[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[inpariswithyou]

Originally Posted by meme

Sorting isn't documented anywhere, so the only way to figure out how the Kindle is sorting was through trial and error. There are some characters that the Kindle will just sort however it wants to - it may sort them one way for a while, but then if something changes it may sort them differently. Its best to only use prefix characters that have a definite sort order so that you can control the sort order.

A nice thought, but even using the characters highlighted as definite sort order, I'm still getting unexpected results after I use Calibre and its plugin to edit Kindle Collections. All my collections sorted perfectly, as expected; I plug in the Kindle, add some books and place them in collections, restart the Kindle, and boom! all logic goes out the window.

[meme]

Originally Posted by inpariswithyou

A nice thought, but even using the characters highlighted as definite sort order, I'm still getting unexpected results after I use Calibre and its plugin to edit Kindle Collections. All my collections sorted perfectly, as expected; I plug in the Kindle, add some books and place them in collections, restart the Kindle, and boom! all logic goes out the window.

This might be re-hashing some questions, but so I have the most current info:

Which Kindle do you have?

Are you using the plugin's Edit Collections to manually edit the books in collections, or Create Collections to generate them from your calibre info?

What settings are you using for the plugin? (Run Preview Collections, which will not update your Kindle, and then copy/paste the Settings section here)?

What sort order are you using on the Kindle itself (at the top on the right of the Home page)?

Can you give examples from on the Kindle of the sort order that doesn't look right to you?

Run View Report - this shows the collections sorted by collections or most recent in the order the plugin thinks the Kindle will show them. Do these orders match what is on your Kindle?

[Deez23]

Hello. First, I want to say thanks a lot to Meme for developing this plugin. It simply rocks!!

I'm updating my collections now and some of the books don't want to go into the collections. If I use the 'Preview Collections without Saving" then there are 43 books in the 'Helpful' Collection. Once I 'Create collections on the Kindle with Calibre' and eject my Kindle, the 'Helpful' Collection only has 33 books.

Any idea how I can resolve this issue?

[meme]

Originally Posted by Deez23

Hello. First, I want to say thanks a lot to Meme for developing this plugin. It simply rocks!!

I'm updating my collections now and some of the books don't want to go into the collections. If I use the 'Preview Collections without Saving" then there are 43 books in the 'Helpful' Collection. Once I 'Create collections on the Kindle with Calibre' and eject my Kindle, the 'Helpful' Collection only has 33 books.

Any idea how I can resolve this issue?

Does the detailed report show any issues with any of the books. There are books that just won't just up in collections - but usually the plugin lists them (unless you've found a type I wasn't aware of).

Anything in common between the 10 that don't show up? Are they mobi, txt, something else?

If you use Edit Collections and select the Helpful collection, do 33 or 43 books show up in the collection list (this will show if all the books are being saved into the collection file but only some are being displayed by the Kindle).

[Deez23]

He he he...I almost figured it out. I hadn't added the Collection names into the Customize option. I had imported my Collections and assumed that was fine, but after looking closer at the preview and report, I noticed that the Kindle was still managing those collections.

After adding those collection names, about half the books have been added to the Collections. Not sure where to go from here. I'll have a better look later, but for now, I've got to get to work. Thanks for the help.

[jeshelton]

I've tried everything I can think of to get the plugin icon to show up in the calibre menu including deleting and reinstalling both calibre and the plugin.

When I go to calibre, preferences, toolbars, there is nothing related to the plugin available to choose. When I go to update/customize plugins, it shows as installed.

Since it's not in the menus I can't find any way to manually add collections to books.

Any guesses?

Thanks,
Jim

p.s. Windows 7 Pro, Kindle 3, Calibre 8.21

[tlrowley]

Is your Kindle connected when you're trying to run the plugin? That's the only time the button shows up (at least for me)

[pchrist7]

Originally Posted by jeshelton

I've tried everything I can think of to get the plugin icon to show up in the calibre menu including deleting and reinstalling both calibre and the plugin.

When I go to calibre, preferences, toolbars, there is nothing related to the plugin available to choose. When I go to update/customize plugins, it shows as installed.

Since it's not in the menus I can't find any way to manually add collections to books.

Any guesses?

Thanks,
Jim

p.s. Windows 7 Pro, Kindle 3, Calibre 8.21

Hi Jim
In calibre preferences, toolbar - did you change from "The Main toolbar" to "The man toolbar when a device is connected" ? It's just below the Apply/Cancel buttons on my system. This is where you should see the icon

Cheers, Per

[jeshelton]

Thanks Per,

That was it. I can't believe the time I spent looking at the toolbar menu without noticing there was a dropdown list at the top.

Thanks again for your help!

[kiwidude]

@jeshelton - you are by far not the only person to not find that was a dropdown and if left unchanged you will be far from the last. I gave my Dad step by step instructions in an email about how to add something to his toolbar, and he didn't find it either. Unfortunately it has "always" been a problem with the Calibre UI, I personally have typed dozens of replies over the last year to people suffering from this issue.

To give Kovid credit he did a month or two ago change that screen in an attempt to make it easier. However imho he has made the problem worse, because it no longer looks like a dropdown to Windows users. I could not name one other Windows application which has a dropdown that looks in any way like that one does - it just looks like a big bold heading, not a conventional dropdown that has text next to it describing its purpose. Kovid will undoubtedly argue that it used to look like that and some people couldnt figure that out either - but I don't think changing it so it doesn't look like a dropdown at all is an improvement.

What would help? If it was me I would drop the whole concept of different toolbars for device connected vs not connected - it is complexity that users dont need and causes endless problems for plugin developers who have users wondering why plugins don't appear. Let the plugins drive the context - if it is not allowed to appear, it doesn't, otherwise it is going to be there. If someone really wants find grained control, put it on an advanced button or something.

Whatever the solution assuming Kovid agrees it still needs someone to make the time and effort to implement it of course.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

What would help? If it was me I would drop the whole concept of different toolbars for device connected vs not connected - it is complexity that users dont need and causes endless problems for plugin developers who have users wondering why plugins don't appear. Let the plugins drive the context - if it is not allowed to appear, it doesn't, otherwise it is going to be there. If someone really wants find grained control, put it on an advanced button or something.

Then we'd have endless bug reports from users who click convert on the device toolbar or users whose screens are a little narrow so that many icons on the device toolbar get hidden by the extra icons that are added for the device to the toolbar. Or the users who can handle a little complexity and will complain when you remove a feature they use.

What you can do to make your life as a plugin developer easier is have plugins added to the device toolbar as well as the main toolbar automatically, unless they specifically say that they cannot be added to the device toolbar.
Or we can have newly added plugins by default added to the second toolbar.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@jeshelton - you are by far not the only person to not find that was a dropdown and if left unchanged you will be far from the last. I gave my Dad step by step instructions in an email about how to add something to his toolbar, and he didn't find it either. Unfortunately it has "always" been a problem with the Calibre UI, I personally have typed dozens of replies over the last year to people suffering from this issue.

FYI, Kovid accepted and implemented something akin to my enhancement request found in case #864589. It should be in the next release, unless you run from source (I do not) then you can view it now.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

What you can do to make your life as a plugin developer easier is have plugins added to the device toolbar as well as the main toolbar automatically, unless they specifically say that they cannot be added to the device toolbar.

This might just be me, but I would despise any icon being automatically added to my main toolbar. My mistake, if a user chooses to add a plugin icon to their main toolbar, automatically placing that same icon in the Device connected main toolbar might make sense.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Or we can have newly added plugins by default added to the second toolbar.

Or added to a single Pugins Icon that when clicked presents a list of all user plugins you have installed on your machine. I would ditch this icon too, but if it was in the Main and device connected toolbars then folks could see any plugin they have installed.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

This might just be me, but I would despise any icon being automatically added to my main toolbar.

It's not just you - I have each installation of calibre customized based on the screen size. My toolbars on my 23" widescreen desktop monitor look a lot different than the ones on my teeny 11" laptop screen. I'd probably get irritated very quickly if I had to "fix" them after installing plugins. I like telling them exactly where to go. Plus there's the fact that I have pretty much all of the plugins installed except for the non-English metadata plugins.

Disregard and see Kovid's post below.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

This might just be me, but I would despise any icon being automatically added to my main toolbar.

I meant that if then user asks for the plugin to be installed in the main toolbar, it will also be installed in the main toolbar when device is connected.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I meant that if then user asks for the plugin to be installed in the main toolbar, it will also be installed in the main toolbar when device is connected.

Oh.... well then..... OK, my mistake that idea sounds reasonable to me.

Edited my post above so as not to confuse future readers.