Calibre content server does not transfer series

[Alex77]

I own iPad but I hate iTunes and would prefer not having to install it on my windows PC again. So I was happy to find out that it's now possible to transfer books to the iPad using the calibre content server, bypassing said iTunes.

Everything went smooth until I changed the view in iBooks from Bookshelf to Categories and realized that "Series" part of the metadata didn't seem to be transfered. At least it didn't show up as a category within iBooks the way those did I used to transfer using the "Send to Device" function via iTunes.

Am I doing something wrong, is there something I can do about it or do I have to either pass on that feature or go back to using iTunes again?

[GRiker]

It's not possible to pass more than the simplest metadata (title, author) with the content server. This is a limitation of how iBooks reads metadata from the ebook.

The 'Connect to iTunes' feature talks to iTunes after the book is transferred, sending all of the detailed metadata through automation.

G

[Alex77]

So I guess there's no way around installing iTunes and having my whole library three times (calibre library, in iTunes and on my iPad)...
*sigh* I should have bought an android tablet.

One more question though. It's about covers. They seem to be very persistant. I accidentally used the same cover for two different books and realized it only just when I saw them both in iBooks. So I deleted the book with the wrong cover from my iPad, changed the cover in Calibre and refreshed the webpage on the content server and imported it to iBooks again. It had the same old cover again even though it did show the right one both in Calibre and at the content server. After a few tries I went back to deleting the whole book from calibre, added it again in it's original form as html, converted it back to epub using the right cover and now it worked. Is there an easier way to get rid of a wrong cover? It seems to be included in the epub format and the only way to change it is converting between formats.

[GRiker]

iBooks is stubborn about caching book covers. If it sees something different in the epub, it will assume that it's a newer version of the book.

If you're comfortable using the Tweak Book feature, you can open the OPF file and change the timestamp. That should be enough to force iBooks to recognize the change.

After exploding the file, look for the calibre timestamp in the <metadata> section:

<meta name="calibre:timestamp" content="2012-07-07T10:11:42.438277+00:00"/>

Change any part of the timestamp, rebuild, and that should do it.

G

[Alex77]

Ahh this explains it, thanks once again for your help!