Sony PRS-T1 in Calibre

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC the driver scans only the calibre folder in the main memory. I've committed a version that scans the entire memory.

[Kolenka]

I got the main branch checked out after a good couple hours of letting it run. Neither version of the generic driver finds any of the books for me either.

With as little time as I have, I won't really be investigating. The time is better spent interfacing with the DB so it won't have to scan the whole thing most of the time.

[Robert22]

I figured out how to make it work.

What was happening is that the "metadata.calibre" file was being created when books were added to the reader, filled with the transferred book information. It was still there when calibre was shut down. Then when you fired up calibre again it would replace the contents of "metadata.calibre" with "[]" and show nothing for the device view.

The solution was to use the Preferences > Advanced > Plugins > Device Interface plugins > User Defined USB driver

(after first disabling the SONY PRST1 driver and using the "Customize plugin" procedure for the User Defined USB driver.) This also now recognizes the memory card and I'm now good to go.

Now we need to get collections to work.

I also noticed that you do not have to worry about thumbnails when creating a driver. What happens is that the Books.db is populated, along with a thumbnail being created by the Sony reader itself. This happens on the fly when viewing a book list by thumbnail on the reader for the first time. If you do not view the whole list, only the ones you view get generated and are available from then on whenever you view a book list.

I'll try to find out how collections are created next and let you know if I discover anything useful.

[kovidgoyal]

I forgot to add SUPPORT_SUB_DIRS=True to the driver, now fixed.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by Robert22

I also noticed that you do not have to worry about thumbnails when creating a driver. What happens is that the Books.db is populated, along with a thumbnail being created by the Sony reader itself. This happens on the fly when viewing a book list by thumbnail on the reader for the first time. If you do not view the whole list, only the ones you view get generated and are available from then on whenever you view a book list.

Sony's readers have done this since supporting thumbnails. But, not all books have covers we like (especially DRM'd ones where we haven't stripped the DRM from). Calibre being able to copy over thumbnails that don't match the first page is a feature for some (including me), not a necessity.

My own investigations are really to see how close to parity to the 3/6/9xx driver it can be, before coding. And focus on the important stuff first. I'll probably be able to get started on something tonight.

Originally Posted by Robert22

I'll try to find out how collections are created next and let you know if I discover anything useful.

You can save yourself a bit of time. Books.db has two tables of interest: collection and collections (descriptive, I know).

Collection has the list of actual collections in it. Names and so on. Collections is a series of reference Ids that link books from the 'book' table to collections in the 'collection' table.

The catch is that to make the link, the book has to be in the book table. So any driver needs to add the book to the book table, before it can add it to any collections. So the driver will have to be somewhat integrated with the database. This actually a good thing, as it will make the loading of books faster from unplugging, MUCH faster.

[MooseFam5]

I've also just bought a PRS-T1 and am looking forward to using it with my library of books in Calibre. Sorry for the simple question but which file on that Betas page do I need for Windows 7 (64-bit)?

[log]

I'm also interested in first class device driver support for the Sony PRS-T1.

Not sure about calibre architecture or how devices are implemented, and while I try to learn, I will try to help as much as possible testing/reverse engineering. I'm also willing to contribute towards a T1 for any developers committed to working on the driver that Kovid is comfortable with.

[Kolenka]

The Sony automatically adds downloads, but it also scans all of internal memory (and the SD card) after an unplug from USB.

[MooseFam5]

I used the .msi file (calibre-0.8.21.msi) and it worked beautifully. Calibre recognized the Reader and I'm up and running. Thank you!

[log]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

The Sony automatically adds downloads, but it also scans all of internal memory (and the SD card) after an unplug from USB.

Thanks Kolenka, looks like you saw this right before I realized this was not anything new to you guys so updated my post, thanks for clearing it up though. Does the T1 also automatically remove the book from the device's library (db) if the file is deleted from USB when rescanning?

Didn't get a chance to poke around much last night and at work now so will continue this evening. Also did not get to try 0.8.21 beta yet. I didn't realize until now that it included updates after the official release version 0.8.21 so was wondering why calibre didn't detect my device with the basic driver out now

[Kolenka]

Yeah, deleted books are removed. This has been true of the Sony dating back to the 500/505. Their design is very well thought out. You can use their device withou the desktop software if you choose. Without any software, other than a way to copy/manage files.

I've got the beginnings of a driver on my own machine. It talks to the database to read books right now, and adds books to the database when uploading, although it looks like the entry will have to be complete enough or the Sony 'purges' it on rescanning and removes it from collections. Awesome.

No collection support yet, as it is tough with so little time to learn the plugin model, the quirks of SQLite's syntax, and relearn python all at once. I'll also need to learn how the old Sony driver works a bit to understand what may be similar, if anything, in the data stored. Might be able to use some of the time stamp routines if the 650 uses the same time stamps for things.

[luvduchovny]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Hmm looks like SONY have changed the software on the device completely. I've uploaded a build with a generic driver that will allow you to send books to and delete books from the device. Support for advanced features like collections/periodicals will have to wait until some calibre developer actually gets a T1.

Again, at: http://calibre-ebook.com/downloads/betas/

What is different is how the database is set up. The old Sony database had xml files that were like cache.xml, the new database has stuff like books.xml. When I get home tonight I can list all the database file names from the old and the new, since that database made plugging my old sd card into the new device a nightmare.

[Kolenka]

There is no XML on the new device, only SQLite databases.

I actually outline how the new stuff works in this thread. Probably have your answers in here already.

[log]

This evening I've been trying the beta version with "basic" T1 driver support at it's nearly perfect for this device already. The primary use cases for managing books on a ereader work great.

Tested added and removing books to T1, and worked great even for the books I downloaded through Calibre Media Server last night and the status of all of them were "in sync" with my Calibre library.

The only minor defect that I wanted to report is that there are actually two volumes that are mounted when enabling Data Transfer Mode on the T1, and only one is unmounted when using the "eject this device" option in calibre.

READER and SETTING are the two volumes. READER is the primary volume that calibre is using, and the SETTING volume contains the desktop version of Reader software for Mac and PC. Right now only the READER volume gets unmounted when using "eject this device" in calbire.

I think it's great that many want to get out full fledged driver as soon as possible, but to be honest I think most users will be very happy since the core functionality is already supported. Makes sense to take the time needed to get those features right since this Sony firmware, and this sqlite schema is brand new to everyone.

[trevgriff]

Originally Posted by log

This evening I've been trying the beta version with "basic" T1 driver support at it's nearly perfect for this device already. The primary use cases for managing books on a ereader work great.

Tested added and removing books to T1, and worked great even for the books I downloaded through Calibre Media Server last night and the status of all of them were "in sync" with my Calibre library.

The only minor defect that I wanted to report is that there are actually two volumes that are mounted when enabling Data Transfer Mode on the T1, and only one is unmounted when using the "eject this device" option in calibre.

READER and SETTING are the two volumes. READER is the primary volume that calibre is using, and the SETTING volume contains the desktop version of Reader software for Mac and PC. Right now only the READER volume gets unmounted when using "eject this device" in calbire.

I think it's great that many want to get out full fledged driver as soon as possible, but to be honest I think most users will be very happy since the core functionality is already supported. Makes sense to take the time needed to get those features right since this Sony firmware, and this sqlite schema is brand new to everyone.

Those volumes appear as soon as you enable "transfer via usb" and are independent to either the sony software or calibre at least on a mac with os x 10.7.