Plugin ideas... add yours here

[shaybella]

Text to Speech for the Viewer would be *amazing*!

I understand (and currently use) the "Open With ..." option and Balabolka as a decent work around. However, Balabolka doesn't remember where you left off in a given file *and* recently truncated the bookmarks hopping tools, so when your TOC is long it gets to be a right PITA finding where you left off listening. Not to mention it's a text-only environment so maps, figures, and illustrations require opening the book in the viewer anyway.

I did see the plugin threads for the dropped [Viewer Plugin] Text to Speech and I have the TTS to MP3 plug in. I *wish* the first hadn't been dropped because that's my target ideal. The second, while good, uses a lot more disk space and has similar problems to the Balabolka work around.

[BetterRed]

@shaybella - the 'old' Edge Epub Viewer had Read Aloud and it resumed at last position read.

If you search for 'reinstall the old edge browser' you'll find several ways to do it. Which one will work for you depends where you're at in the update cycle - they're all a bit kludgey. In many respects it was remarkably similar to version 4.x calibre viewer.

The current Edge browser supports reading PDF's with Read Aloud. If you give it a try you'll be in a better position to decide if any of the options to 'restore the old edge browser' are worth pursuing.

BR

[ownedbycats]

If it's possible at all to use plugins to toggle Calibre options, I would appreciate a button to toggle the "drag and drop merges book" setting. Too many near-mishaps to leave it on all the time.

[BetterRed]

Look & Feel->Main interface->Allow using drag and drop to merge books Ψ³

BR

[ownedbycats]

That's what I usually do. Unfortunately there isn't a keyboard shortcut to jump directly to a specific area in settings.

[Rellwood]

Would like a "tag mapper" type plugin for other columns such as Genre.

[Rellwood]

Instead of column text color rules, column background color rules. Easier to see and easier on the eyes in cases where the text color is light.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Rellwood

Instead of column text color rules, column background color rules. Easier to see and easier on the eyes in cases where the text color is light.

For various technical reasons changing the background is hard. We first looked at that more than 5 years ago, and unless something has changed that I don't know about (not impossible) it is still very hard.

Try using column icons instead of changing the background.

[canpolat]

Cloud backup with custom folder structure would be a good addition to the list of plugins, I think.

The idea is:
Calibre stores all files on disk already and with its own directory structure. This is all good, but keeping all my books on a local disk is not really good enough when it comes to backup (it should be off site, amirite?)

So, I would imagine this plugin would do the following:
- Allow the user to select the cloud drive (Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive)
- Allow the user to filter the books (by format, by genre, etc.) that will be backed up
- Allow the user to select the file name pattern and directory structure and should not force anything else than the absolute minimum. For example, it should allow the user to dump all files in a single directory or a directory hierarchy; it should allow the user to choose their own fine name pattern but since some cloud drives may not like files with identical names, it may choose the add the Calibre ID at the beginning of the file names to ensure uniqueness.
- Allow the user to set up more than one synchronization rule (user may want to put ePubs on one directory and PDFs on another).

Edit: It should have the option to backup the files directly to cloud storage and not rely on the cloud drive having a local directory on the computer.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by canpolat

Cloud backup with custom folder structure would be a good addition to the list of plugins, I think.

<snip>

Most plugins are developed and supported by people who wanted them in the first instance.

Some of what you want can be done by one or more third-party, non-application specific, backup/recovery tools - although there may not one that does everything you want.

You don't tell us how you would expect restore to work.

• Firstly, there is no point in having an elaborate backup plugin that transforms calibre's library structure without an equally, or most probably more, elaborate restore plugin that reconstructs the original calibre library structure.
  
• Secondly, if the backup is partial (e.g. filter by genre) then by implication that restore must be partial too. This will be complicated by the need to cater for the likelihood that the restore target, i.e. the calibre library, has changed since the restore source was created.

Many calibre users use one of these ==>> Comparison of file synchronization software to maintain incremental backup copies (mirrors) of their libraries - on a local USB or network server/device, and/or cloud services or other remote storage.

BR

[canpolat]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

You don't tell us how you would expect restore to work.

• Firstly, there is no point in having an elaborate backup plugin that transforms calibre's library structure without an equally, or most probably more, elaborate restore plugin that reconstructs the original calibre library structure.
  
• Secondly, if the backup is partial (e.g. filter by genre) then by implication that restore must be partial too. This will be complicated by the need to cater for the likelihood that the restore target, i.e. the calibre library, has changed since the restore source was created.

Many calibre users use one of these ==>> Comparison of file synchronization software to maintain incremental backup copies (mirrors) of their libraries - on a local USB or network server/device, and/or cloud services or other remote storage.

BR

Thank you for your response BetterRed.

From my narrow use case, restoration is totally out of scope. I'm not interested in anything that is not already saved in the file (epub/pdf) itself. So, if I need to restore the files someday, I can just drag and drop them into a new library and whatever saved in the file will show up in the Calibre database. That's good enough for me.

Today I have a bunch of scripts that does this for me, but I thought it would be cool if this was all part of Calibre.

I understand that Calibre appeals to a broad user base and my use case may be just too narrow to put the effort of creating a plugin, but when the restore is kept out of scope this is not really a complex problem.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by canpolat

Thank you for your response BetterRed.

From my narrow use case, restoration is totally out of scope. I'm not interested in anything that is not already saved in the file (epub/pdf) itself. So, if I need to restore the files someday, I can just drag and drop them into a new library and whatever saved in the file will show up in the Calibre database. That's good enough for me.

Today I have a bunch of scripts that does this for me, but I thought it would be cool if this was all part of Calibre.

I understand that Calibre appeals to a broad user base and my use case may be just too narrow to put the effort of creating a plugin, but when the restore is kept out of scope this is not really a complex problem.

Why can't you use Save to Disk - i.e. what's missing from it?

BR

[Rellwood]

I know that I can create catalogs using the command prompt, but I never seem to get it right. I either don't get the catalog, or it ends up somewhere I can't find or it doesnt get the right libary.

If someone could come up with a plugin (or update an existing plugin) to create catalogs using the command prompt for whatever libary (or all)?

Would save a buttload of time by not having to go to each library individually and manually creating a catalog after selecting each possible column, then cooling my jets as it is created.

Being able to have them made (and titled by library name) using the command prompt while doing other things would be such a great idea.

I have like 30 different libraries that i need catalogs from to compare against each other and the idea of having to do it manually makes me sad.

[Rellwood]

Originally Posted by chaley

For various technical reasons changing the background is hard. We first looked at that more than 5 years ago, and unless something has changed that I don't know about (not impossible) it is still very hard.

Try using column icons instead of changing the background.

Thanks for checking on it. Now I know not to ask again

[canpolat]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Why can't you use Save to Disk - i.e. what's missing from it?
BR

I haven't tested this (I'm away from Calibre), but 2 things come to mind:

1. When I select 100 books and 'Save to Disk', it will copy the selected format to disk. When I add one more book to my library, select 101 books and 'Save to Disk' I expect it to copy 101 files (not just the added file) to disk. This means, the timestamps on all files will be modified (meaning it will be difficult to find out the newly added ones).
2. I can live with updated timestamps, but if I'm not wrong Save to Disk only saves to Disk, it does not save directly to cloud storage (on Windows). So, saving to disk will mean duplicating all of these files on disk. I just want them on cloud.