I want to add Calibre Plugboard usage to the Kindle Visual Guide...

[daffy4u]

... but I have no idea how to use them.

Inspired by this thread, I decided it's time I learned how to used plugboards so that I can add visual instructions to the Visual Kindle Guide.

If you're a Kindle owner and know how to use Calibre plugboards, would you please clue me in. Thanks!

[Baldrake]

Darn, I had great hopes for this thread!

[susan_cassidy]

Do you mean plugins? I've not heard the term "plugboard" with regard to software.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

Do you mean plugins? I've not heard the term "plugboard" with regard to software.

No, I do mean plugboards. As best I understand it, it's a way to get series books to appear in series order on your particular ebook reader.

[Madam Broshkina]

I found this on the nookboards that helped explain things for me. I just replaced nook with Kindle and it worked.

I don't want to have to rename everything in calibre, I also have many series where there are different authors for the books, and some authors who have multiple series that they are working on simultaneously. Its also the easiest way to quickly go to a particualer book. With almost 400 sideloaded titles, spanning over 30 pages, I need away to quickly go to the book I want.

to do what I stated ..you do not have to rename anything in calibre ..when you sideload into the nook it will add the series name and number without you having to do a thing ...


to have calibre do this ..just add the following

Preferences->Metadata Plugboards
then add the following
Format [Any format] Device [Nook]
Source template: {series} {series_index} {title}
Destination Field [title]
and save
then transfer an eBook to the Nook and it will add the series name, series sequence number to the book title on the Nook display and if the book has no series metadata then it just displays the normal eBook title. It makes finding books that is ina series so much easier on the nook...

Or you can change the template to get different results.

Someone in another thread (iandix) showed a way to modify the metadata to add a series name and number when you side-load a book into your documents folder.

http://www.nookboards.com/forum/inde...57382#msg57382

I tried this and it works nicely, though I modified it a little bit. The way it was suggested, when the book shows up, it's in this format

Source template: {series} {series_index} {title}

So that it reads, for instance:

Jack Reacher 11 Bad Luck and Trouble
Lee Child

The way I have my books shelved (with shelves named by alphabet then sorted by author), I prefer this:

Source template: {title} - #{series_index} in the {series} series.

Now, for instance, my books say:

Bad Luck and Trouble - #11 in the Jack Reacher series.
Lee Child

It's a little longer, so many of the longer titles end prematurely with an ellipsis (...). Like this

Bad Luck and Trouble - #11 in the Jac...
Lee Child

[daffy4u]

Thanks MB! I'll experiment with this next week and start to build the wiki page.

[jangell2]

I just tried out this suggested plugboard and have the following comments.

It works, but it makes for a long title name. If you have the books in a collection sorted by author, the books will appear in inverse order.

I don't see the difference between the two suggested methods. Both have the same source template and would produce identical results. Am I missing something?

Until I discovered this, I was ordering a series by editing the metadata Published date. The first in the series would have the latest date, the second an earlier date (even a day is good enough) and so on. When the collection was sorted by author, the books would show up in series order. I know the date order doesn't seem intuitive, but it works. I got this from another thread.

This method has the advantage or producing shorter title names, but is more labor intensive. I'm in favor is less work. It seems to me that since I put a series in a collection, I don't need the collection title, just the series index.

[jangell2]

I just redid it with only the series index and with the books in a collection named after the series, it looks much better.

[daffy4u]

Starting to work on learning plugboards today. Along with the info in Madam Broshkina's post I'm reading through the plugboards thread [https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ght=PLUGBOARD] and the Calibre tutorial [http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual...te_lang.html#].

Plugboards look to be very flexible with lots of options. It's working out the template syntax that I'm focusing on. I might post some screen grabs throughout the week as I play around as I want to be able to provide a few options to cover most needs.

[daffy4u]

A sample using the template created by economix

I'm using the "In Death" series as my sample. You have to do you metadata work. I couldn't get the books to number properly when trying to do it automatically. Something I have to work on because I've made it work before.

[kiwidude]

Great stuff, daffy4u, appreciate you doing the "hard yards" experimentation on this to get through the quirks and publishing some suggestions to save us all reinventing the wheel with the effort.

[daffy4u]

Here's another template from Scott Nielsen to in response to economix's need for a template that could turn the plugboard on and off depending on whether a book is in a series or not.

I used the Kitty Norville series for this sample. I like this the version because it takes up less space on the line.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Great stuff, daffy4u, appreciate you doing the "hard yards" experimentation on this to get through the quirks and publishing some suggestions to save us all reinventing the wheel with the effort.

No problem. It's good to learn new things.

[daffy4u]

Okay, I have a wiki page up. Please help me with corrections, clairifications and omissions.

Kindle and Calibre Plugboards

[wallcraft]

The original and alternate templates are identical, both seem to be Scott Nielsen's.