[GUI Plugin] FanFictionDownLoader

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by cryzed

@JimmXinu, shame on me, I meant the EPUB writer of course, not the MOBI one. I mean you suggested to initially create the stories as EPUB files and then later on convert them with Calibre, so that's what I'm doing.

Yes, I think the mobi output from epub conversion is better than FFDL's own mobi output. It can include images and marks the chapter breaks on the progress bar in Kindle correctly.

I have no objection to adding id="toc" to the div around the TOC that FFDL generates in epub. But I tried it and it doesn't appear to have any effect on conversion. Conversion still adds a TOC at the end by default, and the 'goto TOC' button still goes to it.

Conversion does have a couple options for mobi output for 'don't generate TOC' and 'add TOC at top'. Telling conversion to 'don't generate TOC' and including the TOC from FFDL gives the format you wanted, but you lose the 'goto TOC' ability in Kindle.

[cryzed]

Hmm, thank you for the hint! There doesn't seem to be an ideal solution currently, too bad.

[JimmXinu]

Version 1.5.45 - 22 Jul 2012
New Site: grangerenchanted.com
New Site: hlfiction.net
New Site: nha.magical-worlds.us
Minor fixes for finestories.com, finestories.com, thewriterscoffeeshop.com.

Important Plugin Change: FFDL now uses a different, calibre system dialog before updating the library now. This dialog cannot be automatically skipped like the old one. The way it worked before risked corrupting your library if something else was trying to modify it at the same time.

[BaconButty]

Hi,

As a fairly new user of FFDL, I have tweaked the personal.ini. just enough to allow downloads from sites which require ID or age confirmation, but I would like to be able to prevent some - not all - tags from appearing.

Is there a "recipe" I can use to do that?

Thanks in advance.

[JimmXinu]

@BaconButty - In your personal.ini under [defaults] add a line like this:

include_subject_tags: extratags, genre, category, status, characters

You can add or remove from the include_subject_tags list as you like. For example, I personally leave out characters.

You can also put a similar line in the section for different sites if you want to include different tags for different sites.

[BaconButty]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

@BaconButty - In your personal.ini under [defaults] add a line like this:

include_subject_tags: extratags, genre, category, status, characters

You can add or remove from the include_subject_tags list as you like. For example, I personally leave out characters.

You can also put a similar line in the section for different sites if you want to include different tags for different sites.

Thank you (Amazingly quick response!)
I want to exclude characters too.

[rlh3]

I have been using FanFicDownloader for a while now and have come up with a couple of modifications that I would love to see (assuming that it is not too difficult.) I use a custom column in my Library viewer to show ebbok status (this is where I put things like: story incomplete, story complete, epub needs cleaning, replace cover, etc. These are all housekeeping tasks relating to the books in my library.) This allows me to keep the tags field for things that relate to the subject matter of the story.

I would really like to be able to move the In-Progress tag that FFDL inserts out of the Tags field, and into this custom column, keeping all of the housekeeeping stuff in one place and the subject matter stuff in another.

The other thing that I would like to be able to do, would be to put a date updated into this field. This could be the date of the update to the website (if this information is easy to find, or it could be the date that the update was imported into calibre. Either would fulfill the function of letting me search for the stories that have been updated since I last looked. The only issue that I see with the date updated would be how to go about removing the old date after the next update.

And on an unrelated note, is it possible to automate FFLD so that it pulls updates at a certain time? I ask this because I am going out of town and would like to have Calibre update my stories so I can pull them to my iPad on the road.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by rlh3

I would really like to be able to move the In-Progress tag that FFDL inserts out of the Tags field, and into this custom column, keeping all of the housekeeeping stuff in one place and the subject matter stuff in another.

See the previous post about include_subject_tags. You want to remove status. Then look at the Custom Columns tab of FFDL config to use FFDL to set In-Progress or Complete status.

If you dislike the 'In-Progress' label, you can change it by putting this in your personal.ini:

replace_metadata:
 ^In-Progress$=>Incomplete

Change Incomplete to whatever you want the status to be.

Originally Posted by rlh3

The other thing that I would like to be able to do, would be to put a date updated into this field.

Create a custom date column, look at the Custom Columns tab of FFDL config, set it using the Updated value.

If you want update in tags rather than a custom column, you can add 'lastupdate' to include_subject_tags. lastupdate creates two tags: "Last Update Year/Month: %Y/%m" and "Last Update: %Y/%m/%d". FFDL will remove outdate "Last Update" tags automatically.

Originally Posted by rlh3

And on an unrelated note, is it possible to automate FFLD so that it pulls updates at a certain time? I ask this because I am going out of town and would like to have Calibre update my stories so I can pull them to my iPad on the road.

No, not in calibre. First, calibre has no cron or timer capability. Second, I remain of the opinion that users should be using the email notices from their different sites to track stories, not just hitting 'update' on FFDL to poll for updates.

It is possible to do that using the command line version, but you'd have to figure out your own cron job scripting for it.

[JimmXinu]

Test version: Work around for yourfanfiction.com's spam blocking. They aren't blocking us specifically and offered to whitelist an IP, so I'm comfortable working around their block.

From admin@yourfanfiction.com:

Spoiler:

Subject: Re: Downloading Stories
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:04:56 +0100
From: Your Fanfiction Admin <admin@yourfanfiction.com>
To: xxxx@xxxx.xxx


Hi there,

This wasn't intentional but we did recently add the functionality of a forum to our website which changes how logins are handled as well as upgrading our spam software - either of these things could have blocked the website from accessing us. If you could ask the owners of the website to send us their IP address, we can add it to our whitelist on our spam software and see if that makes a difference.

In the meantime, I don't know if it helps, but you can download PDFs direct from our website to use on ereaders.

Thanks for using Your Fanfiction!

Kind Regards

Your Fanfiction Admin

[rlh3]

Taking the Status out of the Tags field worked great, but I cannot get it into my custom column (called History, as I also use it to track when I read a book.) In the Customize window I just selected Status in the field for the History column, and I get no change when I update a story.

The date updated works great in the Tags field, but again I would like to move it to the History field. Is there a way to specify to FFLD to only use one of the date outputs (specifically the '%Y/%m/%d' one.)

On the auto update, no problem. that was a shooting in teh dark kind of thing, and not having that is no big deal.

Thank you for the quick response.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by rlh3

Taking the Status out of the Tags field worked great, but I cannot get it into my custom column (called History, as I also use it to track when I read a book.) In the Customize window I just selected Status in the field for the History column, and I get no change when I update a story.

Hmmm. Works fine for me. The only thing that comes to mind is if the column only allows certain values and doesn't allow Completed / In-Progress.

Originally Posted by rlh3

The date updated works great in the Tags field, but again I would like to move it to the History field. Is there a way to specify to FFLD to only use one of the date outputs (specifically the '%Y/%m/%d' one.)

You can have Updated date in tags, or in a custom column of it's own, but not added to the text of a column.

I've added to the wishlist a feature to fill tag-like columns with multiple metadata. So it may show up someday.

As for removing the "Last Update Year/Month", you can do that with replace_metadata again. This shows both removing replace_metadata and changing In-Progress to Incomplete.

replace_metadata:
 ^Last Update Year/Month: \d+/\d+%=>
 ^In-Progress$=>Incomplete

(One of the other developers added the lastupdate feature ages ago, before the plugin existed. That's why it's a bit awkward to work with calibre.)

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Version 1.5.45 - 22 Jul 2012
Important Plugin Change: FFDL now uses a different, calibre system dialog before updating the library now. This dialog cannot be automatically skipped like the old one. The way it worked before risked corrupting your library if something else was trying to modify it at the same time.

BTW, this change does give us something that had be asked for as a freebie. On my w7 calibre at least, I can select the URL column and copy to get all the URLs from the update log. I recall someone had asked for something like that.

[rlh3]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

As for removing the "Last Update Year/Month", you can do that with replace_metadata again. This shows both removing replace_metadata and changing In-Progress to Incomplete.

replace_metadata:
 ^Last Update Year/Month: \d+/\d+%=>
 ^In-Progress$=>Incomplete

With this I get an error message: '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: u'%=>'

I am only using the first part, as the in-progress/incomplete difference is irrelevant to me.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by rlh3

With this I get an error message: '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: u'%=>'

replace_metadata:
 ^Last Update Year/Month: \d+/\d+$=>

Sorry, typo. That '%' should be a '$' indicating the end of string to the regular expression.

[rlh3]

Beautiful. Works fine.

I am heading out of town for a week, so I will try to get my head around the custom column thing when I get back.

Thanks again.