integration with Hook

[adrianf]

It seems that Calibre for macOS is not compatible with Hook, at least, it is not mentioned there.
It would be wonderful to be able to deep-search through Hook into Calibre.
____________
By the way, it seems that the normal html markdown language is not recognised in <b>any</b> kind of editing. See attachment.
Can you help with this too?
Many thanks

[kovidgoyal]

I have no idea what hook is. calibre simply stores books in normal folders onthe filesystem. If Hook is a full text search engine, there is no reason it cannot index those books already.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by adrianf

____________

By the way, it seems that the normal html markdown language is not recognised in any kind of editing. See attachment.

Can you help with this too?

Many thanks

This forum used bbcode not HTML markup. See http://bbcode.org

For instance [b]this is bold[/b] results in this is bold

[JSWolf]

Looking at the Hook website, Hook looks like a lot of hassle.

[adrianf]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I have no idea what hook is. calibre simply stores books in normal folders onthe filesystem. If Hook is a full text search engine, there is no reason it cannot index those books already.

Thank you, PeterT, for your hint.
________________
Kovid,
I sent you the page Linkable applications to Hook so that you see there

1. Calibre is not on that page in the chapter of Ebook Readers; most applications on that page are really good, and I guess, being listed among those applications is good advertisement;
2. in the Legend chapter at the beginning, the question whether Calibre has an «adequate API»

Has Calibre for macOS an API?
I thought I do you a service, if I contribute in making Calibre better known. Your curt answer suggests, you did not quite appreaciated this.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by adrianf

I sent you the page Linkable applications to Hook so that you see there

1. Calibre is not on that page in the chapter of Ebook Readers; most applications on that page are really good, and I guess, being listed among those applications is good advertisement;
2. in the Legend chapter at the beginning, the question whether Calibre has an «adequate API»

Has Calibre for macOS an API?
I thought I do you a service, if I contribute in making Calibre better known. Your curt answer suggests, you did not quite appreaciated this.

Perhaps the question should be what benefit does Hook have for the average user of calibre? Ummm... forget that one, since the average calibre user is running Windows. How many MacOSX users instead of using the calibre library interface are going to use links to calibre's content? How many MacOSX users running calibre want to be able to create bidirectional links to their books? And perhaps a bit more explanation of what use to the average calibre use such links would be?

Now a tool that could create a searchable full text interface to my library? That could be of some use.Though part of Hook's blurb is to use search or Finder to find a "key" document and use the Hook links you have already created to locate the rest of your related files which strongly suggests that Hook does not have any builtin search capability.

[kovidgoyal]

calibre is the leader in its field, used by millions of people. never heard of Hook. Dont know what it does, and from its page can tell its one of those pathetic mac specific apps that would not recognize an API if it was driving a truck that ran over it.

calibre has THE most comprehensive APIs known to man.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DNSB

. . . How many MacOSX users instead of using the calibre library interface are going to use links to calibre's content? . . .

One at least - and he doesn't want to do it via the http: protocol. He imagines doing it via a calibre: protocol, perhaps into a calibrespy like UI, or into calibrespy itself.

Added: But that would not need anything like Hook, the calibre: protocol handler and a Copy Book Link tool should be enough

BR

[tonywatkins]

I would also love to be able to use Hook with Calibre. As an academic researcher, I have entries to books in my bibliographic database, the things that I've written, material saved in Evernote, emails in my mail client, and tasks in my task manager – all of which can be connected together neatly by Hook. The bit of my web of information that doesn't fit in is Calibre, where a significant number of my books are stored. I would love to be able to use a Hook link to go straight to a text in Calibre. As it is, I need to write a note in my bibliographic database which tells me that the book in Calibre, which I then need to open and search in to get to it.

[adrianf]

Originally Posted by tonywatkins

I would also love to be able to use Hook with Calibre. As an academic researcher, I have entries to books in my bibliographic database, the things that I've written, material saved in Evernote, emails in my mail client, and tasks in my task manager – all of which can be connected together neatly by Hook. The bit of my web of information that doesn't fit in is Calibre, where a significant number of my books are stored. I would love to be able to use a Hook link to go straight to a text in Calibre. As it is, I need to write a note in my bibliographic database which tells me that the book in Calibre, which I then need to open and search in to get to it.

Thank you @tonywakins for adding your voice to this. Probably the intersction of enthusiastic PC programmers and academics is not huge. @BetterRed said:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

One at least - and he doesn't want to do it via the http: protocol. He imagines doing it via a calibre: protocol, perhaps into a calibrespy like UI, or into calibrespy itself.

Added: But that would not need anything like Hook, the calibre: protocol handler and a Copy Book Link tool should be enough

BR

Probably it should be clarified, that what we ideally want is, to be be able to highlight any piece of text inside a Calibre book, and link precisely that text snippet to other whole documents or document parts, in various formats, dealt with in other applications. I do not hold my breath that our requirement will be met with less arrogance and more understanding. Still most people who read books are not necesarily PC aficionados, so there is some reasonable argument for Calibre insiders to consider more seriously our wishes. Also medical doctors do not treat as patients only other medical doctors.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by adrianf

Probably it should be clarified, that what we ideally want is, to be be able to highlight any piece of text inside a Calibre book, and link precisely that text snippet to other whole documents or document parts, in various formats, dealt with in other applications. I do not hold my breath that our requirement will be met with less arrogance and more understanding. Still most people who read books are not necesarily PC aficionados, so there is some reasonable argument for Calibre insiders to consider more seriously our wishes. Also medical doctors do not treat as patients only other medical doctors.

You might want to take a look at the structure of an ebook. For example, the epub container is a renamed .zip file -- locating a specific piece of text in it is going to require unpacking the container and rendering the contained text files as text. One of the reasons that most ereaders copy the text out of the ebook into an annotations file/database entry/whatever instead of trying to link directly to the text in the ebook is that it is simply easier.

It's not a matter of arrogance but rather the realization that what you want would involve having to be able to open every ebook format handled by calibre (which calibre itself does not do -- the ebook viewer does an on the fly conversion and displays the converted file), adding the ability to create a link to a file within the container and to a specific location/length of the compressed text within that file. This would also require the application (Hook) to be able to open that compressed file and use the link to locate and extract the text.

The task is probably doable. Now you need to find someone who is interested in doing the required programming, be willing to pay enough to make it worthwhile to spend time on the task (even programmers have to eat, pay rent, etc.).

TANSTAAFL.

[adrianf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You might want to take a look at the structure of an ebook. For example, the epub container is a renamed .zip file -- locating a specific piece of text in it is going to require unpacking the container and rendering the contained text files as text. One of the reasons that most ereaders copy the text out of the ebook into an annotations file/database entry/whatever instead of trying to link directly to the text in the ebook is that it is simply easier.

It's not a matter of arrogance but rather the realization that what you want would involve having to be able to open every ebook format handled by calibre (which calibre itself does not do -- the ebook viewer does an on the fly conversion and displays the converted file), adding the ability to create a link to a file within the container and to a specific location/length of the compressed text within that file. This would also require the application (Hook) to be able to open that compressed file and use the link to locate and extract the text.

The task is probably doable. Now you need to find someone who is interested in doing the required programming, be willing to pay enough to make it worthwhile to spend time on the task (even programmers have to eat, pay rent, etc.).

TANSTAAFL.

Many thanks, @DNSB, both for the very informative reply, and for its constructive, friendly tone. If Kovid is right, and Calibre is the most used e-reader application, and, additionally, if about 10% of those users have macOS machines, probably there would be enough people to contribute to some crowdfunding for the endeavour you described.
However, I guess, there are two reasons why we cannot start with it just now:

1. Apple is about to release a new OS, and it is yet unclear, how determined they are from excluding smaller companies developing for their platform
2. All major e-bookshops, especially Amazon, are in the business of using more and more tight DRM-locks, to bind readers exclusively to them; as long as there is no major e-book dealer (in various languages, not only English) to offer an alternative to Amazon and its likes, I guess many potential donors in crowdfunding will rather sit on the fence and wait for more stable times.

Still, longer-term, your proposal @DNSB, might be feasible also financially, I guess. As point 2 above is of interest to all readers on any platform, and as Calibre runs already both in Windows and macOS, it might be an idea to have a parallel development for both platforms. That way, the crowdfunding exercise will become a much easier affair.
By the way, does anybody know what is a more precise number of Calibre users on Windows, and on macOS, respectively?

[DNSB]

You can check the calibre Usage statistics page.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by adrianf

Thank you @tonywakins for adding your voice to this. Probably the intersction of enthusiastic PC programmers and academics is not huge. @BetterRed said:

Probably it should be clarified, that what we ideally want is, to be be able to highlight any piece of text inside a Calibre book, and link precisely that text snippet to other whole documents or document parts, in various formats, dealt with in other applications. I do not hold my breath that our requirement will be met with less arrogance and more understanding. Still most people who read books are not necessarily PC aficionados, so there is some reasonable argument for Calibre insiders to consider more seriously our wishes. Also medical doctors do not treat as patients only other medical doctors.

Firstly my post was a response to DNSB's post not yours.

It was not clear to me that you wanted a link to the content of books. I have no idea what Hook does, nor is it immediately obvious from its webpage that that is what it does. Referencing a little known, and IMO a poorly documented, product is not very effective way of defining a software requirement.

I doubt 5% of calibre users are PC aficionados, I certainly wouldn't call myself that. Have you thought about employing a software developer to build a bespoke version of calibre - its licensing would allow that.

BTW Kovid wrote 'calibre is the leader in its field' - which is ebook library management. He did not claim it is the 'most used e-reader application'.

BR

[shalym]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Firstly my post was a response to DNSB's post not yours.

It was not clear to me that you wanted a link to the content of books. I have no idea what Hook does, nor is it immediately obvious from its webpage that that is what it does. Referencing a little known, and IMO a poorly documented, product is not very effective way of defining a software requirement.

I doubt 5% of calibre users are PC aficionados, I certainly wouldn't call myself that. Have you thought about employing a software developer to build a bespoke version of calibre - its licensing would allow that.

BTW Kovid wrote 'calibre is the leader in its field' - which is ebook library management. He did not claim it is the 'most used e-reader application'.

BR

Wait...Calibre is an "e-reader application"? I seriously never thought of it as that...to me it's only function is to manage my books, not read them. I do sometimes use the e-book viewer to check something in a specific book, but I definitely don't use it for reading. I know that some people *do* read on their PCs, but I would bet that the majority of people using Calibre are using it to manage their libraries, not read their books.

Shari