Easier way to manage multiple collections on kindle

[BarryTX]

Just a note to all to say that I've been communicating with Daniel on tweaking the Web-Based Kindle Collection Maker for the K2, and I am very impressed with his responsiveness. I've had a hard time keeping up to test as he has made improvements based on my feedback. This utility is great, as far as I'm concerned it is the only way to get a large library on your Kindle in order quickly and painlessly. Thanks go to Daniel for outstanding support for the Kindle user base in building this great utility!

[daesdaemar]

This looks very promising. However, as a very new Kindle 3 owner, I really need to be walked through this a bit. Maybe my questions below will benefit other newbies.

1) In step one, is this something I am doing on my PC? Do I create a folder called "Kindle" with the subsequent subfolders as in the example?
2) If I do as in #1 above, then do I open a cmd prompt for step 2? Then, type in:
cd kindle
dir /b /s > collections.txt
3) I assume the "collections.txt" file will then be in the "kindle" directory.
4) copy and paste into the web site and generate "collections.json"
5) Now I plug in my Kindle to the PC via USB
6) I make a backup of the collections.json file in the Kindle device's system folder. I presume I back it up to my PC. Then I copy the generated collections.json file to the Kindle device system folder. Also, I copy every book in my PC folder system to the respective folder on the Kindle device.
7) How do I make the system folder on the Kindle visible?

Do I have it right?

[BarryTX]

Originally Posted by daesdaemar

This looks very promising. However, as a very new Kindle 3 owner, I really need to be walked through this a bit. Maybe my questions below will benefit other newbies.

1) In step one, is this something I am doing on my PC? Do I create a folder called "Kindle" with the subsequent subfolders as in the example?

Yes, I found it best to put the Kindle folder on the root, as in C:\\Kindle

Originally Posted by daesdaemar

2) If I do as in #1 above, then do I open a cmd prompt for step 2? Then, type in:
cd kindle
dir /b /s > collections.txt

That's the right idea. In Windows 7, in the Folders directory bar in Windows Explorer, hold the Shift button while Right-Clicking with the mouse on the Kindle directory and choose "Open A Command Window Here". That opens the command window already pointing at the right directory. Then do the dir /b /s > collections.txt entry.

Originally Posted by daesdaemar

3) I assume the "collections.txt" file will then be in the "kindle" directory.

Yes.

Originally Posted by daesdaemar

4) copy and paste into the web site and generate "collections.json"
5) Now I plug in my Kindle to the PC via USB
6) I make a backup of the collections.json file in the Kindle device's system folder. I presume I back it up to my PC. Then I copy the generated collections.json file to the Kindle device system folder. Also, I copy every book in my PC folder system to the respective folder on the Kindle device.

Yes, except that I don't think it matters if the books on the Kindle are actually in subdirectory folders just like on the PC. I'm not sure because I did create the same subfolders on my Kindle, but I don't believe I needed to in retrospect. The books need to be in the documents folder, but I believe the collections.json file will create 'pointers' for the Kindle system to know which collection each book belongs in.

Originally Posted by daesdaemar

7) How do I make the system folder on the Kindle visible?

In Windows Explorer, under the Tools menu choose Folder Options, then View. Uncheck the "Don't show hidden files, folders, or drives" choice under "Hidden files and folders".

[daesdaemar]

Originally Posted by BarryTX

Yes, I found it best to put the Kindle folder on the root, as in C:\\Kindle



That's the right idea. In Windows 7, in the Folders directory bar in Windows Explorer, hold the Shift button while Right-Clicking with the mouse on the Kindle directory and choose "Open A Command Window Here". That opens the command window already pointing at the right directory. Then do the dir /b /s > collections.txt entry.




Yes.




Yes, except that I don't think it matters if the books on the Kindle are actually in subdirectory folders just like on the PC. I'm not sure because I did create the same subfolders on my Kindle, but I don't believe I needed to in retrospect. The books need to be in the documents folder, but I believe the collections.json file will create 'pointers' for the Kindle system to know which collection each book belongs in.



In Windows Explorer, under the Tools menu choose Folder Options, then View. Uncheck the "Don't show hidden files, folders, or drives" choice under "Hidden files and folders".

Thanks, we'll give it a go...

[accwebworks]

Putting books in folders has two purposes. It allows you to easily group books that belong to a given collection and folder name becomes the actual collection name on kindle. So the path of the book on your pc determines which collection it will end up in. For most books the book file path has to be the same on kindle. For amazon books (asin with .azw extension) they can be placed anywhere in documents folder on kindle, but you would have to keep track of these books by yourself. Just to keep it simple and consistent, I would recommend to keep the same folder structure on pc and kindle.

Barry, glad it's working out for you.
I also fixed that bug where "kindle" folder had to be in root of a drive.
It can be anywhere now. In fact, I also enabled option to run "dir" command directly on attached kindle drive. Provided you put all books in their respective folders.

[unboggling]

Slightly off topic. Is there a way to force Kindle to display authors as LN, FN which is what I use in both authors and author_sort fields? Messing with the prefs-sendtodevice-commands don't work set to either field. What am I doing wrong?

[Lyralen]

Hello accwebworks,

I'm using your Kindle collection maker on a Mac. It worked partially, but only some of my folders became proper collections. The rest were added as collections on my Kindle, but the books that were supposed to be in them were not added. So I have several empty collections, and 130 loose books floating around. What did I do wrong?

Thanks in advance!

[Lyralen]

OK, I just realized all the books that didn't go into the collections are azw books. The ones that did work properly are all mobi's or pdf's. So why didn't it properly index the amazon ones?

[accwebworks]

It works with .azw files. Please send me an email with your collections.txt and indicate which files did not go into collections.

[Lyralen]

I sent you a message through the comment form on your website. Thanks!

[FF2]

I finally got around to RE-ORGANIZING my books into appropriate folders. But that entailed actually tracking down what many of them were - downloading freebies in a kind of random fashion certainly did not help. I had to look up descriptions for about 120 of them.

It worked very well indeed. From 15 "home" pages I now have 3.

I probably should have gone with my non-first but middling impression - place some of the books which sounded interesting in a "ToRead" collection rather than by genre and then worry about adding to a second collection. But since it was a later thought, everything is generally by genre - wide GENRES.

But THANKS FOR THIS TOOL.