[Android] Wish List

[kovesp]

Something that would be nice to have: an ordered list of multiple locations (or at least a primary and a secondary) for each book format. The first location is used if it exists, otherwise the second, and so on.

Why is this useful? Suppose we have, say for the PDF format:

1. /storage/UsbDriveA/documents
   • used when my kindle device is connected via an OTG cable
2. /storage/ExtSdCard/PDFs
   • used when the correct (i.e., one that has a /PDFs directory) MiicroSD is inserted into the device.
3. /sdcard/ezPDFReader/bookdata/library
   • used otherwise (happens to be the default location for ezPDFReader).

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kovesp

Something that would be nice to have: an ordered list of multiple locations (or at least a primary and a secondary) for each book format. The first location is used if it exists, otherwise the second, and so on.

Why is this useful? Suppose we have, say for the PDF format:

1. /storage/UsbDriveA/documents
   • used when my kindle device is connected via an OTG cable
2. /storage/ExtSdCard/PDFs
   • used when the correct (i.e., one that has a /PDFs directory) MiicroSD is inserted into the device.
3. /sdcard/ezPDFReader/bookdata/library
   • used otherwise (happens to be the default location for ezPDFReader).

First note: CC does not support directly accessing OTG storage. Exception: if the storage is "mounted" (somehow, often requires root) in the file system so any app can see it.

As for the list of possible storage locations for a format (a book in PDF, EPUB, or some other form): when CC fetches a book via one of the connections it stores that book in the location specified for the format of that book. Are you suggesting that the book might exist in more than one location? Would the locations have different versions of the file? Or alternatively, are you suggesting that some files of a given format are stored in location A and others are stored in location B but never both A and B? If the latter, what is supposed to happen if a format is in location A but location A is not available? What happens when the book is deleted from CC and the "right" storage is not available?

My "feeling" is that you want the CC database to contain a lot of books where the book files are stored in different removable storage locations. For example, you might have "fiction" on SD card A and have "academic" papers on SD card B. If SD card A is inserted then CC can launch reader apps on "fiction", but launching the app it will fail for "academic". If SD card B is inserted then the inverse happens; CC can launch reader apps for "academic" but not "fiction". Does this approximate what you want to do? If so, why do you want to do this? Do you have more to store than can fit on a single SD card?

FWIW: if the above is a reasonable approximation of what you want then you can it today. Set CC's storage folder to the SD card, then be sure that the "right" SD card is inserted when you download books to CC. One problem: CC doesn't bother to verify that the format actually exists before launching the reader app, an oversight I should fix. Another problem: the "Books with missing files" could do rather severe damage to the database if the "wrong" SD card (or no SD card) is inserted.

[kovesp]

Originally Posted by chaley

First note: CC does not support directly accessing OTG storage. Exception: if the storage is "mounted" (somehow, often requires root) in the file system so any app can see it.

As for the list of possible storage locations for a format (a book in PDF, EPUB, or some other form): when CC fetches a book via one of the connections it stores that book in the location specified for the format of that book. Are you suggesting that the book might exist in more than one location? Would the locations have different versions of the file? Or alternatively, are you suggesting that some files of a given format are stored in location A and others are stored in location B but never both A and B? If the latter, what is supposed to happen if a format is in location A but location A is not available? What happens when the book is deleted from CC and the "right" storage is not available?

My "feeling" is that you want the CC database to contain a lot of books where the book files are stored in different removable storage locations. For example, you might have "fiction" on SD card A and have "academic" papers on SD card B. If SD card A is inserted then CC can launch reader apps on "fiction", but launching the app it will fail for "academic". If SD card B is inserted then the inverse happens; CC can launch reader apps for "academic" but not "fiction". Does this approximate what you want to do? If so, why do you want to do this? Do you have more to store than can fit on a single SD card?

FWIW: if the above is a reasonable approximation of what you want then you can it today. Set CC's storage folder to the SD card, then be sure that the "right" SD card is inserted when you download books to CC. One problem: CC doesn't bother to verify that the format actually exists before launching the reader app, an oversight I should fix. Another problem: the "Books with missing files" could do rather severe damage to the database if the "wrong" SD card (or no SD card) is inserted.

for your reply.

• OTG. It is directly supported with drives mounted as /storage/UsbDriveA, etc., without root on both my Note 3 and Note Pro 12.2. This even works perfectly with a 1 TiB external drive (assuming I also supply external power to the drive). Don't know whether this a Samsung extension or a feature of Lollipop, it also used to work on KitKat.
  As an aside, it is also possible to use Total Commander with a plugin by Paragon to R/W access NTFS drives and R/O access HFS drives without root, though this does not create a mount point so CC cannot access it.
• My request is related to the way I use CC, which is perhaps not in a way you may envisioned.
  
  I do not use it at all to maintain book libraries on my devices. I use it only as a convenient way to download (transfer) books wirelessly. In the current setup I have AZW and MOBI pointed at the location used by the Kindle app and I have PDF pointed at the location used by the ezPDFReader app. I use CC to get the books and then I go to either of the other apps to read them.
  
  The main use I would make of the mechanism I asked for is this. When I am at home and want a book on my Kindle Voyage reader, I connect up the Kindle to my Windows PC and used Calibre to transfer books to it. But I can't do that when I am not at home. So currently all I can do is
  • Use Amazon's almost useless 'Experimental Browser' to access the web interface exposed from my NAS ... very tedious;
  • Use the standard Kindle location on the phone/tablet, download with CC, connect the Kindle then copy or move;
  • Connect the Kindle, change the CC location to it, donwload, change the location back.
  The requested feature would automate everything. Just connect up the Kindle, the primary location (under /storage/UsbDriveA) now exists, CC downloads to it, eject the Kindle. The next download from CC will automatically go to the right place on the phone/tablet.

[chaley]

@kovesp: Ahhh, I see. Unfortunately, path handling is buried deep into CC. Adding auto-detect as you describe would be a lot of work and certainly break things for not very much general benefit.

There is one thing you can do that might simplify things for you. If you "backup" each of the folder settings you want to use then you can restore them when you need them. This should be faster than navigating around in CC's folder dialog and dealing with the "move books" issues. Note that you can backup/restore only the folder settings so you don't risk overwriting other settings. The next version of CC will handle running restore with "restore settings" checked when the settings are not in the backup so you won't need to uncheck that setting.

Another possibility if you have rooted the devices: create a directory at the OTG mount point. Inside that directory, put symlinks to the directories where the files are to go if the OTG device is not mounted. I am thinking something like

/storage/UsbDriveA/Books --> K4A default directory
/storage/UsbDriveA/pdf --> ezPDFReader default directory

You would tell CC to save mobi and AZW to /storage/UsbDriveA/Books, and to save pdf to /storage/UsbDriveA/pdf. When you connect your Voyage, it should be mounted on top of /storage/UsbDriveA and hiding symlinks, meaning that mobi and azw would be stored in /Books in the Voyage, and pdf would be stored in /pdf in the voyage. Voila -- the automatic switch.

Clearly this trick depends on being able to map (symlink) the correct paths for the voyage to the correct paths for the underlying device. I don't know if that is possible.

As for OTG: as far as I can tell the Google Nexus devices do not auto-mount. I have ordered an OTG cable and will test this once it arrives. In a fit of cheapness I ordered it from China for €1 postage included, so it won't be here for a week or two.

[jjansen]

Chaley, I know that you have heard this one many times before but I am putting my request in again for CC to work with a USB tethered connection. I am sitting in a hotel room right now and can't get the wireless or content server working. I was on an airplane coming here and wasn't allowed to turn wifi on. I run into these problems often when I am not at home. I have your excellent product on my ereaders, phones and tablets. It is actually a requirement when I am looking at new ereaders to make sure that CC will run on them. I would really, really appreciate a version that worked hardwired. Thanks for all your efforts.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jjansen

Chaley, I know that you have heard this one many times before but I am putting my request in again for CC to work with a USB tethered connection. I am sitting in a hotel room right now and can't get the wireless or content server working. I was on an airplane coming here and wasn't allowed to turn wifi on. I run into these problems often when I am not at home. I have your excellent product on my ereaders, phones and tablets. It is actually a requirement when I am looking at new ereaders to make sure that CC will run on them. I would really, really appreciate a version that worked hardwired. Thanks for all your efforts.

I keep thinking about how to do some kind of wired connection, and keep hitting brick walls.

There are 5 ways I can think of to solve this problem with today's CC.

• Use a pocket wifi access point. These are marvelous little devices that create a local network so that devices can talk to each other. They do several other things as well, such as wifi sharing in hotels where you get one connection and sharing cable connections. I use an ASUS WL-330NUL, but there are many other devices that do similar things. I understand that this solution requires purchasing something, but for me it paid for itself the first time my wife and I had to pay for a wifi connection while traveling. We bought one and used this device to share it.
• Use CC Cloud's "library on device or SD card". This option works with only a cabled connection. The steps:
  1. On the machine (laptop) runnng calibre, create an empty calibre library.(Library / Switch/Create library / Create an empty library at new location). Be sure to check the Copy Structure checkbox. Call this the "Transfer library"
  2. Once the library is created, switch back to your main library.
  3. For each book you want to transfer to your device, select that book, right click, choose "Copy to library", and choose the new library. You can select more than one book before you do the copy.
  4. Close calibre. This is important, as you don't want calibre to detect your device in the next step.
  5. Plug in your device. It should appear in the file explorer or whatever your laptop uses.
  6. Copy the transfer library to the device using the file explorer.
  7. Unplug the device.
  8. In CC, choose Library on device or SD card as the cloud provider (Settings / Cloud Connection / Cloud provider).
  9. Start CC Cloud (Connect / Connect to cloud).
  10. Navigate to the library you copied. You should see a green check mark next to it.
  11. Add the books to CC.
  The second time you do this, instead of creating an empty transfer library you might want to delete all the books in the current transfer library to avoid confusion and extra copying. Same thing is true for the copy on the device; when you connect the device you might delete any existing copy of the transfer library before doing the copy.
• Related to the above: copy your library to an SD card and put that card in your device. Of course, this requires your device to support SD cards and that you currently aren't using the SD card slot.
• Again related to the above, do the same thing but put the transfer library in the cloud. This will work if your laptop and device both have access to the internet but don't have access to each other. The transfer library is very small so any free cloud plan should be enough.
• And of course, you could put your entire library in the cloud. This is the easiest solution to manage as long as you have enough space with some cloud provider and your devices have internet access.

I think I will make a FAQ out of the above.

EDIT: I added a FAQ answer I am in a hotel/airport/? and cannot connect CC to my computer by WiFi. How can I transfer books?

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I keep thinking about how to do some kind of wired connection, and keep hitting brick walls.

There are 5 ways I can think of to solve this problem with today's CC.

You skipped:

• Direct Wifi Connection between your device and your laptop.

SO that's 6 ways.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

You skipped:

• Direct Wifi Connection between your device and your laptop.

SO that's 6 ways.

I assume you are suggesting an ad-hoc network? I avoid discussing these because they can be a royal pain to set up and get working, although I admit I haven't tried it since Windows XP.

EDIT: it doesn't appear to be easy to connect an Android device to ad-hoc networks.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I assume you are suggesting an ad-hoc network? I avoid discussing these because they can be a royal pain to set up and get working, although I admit I haven't tried it since Windows XP.

I've never done one on windows, but on OS X, its as easy as selecting an item on a menu on the menubar. No configuration, nothing to know, just "Create a network".

Perhaps Windows has made it easier to do it as well.

If so, its definitely the easiest way to solve this issue.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

I've never done one on windows, but on OS X, its as easy as selecting an item on a menu on the menubar. No configuration, nothing to know, just "Create a network".

Perhaps Windows has made it easier to do it as well.

If so, its definitely the easiest way to solve this issue.

It isn't clear that Android can connect to an ad-hoc network without rooting. However, you gave me an idea for another method that is really easy as long as you have a device with a cellular connection. Just set up tethering and voila, all the devices can see each other. The traffic between devices doesn't go out through the cellular connection so it doesn't affect metered data plans.

[kaufman]

That's interesting. I was sure I had done it before, but perhaps it was only laptop to laptop.

Still, it looks like you found a good workaround.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by chaley

It isn't clear that Android can connect to an ad-hoc network without rooting. However, you gave me an idea for another method that is really easy as long as you have a device with a cellular connection. Just set up tethering and voila, all the devices can see each other. The traffic between devices doesn't go out through the cellular connection so it doesn't affect metered data plans.

It works nicely, I can say it as I've been using it this summer

[theducks]

I think Window Ad Hoc is just blocked by the default setting: Allow only Infrastructure.


Connect as Device vs Connect as USB

USB connections normally write a metadata.calibre file (the other is a ID)

Maybe you could do a change to calibre, that it, instead detects a <CCsigfile>, it uses the same magic device driver as the wireless connection

[jjansen]

Chaley, back to your 5 or 6 alternatives. Questions about 2 of them.
1) Assume that I have 2500 books on my device and want to add 20 more. Could I just put the 20 in the transfer library or do I need to put all 2520 there?
2) For tethering, if I turn my device into a mobile hot spot and tether my laptop, would this enable the devices to find each other in wifi mode? What if I used my cell phone as the hot spot and tethered my computer and my ereader - would the computer and ereader be able to find each other? They wouldn't like this on the airplane but it would be fine in hotels. Sorry I can't test this at the moment so I am asking if you know how it would work. I should be able to test it myself in a day or two.
Thanks for your help so far.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jjansen

Chaley, back to your 5 or 6 alternatives. Questions about 2 of them.
1) Assume that I have 2500 books on my device and want to add 20 more. Could I just put the 20 in the transfer library or do I need to put all 2520 there?

You need put only the books you want to add, but putting more doesn't hurt anything.

2) For tethering, if I turn my device into a mobile hot spot and tether my laptop, would this enable the devices to find each other in wifi mode? What if I used my cell phone as the hot spot and tethered my computer and my ereader - would the computer and ereader be able to find each other? They wouldn't like this on the airplane but it would be fine in hotels. Sorry I can't test this at the moment so I am asking if you know how it would work. I should be able to test it myself in a day or two.

I just tried it to be sure. I set up my Nexus 5 as the portable hotspot (the tethering device) then connected both my Afterglow 2 reader and my Win10 laptop. The reader had no problem seeing calibre on the laptop. It also worked running CC on my N5 with calibre on the laptop.

If you are running Windows on the laptop be sure that the "network type" is "private" when you connect to the tethering device.

Thanks for your help so far.