Using Tags or tag-like column in Save To Disk/Send to Device

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@BookJunkieL - how about an ONYX Boox e-ink tablet running Android & Calibre Companion - if CC doesn't have all the features you want, you would have a developer who would at least consider them.

BR

I've heard of them but I don't think I ever really looked into getting one. How readily available are they in the US?

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

Eh, I'm not thrilled about the idea of reading on a tablet for long periods of time but I'm coming to accept that it might be the only way to get all the features I want:

-Multi-layer organization
-Ability to store entire library
-Book summary without having to open the book
-Ability to mark as read

You'd think it would be easy but apparently not.

I have three of four of these on my glo TBH (not to seem like i'm selling you)...Ability to store entire library is of course dependent on having a large enough Micro SD card, but I can do the last two with no problem. There is also a Kobo Utilities plugin that can be configured to copy those read statuses to a custom column in your calibre library

C

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

I think if I only read standard novel length fiction I'd be more willing to put just my favorites and my To Be Read list on my Nook but I predominantly read fanfiction, which are usually short stories - 20,000 words or less. I can go through a lot of stories in one night if I'm in the mood.

Gotcha...maybe that's how I can get my daughter to read more...right now she only reads on Watt Pad, which I am semi grateful for, but she needs to expand her horizons at least a little.

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

I've never understood why nested collections/sub-directories/sub-categories aren't a standard offering. Every book seller site uses them so why would they think readers wouldn't want that kind of organizational ability? I could understand if they limited the number of layers; I'd probably whine, but I'd understand. LOL

I agree...with my Nook and the first e-reader I bought my mother (Ematic i think) I could at least fake it with the folder structure I used to load the file and then just use the directory view to get to where I wanted to be, but having the option in collections seems like an upsell to me.I suppose one day they will figure that out. I think that was why i found it so hard to find a reader app for my androids that I liked, they were all missing the collections/directory option i was looking for. Moon+ pro was as close as I could get on Android and then I think there's Marvin for iOS

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

How readily available are they in the US?

I've no idea mate (check my location). Amazon or Newegg will probably sell you one, but they won't sell me one, I'm the wrong colour/country/currency/hemisphere/planet Who knows

IIRC I saw some Onyx's at my local Aldi supermarket just before Christmas, not sure if they have the e-inks.

BR

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Hmm, well, most of those features appear to be ones your average vendor does not consider to have mass appeal. Naturally you'd have better luck on a platform that anyone can develop on, especially if that anyone is a calibre developer.

Yep.

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by gabby98

I have three of four of these on my glo TBH (not to seem like i'm selling you)...Ability to store entire library is of course dependent on having a large enough Micro SD card, but I can do the last two with no problem. There is also a Kobo Utilities plugin that can be configured to copy those read statuses to a custom column in your calibre library

C

You're simply sharing the love of your preferred ereader.

Sadly, a lot of the big name e-ink ereaders no longer have the ability to take Micro SD cards. Kindles never did. The Nook Glo no longer takes them. And I just checked Kobo's site and of the Kobo Glo HD, Aura H20, and Aura only the Aura still takes Micro SD cards. Most of the manufacturers are moving towards cloud storage which is all well and good if you have wifi access. If you don't... It's a frustration.

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by gabby98

Gotcha...maybe that's how I can get my daughter to read more...right now she only reads on Watt Pad, which I am semi grateful for, but she needs to expand her horizons at least a little.

Fanfiction can be great for getting someone who's not a big reader into reading. Just, I don't know your daughter's age, but be aware that while some archives are good at marking which stories are adult, others really aren't and she may get more than you bargained for. Fanfiction.net is typically not very explicit but they've only just started letting authors mark pairings and, well, writing quality varies wildly.

Originally Posted by gabby98

I agree...with my Nook and the first e-reader I bought my mother (Ematic i think) I could at least fake it with the folder structure I used to load the file and then just use the directory view to get to where I wanted to be, but having the option in collections seems like an upsell to me.I suppose one day they will figure that out. I think that was why i found it so hard to find a reader app for my androids that I liked, they were all missing the collections/directory option i was looking for. Moon+ pro was as close as I could get on Android and then I think there's Marvin for iOS

Sadly I think that manufacturers just don't want to expend the effort, or money, to invest in a feature like that. When ereaders first came out the big thing was "Oh, look at all the space you have on our ereader. You can store your entire library." Of course those readers only came with the option of sorting by title or by author. How many people walk into a book store or the library and say, "Show me all the books that start with B or all the authors that start with G." No one does that. Then they introduced basic collections/bookshelves to make people happy. And it worked, sort of. But by this time a lot of people had started hacking their ereaders to get the features they wanted. So now I think manufacturers figure why put in the effort(money) when they know a certain percentage of customers will hack their readers. And the ones who won't will only keep a few books at a time on their reader to compensate for the lack of good organization. Or, they'll move to tablets where they can download apps that will mostly do what they want. Again, it's a frustration.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

I suspect it's going to be a choice between Moon+ and Calibre Companion.

FWIW: there isn't a choice between these two. Calibre Companion (CC) is a calibre library organizer, not a reader app. With CC you have access to all calibre metadata for searching, sorting, "collections", etc, independent of format, but it does not open a book for reading. Instead you choose which reader app(s) you want to use for whatever book formats you use and CC will launch that app for you, something that is important if you read multiple formats such as CBZ, PDF, and of course EPUB/MOBI etc. It is worth noting that there are a few reader apps that don't play well with CC, such as Kindle for Android and Aldiko.

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

I've heard of them but I don't think I ever really looked into getting one. How readily available are they in the US?

Now isn't the easiest time to buy an e-ink android device. One of the more popular, the Boyue T62+, has been out of stock for a while, caused (I think) by a shortage of Carta e-ink screens. The Onyx Afterglow 2 (which I own) is also out of stock. The rumors are that Onyx is switching to a Carta screen and is no longer making the older model. The older Onyx devices seem to still be available.

E-ink Android devices work well as readers, especially if the apps support customization to use the buttons instead of touch swipes. E-ink screens are so slow that swiping etc can be very frustrating. As evidence, CC users with e-ink devices (before I had one) convinced us to add paging buttons to the book list interface, to do some color corrections so we didn't have grey-on-grey text, and to respect the up/down buttons when navigating.

I use CC and Moon+ on my Afterglow and am satisfied. Other people cannot handle the way Moon+ "honors" (doesn't) CSS so they use other reader apps such as Mantano.

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I've no idea mate (check my location). Amazon or Newegg will probably sell you one, but they won't sell me one, I'm the wrong colour/country/currency/hemisphere/planet Who knows

IIRC I saw some Onyx's at my local Aldi supermarket just before Christmas, not sure if they have the e-inks.

BR

Whoops. All these years of reading your posts I don't think I ever noticed that. I know a good portion of people on here are not in the US but they'll sometimes know if something isn't readily available outside Europe or a particular country.

I took a look and they are fairly available on Amazon, only a couple on Newegg and those are all $400+ putting them waaaay out of my price range. Amazon was a little better with some in the $100 range. I'll have to poke around the forum and see what people say. Thanks for the suggestion.

[BookJunkieLI]

Thanks for the great info @chaley.

I do currently have an android tablet but it's a larger screen, 10.1" or maybe 11" and heavy, that makes it very ungainly for me to use as a dedicated reader based on my reading habits. However it does mean I can test out reading apps and Calibre Companion to see if they're what I'm looking for before I have to really start looking at purchasing a new device.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

Thanks for the great info @chaley.

You are welcome.

I do currently have an android tablet but it's a larger screen, 10.1" or maybe 11" and heavy, that makes it very ungainly for me to use as a dedicated reader based on my reading habits. However it does mean I can test out reading apps and Calibre Companion to see if they're what I'm looking for before I have to really start looking at purchasing a new device.

In case you haven't seen it, there is a free "demo version" of CC that you can use for your experiments. It is fully functional with the exception that it is limited to 20 books, so you can check out all of its functions and ask questions about it (use the CC forum for that). You can also verify that CC & calibre talk together on your network, which shouldn't be a problem but ...

Also most reader apps have free versions.

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

You're simply sharing the love of your preferred ereader.

Sadly, a lot of the big name e-ink ereaders no longer have the ability to take Micro SD cards. Kindles never did. The Nook Glo no longer takes them. And I just checked Kobo's site and of the Kobo Glo HD, Aura H20, and Aura only the Aura still takes Micro SD cards. Most of the manufacturers are moving towards cloud storage which is all well and good if you have wifi access. If you don't... It's a frustration.

I am SO glad i bought that backup Glo (just in case)....i am a strict believer in expandable storage...irks me when they take that away!

If you're interested in checking out the Glo (standard) I know the Family Christian Stores (if you have them in your area) had them...that's where I got mine. The sites says that their coupons don't apply to the ereaders, but I placed my order online using the coupon and opted for in store pickup. Coupon applied and I was able to pick it up in a little as two days. And with mothers day and memorial day coming up, I've been notified of multiple coupons. I was concerned about going into a religous type store for such a purchase, but they didn't really try to sell me on much of anything; they offered me their free smartphone app, but that was it.

Considering if I need another backup lol

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

Fanfiction can be great for getting someone who's not a big reader into reading. Just, I don't know your daughter's age, but be aware that while some archives are good at marking which stories are adult, others really aren't and she may get more than you bargained for. Fanfiction.net is typically not very explicit but they've only just started letting authors mark pairings and, well, writing quality varies wildly.
.....

Thanks for that...she's 16 but i think she gets enough unneeded information and would like to not contribute (as much as that's possible)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

Sadly, a lot of the big name e-ink ereaders no longer have the ability to take Micro SD cards. Kindles never did. The Nook Glo no longer takes them. And I just checked Kobo's site and of the Kobo Glo HD, Aura H20, and Aura only the Aura still takes Micro SD cards. Most of the manufacturers are moving towards cloud storage which is all well and good if you have wifi access. If you don't... It's a frustration.

That's not corrrect. The Aura H2O does have a micro SD card slot. Of all the Kobo ereaders, only the Mini and Glo HD do not have micro SD card slots. We don't know what the future holds, but as the Aura H2O is only six months or so old, hopefully they will keep the external SD card slot in the Aura line.

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That's not corrrect. The Aura H2O does have a micro SD card slot. Of all the Kobo ereaders, only the Mini and Glo HD do not have micro SD card slots. We don't know what the future holds, but as the Aura H2O is only six months or so old, hopefully they will keep the external SD card slot in the Aura line.

According to the specs on Kobo's site - https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-aura-h2o - the Aura H2O does not list a microSD slot, which is what I based my comment on. Maybe it's coming through with one anyway but if I'm basing my purchasing decision on the info on their site, which I would be, then I would have to assume it does not have a microSD slot.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

According to the specs on Kobo's site - https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-aura-h2o - the Aura H2O does not list a microSD slot, which is what I based my comment on. Maybe it's coming through with one anyway but if I'm basing my purchasing decision on the info on their site, which I would be, then I would have to assume it does not have a microSD slot.

Well according to https://www.kobo.com/koboaurah2o#techspecs, which is the page I see when I access the Kobo shop and ereaders, it does have a micro SD card slot. Plus, if you look at the discussion of the ereader, you will see lots of comments about it. And most importantly, to me at least, if I look at my Kobo Aura H2O, I can see the slot.