Calibre Error: Bad Location

[BetterRed]

@AnotherCat - I think there's a difference (at the perceptual level, for non-geeks at least) between a list of Calibre Libraries in a New Location text control drop down list within a menu choice dialogue called Switch/Change Library, and list in a File menu headed Recent Documents in an Office application, or Recent Files or a text editor or an image editor. To lose track of a single file is one thing, but a whole library - for some reason Lady Bracknell springs to mind

Also I did write a few posts back

Originally Posted by BetterRed

When a library is removed, it's not removed from the most recently used (MRU) list that's used in Switch/Create. Whether that's a 'bug' or not is highly debatable. I'm not aware of any programs that attempt to keep such lists up to date.

Since writing that I've noticed that my text editor, Notepad++, does have this item in its File menu - Empty Recent Files List - works too.

I also think any member who posts a 'problem' on this forum deserves as full an answer as other forum members are willing and able to provide.

BR

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I also think any member who posts a 'problem' on this forum deserves as full an answer as other forum members are willing and able to provide.

BR

Yes, after all, we are just trying to answer the question as stated; it's not our job to say "No, we can't help you because you shouldn't care" and besides, the OP is able to walk away any time we threaten to geek out too far about it.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I thought it was actual, as it happens it merely seemed. Ah well, at least I was right and it isn't in the registry. So I started us moving in the right direction.

Absolutely - without your misinformation I wouldn't have discovered the truth

Originally Posted by Churchill

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

To which I would add

And many of those who don't hurry off, deny that they even stumbled.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I figured as much, but I don't know how they intersect, or to what extent they may act as backups to each other. In fact, I wonder why both are needed at all.

Dare I suggest Kovid doing some future proofing, he no doubt has plans for Editor specific history - search and replace macros perhaps.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

@AnotherCat I for one am happy at the excuse to learn more about the innards of calibre.

And I enjoy answering problems and bantering with eschwartz in doing so

BR

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Absolutely - without your misinformation I wouldn't have discovered the truth

To which I would add

I think I've seen you mention this here before.

Dare I suggest Kovid doing some future proofing, he no doubt has plans for Editor specific history - search and replace macros perhaps.

Oh, probably. I was just wondering why it needed to be duplicated as it were. Possibly left over from an earlier release, while he fine-tunes the settings-save logic?

And I enjoy answering problems and bantering with eschwartz in doing so

BR

Same here. And I learn so much when I'm wrong, so it's all worth it.

[kovidgoyal]

It's all BR's fault. He pointed out that if you launch the editor from within calibre and the close the editor before quitting calibre various things like last opened locations for the file dialogs, some history lists and so on dont get saved.

This was because the editor uses widgets from the main calibre codebase, and some of those widgets save their history to dynamic.pickle. Therefore, the editor needed to be modified so that the widgets when used inside the editor uise an editor specifc config file.

However, since at this time the editor had already been released for a while, I did not want people to lose their saved history/open lists etc so I have it setup to duplicate the lists in both places, which works well, at the cost of a few extra kilobytes of disk space.

There is still a problem stemming from the fact that the editor can have multiple instances running. What history/settings get saved depends on which of the instances you quit last. Fixing that, however, is way too much work since it would require reqriting various widgets to be multiple instance aware.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It's all BR's fault. He pointed out that if you launch the editor from within calibre and the close the editor before quitting calibre various things like last opened locations for the file dialogs, some history lists and so on dont get saved.

Hear that? It's your own fault and you still didn't know this?

Thanks for the explanation. So, if I read you right, you just did a first-time (updated install) import of history.plist to edit-book-history.plist, and that data is deprecated and serves no meaningful purpose.

Of course, once pigs fly and you finally get a chance to rewrite calibre as a multi-user program, little things like the various pieces of one instance will be multiple instance aware, I'm sure.

[BetterRed]

Aagh - OK, OK blame it on me

cogitatióne, verbo,
ópere et omissióne:
mea culpa, mea culpa,
mea máxima culpa.

Or if you prefer Country & Western

Can't loose your cool these days I know
So I'll go on home and you can feel free
To blame it on me
Blame it on me
Blame it on me

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Yes, after all, we are just trying to answer the question as stated; it's not our job to say "No, we can't help you because you shouldn't care"

If we were to say that then we could be said to be guilty of 'elitism'.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

and besides, the OP is able to walk away any time we threaten to geek out too far about it.

Or tell us to shut-up and get on with answering the question - oh, we already did that

BR

[Bermudagirl]

Oh dear! I hope I'm not causing any arguements here! That's the last thing I want to do! Apart from that, I've got a bit confused by where the discussion has gone since I asked BetterRed where I can find %CalibreConfig%history.plist - and how I edit it.
Did that question get answered?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Bermudagirl

Oh dear! I hope I'm not causing any arguements here! That's the last thing I want to do! Apart from that, I've got a bit confused by where the discussion has gone since I asked BetterRed where I can find %CalibreConfig%history.plist - and how I edit it.
Did that question get answered?

@Bermudagirl - No not at all - just banter between eschwartz and me with contributions from Kovid and AnotherCat.

Your question did get answered by eschwartz, but it was buried in banter

%CalibreConfig% is a symbolic (geekish) way of referring to the calibre configuration folder - which is the place where you found the dynamic.pickle file.

Simplest way to get there is by clicking the Preferences->Miscellaneous->Open calibre configuration directory button. It will open the folder in your file manager. Make sure you close calibre down before changing anything

And thanks for your question, it took a bit effort but we now know more than we knew before you asked it.

BR

[Bermudagirl]

I've found it - so how do I edit it - it says the type is QuickTime Preferences - do I open it with Quicktime to edit it? Sorry if the answer is obvious, but unfortunately it isn't to me!

BG

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Bermudagirl

I've found it - so how do I edit it - it says the type is QuickTime Preferences - do I open it with Quicktime to edit it? Sorry if the answer is obvious, but unfortunately it isn't to me!

BG

Well I wouldn't do that, I've no idea what Quicktime might do with it

I would use a text editor in Windows that could be Notepad, in OS/X Text Edit, Linux - whatever you have. To get an idea of what you're looking for See this post https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...9&postcount=25

But to reiterate AnotherCat's major point - there's no real problem that needs to be remedied here. It's what's known as a Most Recently Used (MRU) list, as a general rule programs do not keep track of what's in such lists. In this instance the list in presented in a somewhat different context to where we normally see such lists, which is in the File Menu of a program as Recent Documents or Recent Files.

So go ahead and change the two plist files if you want to, but recognize that you're only tidying up, next time you add and remove a library it will be in that list.

Sorry if we've confused you - me culpa thrice over

BR

[Bermudagirl]

Before I read your last post BetterRed, I had realised (silly me) that I should try Notepad as before with the pickle file (I have to laugh at the name!) So I opened it with Notepad, carefully deleted the unwanted libraries, and now I have a neat list of wanted libraries. I know I was being a bit pernickity, but when I get something in my mind that I want to sort, it really annoys me until I get it sorted - if that makes sense!
Anyway, that's it now sorted, and we know how to clear out that list (if anyone ever wants to do it in the future) so perhaps it wasn't quite such a useless exercise after all! And now we have one happy and contented Scot!
Many thanks everybody for your input even if I got a little confused at times with the conversation!



BG

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

...But to reiterate AnotherCat's major point - there's no real problem that needs to be remedied here. It's what's known as a Most Recently Used (MRU) list, as a general rule programs do not keep track of what's in such lists. In this instance the list in presented in a somewhat different context to where we normally see such lists, which is in the File Menu of a program as Recent Documents or Recent Files.

So go ahead and change the two plist files if you want to, but recognize that you're only tidying up, next time you add and remove a library it will be in that list...

Couldn't have said it better myself .

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Bermudagirl

we have one happy and contented Scot!

@Bermudagirl - Then never let it be said that a Sassenach cannot a happy Scot make. You could, come September, return the favour by taking that rock of yours back across the border where it belongs. And seeing as one of you lot nicked them Greek marbles, you can return them to where you found them - and you can have all your banksters back too. Joking of course (well, sort of)

BTW a pickle file results from the process of pickling, like a Bauchan can become a goat so these can be unpickled, be careful when you're unswizzling the pointers, and don't add too much syntactic sugar - see this for what the hell I'm talking about. At least its not another 4 letter acronym - yaccety-yacc, yaccety-yacc.

@AnotherCat - 'Tis better to stand on shoulders of others than to tread on their toes - so said someone famous

BR

[AnotherCat]

Well one thing that had me confused is why Bermudagirl would want to spend time fretting over the small stuff in Calibre's innards when Bermuda is such a lovely place, great outdoor climate, plenty to do (especially boaty stuff ), etc.

But then I see she is actually in Scotland, coming out of the dank winter, so perhaps fretting over the small stuff unpickling pickle files, while snacking on a deep fried Mars Bar in the morbid light of a tallow candle, is probably the best entertainment able to be realised 'til summer comes along .