calibre 5: Beta testers needed

[kovidgoyal]

Hi all,

calibre 5 with python 3 and highlighting in the viewer is finally ready for general beta testing. I'd appreciate it if some of you could download the betas and give it a spin:

https://download.calibre-ebook.com/betas/

The main new feature is that you can create highlights with added notes in both the standalone and content server viewers. To do so simply long tap or double click a word to show the selection popup bar, where you can shoose to highlight or perform other actions. You can also browse all annotations for all books, centrally, in the main calibre program. More details are in the documentation, at:
https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...hlighting-text


Now some warnings.

Since all annotations are stored in the calibre database and can be browsed centrally using the new annotations browser tool, the database structure has changed. You can run both calibre 4.20 and the betas on the same libraries, however, earlier releases may or may not work, so only run the betas if your main calibre is up-to-date at version 4.20 or newer.

Because of python 3, some third party plugins might not work, for status on plugin porting efforts, see: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=326405

Plugin developers, if you have been holding off porting your plugin, now is the time as calibre 5 is round the corner. For information on how to port your plugin, please see: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=325721

[Terisa de morgan]

Is it possible to have in the same machine a Calibre 5 portable version and 4.10 calibre Windows 64?

[kovidgoyal]

yes as long as you access different libraries with each.

[thiago.eec]

That's great! Annotations is a great feature.

My first round of testing:
calibre portable 4.99.7 - Windows 10 Pro 2004 x64
Using the Viewer by double-clicking books on calibre main library.
All books are EPUBs.

1) Bug: changing the color of an annotation erases the associated notes.
2) Bug: after creating 3 annotations (1 in Book A, then 1 in Book B, and 2 in Book B), the first 2 two stopped showing in the viewer, although they still show in "Browse annotations". It happened after restarting calibre.
3) Bug: after adding a second note to the 3rd annotation (in Book B), this one also stopped showing in viewer (yet still present in "Browse annotations"). Also happened after restarting.
4) Info: in "Browse annotations", the options to restrict search are not available to me.
5) Info: in "Browse annotations", the notes inside the same annotation are merging altogether. No line breaks. Looks like a single note.
6) Suggestion: display some sort of separation between the highlighted text and the associated note.
7) Bug: in "Browse annotations", selecting an annotation and clicking in "Open in viewer" not always open on the selected annotation.

Thanks for the new feature. I'll keep testing here.

[thiago.eec]

Also, this version of the viewer is still presenting the problem of multiple scrolls to change the page. Was this fix applied to this release (4.99.7)?

P.S.: Running from source, the mentioned fix did not solved the problem on version 4.20.

[kovidgoyal]

1) Bug: changing the color of an annotation erases the associated notes.

Doesnt happen for me. Steps I tried:

a) click highlight
b) click on a word
c) enter a note
d) change color of highlight
e) click the tick mark
f) the note remains

2) Bug: after creating 3 annotations (1 in Book A, then 1 in Book B, and 2 in Book B), the first 2 two stopped showing in the viewer, although they still show in "Browse annotations". It happened after restarting calibre.

Also, doesnt happen for me, steps I tried:

a) Open book 1
b) add anotation
c) close book 1
d) Open book 2
e) add two annotations
f) close book 2
g) quit calibre
h) open calibre and open the two books, all annotations are present

4) Info: in "Browse annotations", the options to restrict search are not available to me.

What do you mean by not available?

5) Info: in "Browse annotations", the notes inside the same annotation are merging altogether. No line breaks. Looks like a single note.

This will be fixed in the next beta

6) Suggestion: display some sort of separation between the highlighted text and the associated note.

This will be fixed in the next beta

7) Bug: in "Browse annotations", selecting an annotation and clicking in "Open in viewer" not always open on the selected annotation.

I will need a book with an annotation for which it fails.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Also, this version of the viewer is still presenting the problem of multiple scrolls to change the page. Was this fix applied to this release (4.99.7)?

P.S.: Running from source, the mentioned fix did not solved the problem on version 4.20.

Yes it was applied. The only way that could happen is if your wheel mouse is generating pixel scroll events. If it generates either line or page scroll events a single wheel click is all that's needed.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Doesnt happen for me. Steps I tried:

a) click highlight
b) click on a word
c) enter a note
d) change color of highlight
e) click the tick mark
f) the note remains

Try changing the color, AFTER the note was already created:
a) Create a Note like you described above and save it;
b) Double-click it;
c) Click the paintbrush icon;
d) Change the color;
e) The highlight remains, but the text you typed is gone.

It happens every time here.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Also, doesnt happen for me, steps I tried:

a) Open book 1
b) add anotation
c) close book 1
d) Open book 2
e) add two annotations
f) close book 2
g) quit calibre
h) open calibre and open the two books, all annotations are present

For me, highlights keep vanishing. I still can see then in "Browse annotations", both in main calibre and the Viewer. But they vanish from the rendered text. Check the attached picture.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

What do you mean by not available?

The dropdown menus (Types and User) does not work. Maybe the User option is for the Content Server, but what about the Types option?

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

7) Bug: in "Browse annotations", selecting an annotation and clicking in "Open in viewer" not always open on the selected annotation.

I will need a book with an annotation for which it fails.

This happened with many notes, on may books. One example is the one attached. I highlighted two passages, the first, on "Letter 4":

When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose.

The second on the end of "Chapter 1":

The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight.

Then, in main calibre, I open "Browse annotations". Select the highlight and click "Open in viewer". For the first highlight, the Viewer will open at the beginning of "Letter 4", not showing the highlight (which is on the next "page"; note that I am using Paged Mode).

For the second highlight, it works fine (for this example). It opens right at the spot.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Yes it was applied. The only way that could happen is if your wheel mouse is generating pixel scroll events. If it generates either line or page scroll events a single wheel click is all that's needed.

The thing is: this is the same mouse I've been using for months, including calibre. It always worked fine before. Also, I tested another mouse (both Logitech mice) and it failed too.

This happened after 4.20 (I know that it had some fix for scrolling with touchpads, maybe that's what broke things).

P. S.: Can you point me a simple way to test the the event signal my mouse is sending with the scroll wheel?

____________
Edit: I did a test on this website.

I hovered the mouse at the "Test elements" and gave a single scroll on my mouse whell. The result is attached.

[thiago.eec]

One last thing that just happened: I made two highlights on a book (EPUB3), then closed it and restarted calibre. After restarting, the highlight was displaced from its original position. See the attached image.

The original highlighted sentence was:

Fast-forward to the present day. Real-life self-driving cars now cruise around the cities of Silicon Valley day and night.

After restart, it now shows:

We’ve developed a computer program that can beat the best humans at the ancient game of Go. Meanwhile, the artificial int

They are the exact same size (124 chars). The highlight got displaced.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

yes as long as you access different libraries with each.

OK, then I will have to work with a copy

[nixsee]

Wonderful! I'll start giving it a test drive. I intend to keep 4.20 on my system - is there any preference for using the installed or portable version of the v5 beta?

[nixsee]

Some initial thoughts:

Overall, I'm very pleased with this so far! But, of course, there are kinks to be ironed out.

I would really love if it was more efficient to create highlights. In most applications that support highlights/annotations, when you highlight a section of text there is a popup with annotation options - highlight color, add note, etc...

The workflow is typically:
1. Highlight
2. Click desired action in the popup
3. If note selected, enter. If not (e.g. Highlight), you're already done.
4. Click away and carry on.

Conversely, in Calibre the workflow is:
1. highlight
2. right click for menu
3. click Highlight at the top left
4. click the pencil in bottom right
5. enter note
6. click checkmark or click away
7. click check mark in top right to finish editing

As excited as I am to get this feature in Calibre and be able to ditch my other reader programs (Kindle, Book Bazaar Reader), its cumbersome enough that I just wouldn't use it.

Another minor quibble: the highlight colors are not particularly pleasing. I don't have any better suggestions, but all I can describe them as is "pale and random". A more vibrant and harmonious color palette would be nice.

A final couple quibbles regarding the Browse All Highlights feature for the entire library. I really like this, especially with the search. But
1. Pressing "Esc" closes the window, whereas in the main Calibre window it clears the search. Not sure if something can be changed so that we can clear the search with Esc.
2. The restrict to Types and User dropdown boxes don't seem to do anything.

[nixsee]

One bug (x64 version)

1. I made some highlights and notes.
2. Then I changed the color of the reader from Black to White (to see if the highlight colors that I mentioned in my above comment were more pleasing). No highlights were displayed, but the references were still shown in the Highlight Browser.
3. Switched back to Black and no highlights were presented despite being in the browser.
4. Created new highlight and all previous highlights disappeared altogether from the browser.
5. Closed and reopened the book - now many highlights are showing in both the viewer and the browser. I'll have to clear them all out and create new ones in both Black and White modes to see which ones are being saved and displayed after close/open.
** On that note, it would be nice if there was either multi-select (Ctrl and/or Shift Click, Shift+Arrow Keys) option in the highlight browser, as well as ability to bulk edit/delete them. Also allowing to use the Delete key would be helpful to avoid many clicks)

Follow-up:
I created a couple in Black, then a couple in White, closed and reopened. All 4 were in the browser with their notes stored, but the 2nd highlight from Black was not being displayed in the viewer.

[nixsee]

Feature suggestion:

An export to .txt (or even JSON or CSV) function for all and/or selected highlights. It would be particularly nice if it included both the highlighted text as well as the user annotation. If metadata could be included in this (highlight color, highlight location, etc...), then presumably it could be imported by someone else into their Calibre if they have the same book. It might also just be useful to have the color listed with the notes since they might be associated with certain types of notes.