karma: 2025434 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Lumia 950 Phone	Calibre and Freda v2.0 An alternative way to make your Calibre books available to Freda is to use Calibre2opds. It goes like this: 1) On your desktop PC, install DropBox (an application that creates a special folder on your PC that is, in effect, visible on the internet) 2) Install Calibre and calibre2opds, and follow the calibre2opds instructions (which, in short, consist of telling Calibre to put your Calibre library into DropBox's special internet-visibile folder). Calibre2opds will create, in that special folder, a library catalog file. That file is in OPDS format (an internet standard for representing catalogs of books). Then make a note of the URL of that catalog file, and enter that into Freda's "Library > Add OPDS Catalog" screen; you can then use that Freda screen to navigate around your Calibre library and add to your Freda library whatever book(s) you want. When you open one of these books, it will download onto your phone. The calibre2opds manual gives more detailed instructions, with pictures. This procedure will work for any OPDS-compatible book reader (not just Freda) - so you can use it also with Stanza and Aldiko, among others. Provisos: 1) To access your library and download books, your phone will have to have a connection to the internet (so WiFi or an all-you-can-eat data tariff is recommended). Though once you have opened - i.e. downloaded - a book, you will be able to read it without using the internet, because Freda will cache it locally on your phone. 2) The procedure involves putting your Calibre library in a location that is visible to the world - or at least to anyone who can guess your DropBox user-id. You might not want to do that. Jim

06-08-2010, 10:12 AM	#297
silkshadow Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2010 Device: HD2	The ability of Freda 2.0 to support Calibre's server function is really awesome. And so far I have no bugs to report, its working nicely, if a bit slowly before caching the db. I used to be jealous of Stanza's ability to do this (though you would have to pay me a lot before I would ever use a crapple mobile ). Chaley, I would add a "d)" to your list. WM supports VPN pretty well (albeit clunkier than it needs to be like everything WM OS related), so you could VPN into your home network from anywhere in the world and directly access your Calibre library on your WM device via HSDPA or Wifi. I haven't tested it with Freda off my LAN yet, but I can't see why it wouldn't work. Thanks for all the replies Jim! The more I am using it, the better it gets. I am posting back to report that a clean uninstall and reinstall fixed my auto-open sticking issue. It seems to now be gone. I fully understand about the backlight and top menu, forget I mentioned it . Awesome news on the source drop down, that would make library navigation a ton easier. The only new thing I have is that it seems, after the first book I opened (Larrson's The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo), Freda is not finding/populating the series name/number info. Its populating the author and title with no problem. I've now opened about 60 books (excluding Calibre news) and only Larrson's book has a series name/number. I don't know how many of these books were originally ePub or converted to ePub by Calibre, but what is Freda looking for to get the series name/number? Is it looking at the opf? I exported opf for a couple of these books, flushed the Freda cache and it still didn't pickup this metadata. Again, loving v2.0. Thanks! Last edited by silkshadow; 06-08-2010 at 10:16 AM. Reason: excluding not inclusing

06-08-2010, 07:14 PM	#299
starrigger Jeffrey A. Carver Posts: 1,355 Karma: 1107383 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Massachusetts, USA Device: Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus, Droid phone, Nook HD+	Couple more observations: Deleting books from the library is tricky, and a bit confusing. I just deleted the whole library, meaning only to delete one book. (It's easy enough to recreate the library, but the bookshelf info is all gone, and your place lost in anything you were reading.) What's confusing is, you get this prompt asking about the source. I still don't quite understand what I'm supposed to choose there, even after fumbling with it several times. Question: Is it possible to restore Bookshelf info, if one happens to have backed up the Bookshelf folder prior to messing around? Can I just write the old Bookshelf folder over the new? I was just experimenting with copying from Calibre directly onto the SD card (as before, but more carefully). Seems to have worked okay this time. But when I checked in File Explorer afterward on the PDA to make sure nothing weird had happened again, I saw a bunch of apparently empty folders in the Freda program folder in the PDA's main memory. The names of the folders are odd distortions of names of books, folders, and even of Kovid: e_Starda.nce __Spider bre.kovi.dgo SD.ard It's pretty strange. Can I safely delete these folders, as long as they are empty? EDIT: I just tapped on one called "Booksplash," and I got an apparent image of a book's text page--in the picture viewer. Several of them are listed as being over a GB. (Which is more than the memory in the device.) ANOTHER EDIT: A lot of these files and folders are dated in the years 2028 and 2035. They're from the future! (I wonder if they contain stock prices.) And they're all locked and I can't delete them. I wonder if I should uninstall, scrub, and reinstall Freda. Can I do that without losing all my settings again? Last edited by starrigger; 06-08-2010 at 07:30 PM.

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06-09-2010, 12:14 AM	#300
cbarnett MR prodigal son Posts: 1,085 Karma: 1083739 Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura H2O	I'm currently running the second beta on an Axim X50v running WM6.0, with the app installed to program memory and temp files on the SD card (I've found that with certain apps I need to have them installed in program memory to keep them from crashing when left running and the device is turned off and on again). It's running well so far, with comparable speed to 1.*. The only niggle I've seen so far (and it doesn't seem to follow a pattern) is the weird screen corruption when turning a page - the colour varies and it looks like a vertical line running across a mostly blank screen. Sometimes it comes back by changing the page again or even tapping the screen with the stylus or my finger. Like I said, it doesn't happen often, but has happened in several different ebooks I tried of varying sizes. Apart from this, it's a great improvement all round.