Firmware Update AKC! - Automatic Kindle Collection Generator

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by dujik

Small update.
If i create collection with one book with *.mbp file it will work and if i add another one also with mbp file it will not work.

In this link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/434692081/EBOOK.rar
...there are two books that i`m talking about ,(one of them collection works but if you put both it will not)


or if you dont want to download that here is link for their file names.
http://rapidshare.com/files/434685974/FILE_NAMES.txt

I downloaded the ebook.rar, ran AKC! with that on the Kindle, looked at the collections.json file, and immediately saw the problem. I just had two statements in reverse order, so it was creating a partial file entry for a *.mbp file instead of ignoring those completely. I fixed the issue and the corrected file is now posted in place of the original. Please download and re-run that in order to confirm the fix.

Thanks for pointing that out. ^_^

[reech]

Originally Posted by thermopyle

Check out this link for some useful examples of Plugboard expressions: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=series+order.

The one I'm using is the "General Metadata" one in the first post. It makes the title metadata of the book lead with an initialization of the series title, the number of the book in the series in brackets, a dash, and then the name of the book (the author's name trailing on the right)...:

...so this makes the title of the book Dresden Files 01 - Storm Front , with the Authgor still on the Author part - fair enough.

I forgot to do this last night (grrr!) so I'm having a go now. I've found the plugboard section, so I'll let that carry on over there.

I'll then combine this with AKC, and see what happens... (and I'll see if the DRM issue is there as well)

BTW, AKC author, have *you* successfully run it multiple times? As in loaded some on, run it, reset, saw it's okay, added more books, run it, reset, etc... Just want to see if *that's* the issue as well - although I can't see why it would be.

[reech]

Right, I've done the plugboard naming thing. It works, and it'll help, but it's still not ideal (Having the series name then the number then the title AS the title is a bit untidy for my OCD mind ;>)

Really, Amazon should pull their finger out when it comes to series sorting, after all they do sell series of books, so they should figure out that it's a nightmare when you have a couple of books in a series (that you've bought from them!) - they must understand that you want to view them in series order!

[dujik]

Yep , everything is working now perfectly.
I must say i like this program more than the previous mention alternatives because
its quick and simple (you don't have to install it and whatnot) .
Only way you could improve it is if reboot wasn't need it but i suppose that`s kindle
limitation.

[Mixx]

Originally Posted by thermopyle

It's possible that the creator of Calibre could add this type of output creation. He seems pretty open to requests; have you tried asking him to do this?

Hi thermopyle,

I have in this thread but I don't think I succeeded.

However, the discussion there lead me to this request to you:

Could you please consider an option or a version that would take a path element and if it is a comma separated list, then it would dissect this list and use its elements as collections to which the book is added?

Calibre can easily (via a template) generate a folder pattern that uses the tags (list) as an element. Thus a book ends up in, say, x:/documents/t1, t2, t3, t4/book.mobi.

You could in your C++ code very easily dissect that list and use its elements as names for collections, couldn't you?

Please consider it, I am desperate to find a way to easily use collections on the Kindle for my book (getting close to 1K).

Thanxx, Mixx

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by reech

I'll then combine this with AKC, and see what happens... (and I'll see if the DRM issue is there as well)

BTW, AKC author, have *you* successfully run it multiple times? As in loaded some on, run it, reset, saw it's okay, added more books, run it, reset, etc... Just want to see if *that's* the issue as well - although I can't see why it would be.

Yes, I was using this on my own Kindle until I got all the bugs I could find out, and continue to do so now. Trust me, there was some back and forth, and it took a few approaches to the problem before I figured out what worked. I also deleted and reloaded the books on my Kindle a few times in order to experiment with folder output options and plugboards. That's actually the reason that I missed the problem with multiple *.mbp files in the same collection; since I deleted the books I had no *.mbp files. When I tested that it was ignoring those correctly I simply opened up a book, read a bit of it, then made sure AKC! skipped the resulting .mbp file. There didn't seem to be any reason to try multiple *.mbp files.

Are you still having the issue you described earlier, where AKC! is not generating the collections correctly? If so, please send me your collections.json file so I can take a look. Please also include a listing of the files in your Kindle's document directory. You can do that by typing this at the command prompt while in the documents directory:

dir /s /b > books.txt

That will output a list of all your books to a text file called books.txt.

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by Mixx

Hi thermopyle,

I have in this thread but I don't think I succeeded.

However, the discussion there lead me to this request to you:

Could you please consider an option or a version that would take a path element and if it is a comma separated list, then it would dissect this list and use its elements as collections to which the book is added?

Calibre can easily (via a template) generate a folder pattern that uses the tags (list) as an element. Thus a book ends up in, say, x:/documents/t1, t2, t3, t4/book.mobi.

You could in your C++ code very easily dissect that list and use its elements as names for collections, couldn't you?

Please consider it, I am desperate to find a way to easily use collections on the Kindle for my book (getting close to 1K).

Thanxx, Mixx

Hm. I could probably do that. Please post the tag listing for a random five of your books to see what kind of setup you're using. The more tags per book the better. ^_^

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by dujik

Yep , everything is working now perfectly.
I must say i like this program more than the previous mention alternatives because
its quick and simple (you don't have to install it and whatnot) .
Only way you could improve it is if reboot wasn't need it but i suppose that`s kindle
limitation.

It feels like I've rebooted mine a million times. It's annoying, yes. I'm sure it's possible somehow to edit the copy of the collection file that's been loaded into the Kindle's memory at the last boot, but honestly I've no idea how that would be approached.

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by reech

Right, I've done the plugboard naming thing. It works, and it'll help, but it's still not ideal (Having the series name then the number then the title AS the title is a bit untidy for my OCD mind ;>)

Before I found out about the plugboards, I had manually gone through all of my books and added 1 - Title, 2 - Title, etc., for each book in each series. Now that the plugboard is doing that automatically, I'm having to go back through and delete that part of the title (I'm having redundant book numbers at the beginning of each book.) The Kindle is fantastic to read on, but I really wish Amazon didn't make us jump through so many hoops for doing so.

[NiLuJe]

Note that just restarting the framework is enough to reload collections, you don't have to do a full reboot (ie. usbnetwork/launchpad [or the autoreboot feature of the ss/font hack] is your friend).

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Note that just restarting the framework is enough to reload collections, you don't have to do a full reboot (ie. usbnetwork/launchpad is your friend).

Nice. Thanks for the tip, I'm checking that out now.

[reech]

Thanks to thermopyle for some help on sorting and fixing an issue I was having - AKC! is definitely a timesaver, and easily complements any type of manual collection-thwapping tool

After resetting my Kindle fully to get rid of an issue I had when I upgraded to the 3.0.3 firmware, AKC! has helped me rebuild the Collections quickly - well done!

[Passepartout]

@thermopyle,
want to so say big thanks to you.
That was so easy.

[KecajN]

Originally Posted by thermopyle

I'm showing a number of downloads for the program, and plenty of views of the thread, but no real feedback so far.

For the people that are viewing but not downloading, why aren't you downloading? Are you already using another collection program and not interested in trying a different one, or does this one not fit what you're looking for (if so, why not?)

For those who have downloaded it...how did it work for you? Any issues? Recommendations?

Feedback is definitely appreciated.

I have learned about your program only yesterday and tested it immediately. It is something that I has been looking for... Almost...

For me one key feature is missing: It should preserve and refresh existing collections that are not mirrors of folders.

Explanation: Currently I have 720 already loaded to Kindle (and it will be doubled as soon as I will solve collection management). My current collections span across 3 Kindle DX pages and it is not very convenient to access each ebooks directly from collection. So I created "~~~Active" collection to group all ebooks that I am currently reading. I am going to create another one "~~~Exam" to keep all documents needed to prepare to my certification exams at hand, etc. (Note: "~" character keep my collections at the top of the list)

From my point of view your program should only refresh such "special" (i.e. not mapped to a folder) collection by removing all entries of ebooks that no longer exists (i.e. were deleted from Kindle).

[thermopyle]

Originally Posted by KecajN

I have learned about your program only yesterday and tested it immediately. It is something that I has been looking for... Almost...

From my point of view your program should only refresh such "special" (i.e. not mapped to a folder) collection by removing all entries of ebooks that no longer exists (i.e. were deleted from Kindle).

This isn't really a feasible solution from that angle, as it requires denoting special characters or some other function that allows such collections to be identified. There is, however, the easy possibility of changing the collections to instead use the existing file instead of creating a new one each time. That would work with the approach I've used in programming AKC! There's a bit of a pitfall in that, however, that I'll need to examine to figure out how to resolve. I'll think on it.