Content Advanced Users + a Kindle and at least 5 Collections

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Note also that plugboards DON'T work for "dual" Mobi/KF8 books, only for single-format Mobi or AZW3 books.

I never realized this, is there a way to tell in Calibre if a book is the dual format? Also, I know this is the kindle forum but I have a Calibre question. If you select a group of books to send to the device, some are mobi and some are azw3, is there a way to send both formats at the same time when that little format box pops up?? I have both formats but I always have to do it in two sessions.

[soulfuldog]

Many thanks HarryT, that was easy enough to try out and see it working on a couple of books I reloaded onto my Kindle.

Again, I concur with ProfCash, I read what eschwartz posted and though, erm that looks a bit complicated... but after trying HarryT's step-by-step instructions, I can make a bit more sense of eschwartz post. Still not sure about how to get it looking exactly as I'd like, but I'll have a read through that linked thread from the Calibre forum. Thanks to you both, it's not quite so complicated looking anymore.

[ProfCrash]

Thanks Harry!

[Blossom]

I keep about 100 books on my Kindles. They are organized in Modern, Historical, Harlequin, Paranormal, Reference and Next2Read. The books I'm reading I take out of their collection. I do use plugboards to put the series info in the title. All books are sent to my Kindles as personal documents so they sync on each device.

On the tablets I keep a collection called pdocs because I sideload my books in addition to keeping a pdoc copy that I only use for syncing to each Kindle.

All my books are run through Calibre to get them eReader Ready before I add them to my devices.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by l_macd

Many thanks HarryT, that was easy enough to try out and see it working on a couple of books I reloaded onto my Kindle.

Again, I concur with ProfCash, I read what eschwartz posted and though, erm that looks a bit complicated... but after trying HarryT's step-by-step instructions, I can make a bit more sense of eschwartz post. Still not sure about how to get it looking exactly as I'd like, but I'll have a read through that linked thread from the Calibre forum. Thanks to you both, it's not quite so complicated looking anymore.

If you post what you want to see, I can tell you how to do it.

I will first give you the code, and then the explanation, so you don't have to sit through mind-numbing mumbo-jumbo if you don't want.

I try to be user-friendly.

[soulfuldog]

Thanks eschwartz, but its fine. After fiddling a little I'm happily using your example with a small edit:
{title}{series:| (| }{series_index:||)}

I like the fact that HarryT's example sorts the series order correctly, but I prefer the book title listed first. Thanks again to you both, now I don't need to even bother with collections; I can either randomly choose books via the cover view, or sort by author to browse and at the same time easily see which books are in a series.

So I don't even need to bother with the boring bit of figuring out what it actually means.

I'll just continue to avoid the firmware update to avoid any hassles with old collections or nags about books not being in the cloud etc and that'll keep me perfectly happy with how my PW is set up. In the meantime, hopefully Amazon will come to their senses and make some changes to the firmware.....

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by l_macd

I like the fact that HarryT's example sorts the series order correctly, but I prefer the book title listed first.

Yes, sorting series in order is the specific purpose that I use it for .

Thanks eschwartz, but its fine. After fiddling a little I'm happily using your example with a small edit:
{title}{series:| (| }{series_index:||)}

I don't think that's right. I believe it should be:

{title}{series:|| (}{series_index:||)}

The syntax is as follows: if the item, such as "series", is empty, the text following the FIRST vertical bar is output. If the item is not empty, the text following the SECOND vertical bar is output. Thus:

{series:|| (}

Means:
Output the series name.
If the series name is blank, output nothing (there's nothing between the 1st and 2nd |)
If the series name is not blank, output " (".

Hope that helps,

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, sorting series in order is the specific purpose that I use it for .



I don't think that's right. I believe it should be:

{title}{series:|| (}{series_index:||)}

The syntax is as follows: if the item, such as "series", is empty, the text following the FIRST vertical bar is output. If the item is not empty, the text following the SECOND vertical bar is output. Thus:

{series:|| (}

Means:
Output the series name.
If the series name is blank, output nothing (there's nothing between the 1st and 2nd |)
If the series name is not blank, output " (".

Hope that helps,

Um, no, the vertical bars separate prefix from suffix, and both are only used if series exists.

You use the function ifempty() to return a value if "field" is empty.

[soulfuldog]

FWIW, I don't know how it works, but the results I get are:

{title}{series:| (| }{series_index:||)}
The Blood Split (Rebecka Martinsson 2)

{title}{series:|| (}{series_index:||)}
The Blood SplitRebecka Martinsson (2)

This is exactly why I'm happy to save both your working examples, keep 'em both for future reference and leave it at that - anything else is just too confusing.

If using either of these plugboards in Calibre means I can avoid using collections, that's a good option. I'm not sure if it means I can just update to the latest firmware, delete any old collections that appear and then carry on as normal, or will I get nags about books not being in the cloud regardless?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by l_macd

FWIW, I don't know how it works, but the results I get are:

{title}{series:| (| }{series_index:||)}
The Blood Split (Rebecka Martinsson 2)

{title}{series:|| (}{series_index:||)}
The Blood SplitRebecka Martinsson (2)

This is exactly why I'm happy to save both your working examples, keep 'em both for future reference and leave it at that - anything else is just too confusing.

If using either of these plugboards in Calibre means I can avoid using collections, that's a good option. I'm not sure if it means I can just update to the latest firmware, delete any old collections that appear and then carry on as normal, or will I get nags about books not being in the cloud regardless?

Well, the answer is simple. I was right the first time.

As far as I know -- and I base this on other peoples' experience on MR, since I don't have the PW2 -- the only nagging or problems of any type are when you have collections.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Um, no, the vertical bars separate prefix from suffix, and both are only used if series exists.

You use the function ifempty() to return a value if "field" is empty.

Thank you - I appreciate the correction.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thank you - I appreciate the correction.

Well, I don't know if you have spent copious amounts of time trying to analyze how these plugboards work. I may just have too much time on my hands.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by HarryT

OK, here we go.

Run Calibre, click the "Preferences" button on the toolbar, and click the "Metadata Plugboards" button in the "Import/Export" section of the page.

On the "Add new plugboard" line, fill it in as follows:

Format: Any format
Device: Any device
Source template: {series:|| }{series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}
Destination field: title

Series name XX - Original title

where "XX" is a 2-digit series number, with a leading zero if necessary.

Eg, "Miss Marple 01 - Murder at the Vicarage".

Hope this helps.

Harry - this is exactly what I needed - I've been renaming them manually in Calibre - thank you very much.

[Joykins]

I'm in the middle of a transition, but I have 2 kindles right now. About 900 books on the K4NT and about 250 on the new PW2.

Collections are simply broad genre categories, such as romance, mystery, science fiction, nonfiction, YA, etc. Everything that has not yet been read aslo goes into an "unread" collection or has not yet been assigned a collection genre label (recently purchased books, recently added books from calibre, library books, etc. as well as books I don't know the classification of before I read them are generally not assigned any collection). Once I finish reading a book I assign it its genre collection if one is not already assigned, and if it is in the "unread" collection I remove it from that collection. One of my goals with the new kindle is not to load it up with stuff I don't plan on reading anytime soon, and to leave fewer books unlabeled before reading them. I just use the collections to help find a book to read, as in "I feel like reading a romance now" or "I feel like reading SF now; what have I got?"

Most of my collection is on calibre and can be side-loaded but I tend to use that mostly for books which have not been purchased at Amazon.