flatten file browser?

[anarcat]

Hi!

First of all, thanks so much for the hard work done on the file manager UI. I think it is a great improvement to have metadata and covers available there: it really improves the display and usability of the file manager.

I still think some improvements would be necessary before I completely ditch the old Nickel interface from my Kobo. The problem that remains for me is that when I browse the root of my Calibre-managed Kobo directory (/mnt/onboard), I get presented with a list of authors. That's the way Calibre does thsi by default, and I'm not sure I know how (or even want to) change this pattern.

Compare this with how Nickel works: when I browse books, I have a flat list that I can sort by last added, author, etc...

Would it be possible to have an option to "flatten" the directory hierarchy the same way? It seems that the file manager already "knows" about all the books in the subdirectories: it's telling me how many there are in each of those. Couldn't there be an option to just show all the files within all the directories in my home?

This would be the cherry on top that would make koreader finally usable for my use case, and I believe it would complete the UI redesign work started months ago.

Thanks!

[Ken Maltby]

caliber is very committed to the current construction of their file structure. If you are using the caliber supplied file structure and its caliber metadata file, then the "Find a book in the caliber catalog" option of the KOReader search tab, in the reader menu, will provide some of what you seem to be looking for. Perhaps that could be expanded to address more of what you want?

Luck;
Ken

[anarcat]

hmm... i think i've been misunderstood. I don't mean this as a Calibre-specific issue. What I mean is that I would like Koreader to display all files within a given directory *regardless of the directory structure*. I don't want to see the intermediate subdirectories, just show me the files.

The "Find a book in the calibre catalog" dialog is interesting, but it only shows series and is a search-driven interface, mostly. What I want is the file browser, just without the directory structure.

[Ken Maltby]

If you really want this, you would just make a single folder with all your book files in that and no subfolders. You would be limited by the FAT32 limits for the number of files within a single folder.

Luck;
Ken

[Midwinter]

I think what Anarcat is looking for is like a recursive view that would just displays all the items of a folder and it's subfolders in a single flat view sorted based on the metadata without the user needing to modify the directory structure.

I agree, I think this would be really useful

[Frenzie]

The Nemo file manager has an interesting feature in that you can expand subdirectories within your current folder view, though that is slightly different still.

[Ken Maltby]

Hmm... This is largely a matter of personal approach to how abstract the program should be with the accessing of media that the program provides the user. There is an approach that holds that the user should not be bothered with the fact that ebooks are files, at all. Such as used by calibre and the stock Kobo software. To create this abstraction, some sort of database is used and a reference to the files is used to address the ebooks, instead of the actual files themselves.

A number of us are used to dealing with files and file structures directly. In fact, this difference in approach is one of the main reasons some of us choose KOReader over the stock software. The new User Interface (UI) improvements do look good and while they can be viewed as adding some abstraction to the process, it is still a File Browser that travels through whatever file structure you are using.

Luck;
Ken