Collections Manager

[yiming]

ixtab, I've found some glitches in CM 2.4.0. I'm using KT 5.3.2.

When I select sort by any other options other than by title, and go back to select Sort by Title, the previous selection will remain selected. This problem only happens to Sort by Title. (Please see attached screen capture)

Similar problem happens to Display Options. The 2nd to 4th options can only be selected and not deselected. And the 1st option cannot be selected after I've deselected it. (also see attached screen capture)

Lastly, a minor UI issue. The Sort Options uses button whereas the Display Options uses thick for selection. It will be good to standardise it. Thanks.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by yiming

ixtab, I've found some glitches in CM 2.4.0. I'm using KT 5.3.2.

When I select sort by any other options other than by title, and go back to select Sort by Title, the previous selection will remain selected. This problem only happens to Sort by Title. (Please see attached screen capture)

Similar problem happens to Display Options. The 2nd to 4th options can only be selected and not deselected. And the 1st option cannot be selected after I've deselected it. (also see attached screen capture)

All of these are probably just some intermittent drawing problems where the Kindle doesn't properly update what is shown on the screen (but does change the state properly). Please close the menu and open it again to see if the settings had the correct effect. If it does work, but just doesn't display correctly, I'm afraid that there's nothing more I can do about it than what I already did... But suggestions are more than welcome.

Lastly, a minor UI issue. The Sort Options uses button whereas the Display Options uses thick for selection. It will be good to standardise it. Thanks.

This is intended. The sort options are mutually exclusive (hence radio buttons), while the display options are orthogonal (hence checkboxes). I'm already following standard UI guidelines there.

[yiming]

ixtab, thanks for your quick reply. didn't know the reason for the different displays for selection. I've learnt something new.

unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a display issue. for eg, the Display Options, once I've selected Display Collections Only, pressing the checkbox again would not change the display back. Similarly, after I've sorted by Publication Date, I was unable to sort by Title. I've restarted my KT, but the issues remain.

[NiLuJe]

@yiming: Can't reproduce here on a 5.3.7 Touch.

@ixtab: Could there be a weird issue with how the settings are stored on disk?

[ixtab]

yiming: can't reproduce that either. Maybe NiLuJe is right, so try removing CM *on the Kindle* (using long-tap, delete), and then re-install it.

However, before you do that, please make a copy of developer/Collections Manager/work/crash.log and check whether there are any stack traces inside. If there are, please post the file here so I can take a look at it and try to find out what is going wrong.

[nasser]

I too get some intermittent strange behaviour with my recently installed v2.4.0:
- collections take long time to open.. i have nested collections too..
- instead of displaying the items inside the collection, the collection icon changes to the icon of the item inside the collection which is in the same screen position as the parent collection icon
- once the collection icon disappeared totally

restarts of CM and/or kindle seemed to cure this..

seeing the above post, i took a look at the crash log: it only contained several lines - all with the same message: "memory usage is in a critical state. memory used is <ranges from 70 to 80k>"

should i try a re-install?

[NiLuJe]

@nasser: you're describing standard kindle framework behavior, that CM doesn't directly have any impact on, it just makes use of what's implemented but not public, so, yeah, there are a few kinks in how the framework actually deals with nested collections ;-).

Mostly minor graphic issues like you experienced, especially with how the 'Back' action is handled from a nested collection.

EDIT: What I mean to say is: CM doesn't have any control over how the framework actually decides to display/navigate nested collections, and, yes, there a few minor graphics glitch in some circumstances .

[yiming]

Originally Posted by ixtab

yiming: can't reproduce that either. Maybe NiLuJe is right, so try removing CM *on the Kindle* (using long-tap, delete), and then re-install it.

However, before you do that, please make a copy of developer/Collections Manager/work/crash.log and check whether there are any stack traces inside. If there are, please post the file here so I can take a look at it and try to find out what is going wrong.

hi ixtab, followed your instructions and re-installed CM, but the problems are still there.

and here's the crash log. could they be caused by not enough memory? thanks.
crash.log.txt

[ixtab]

Hmmm.... @yiming: I'm sorry to say that, but I have absolutely no clue about what is happening on your device. CM seems to be working ok for everyone else, and there is no sign of an exception being thrown or anything, so I can't tell what could be causing the issues you're describing.

Sadly, my only other suggestion would be to clear the collections DB entirely, either by manually removing /var/local/cc.db, or by performing a factory reset, and to see if the problem goes away. The database might be corrupted or inconsistent, and I dimly remember that this solved some funky problems someone else was having.

The memory warnings are normal, AFAIK they get logged on every device, but don't cause any harm. They just state the facts - namely that the Kindle doesn't have much RAM.

And, @nasser, to make it totally clear (NiLuJe already explained it quite well): think of CM as simply being a database editor for the collections database. How that database is actually used by the Kindle framework is totally out of control, and out of scope, of CM.

I personally don't use the cover view mode (I prefer the list mode), and I don't remember experiencing any glitches when navigating around in collections on the home screen.

[knc1]

Just in case any brave developer wants to play with the tuning knobs:

#! /bin/sh

# path relative to /etc/kdb.src/yoshime3/
CVM='system/daemon/pmond/cvm/'

# kdb -h for more information on commands
kdb get $CVM'config_name'
kdb get $CVM'init_state'
kdb get $CVM'mem_limit'
kdb get $CVM'mem_warn'
kdb get $CVM'mem_warn_repeat'
kdb get $CVM'mem_warn_repeat_kb'
kdb get $CVM'oom_adj'
kdb get $CVM'pid_file'
kdb get $CVM'process_interval'

At least on the paperwhite anyway.

for example:

[root@kindle root]# ./kdb_cvm.sh
cvm
stop
103424
71680
1
1024
10
/var/run/cvm.pid
20

Everything below: /etc/kdb.src/yoshime3/
is part of the kdb registry.

If you brick your paperwhite, do not give up hope - I am offering $10 each for bricked paperwhites.

[ams]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Mostly minor graphic issues like you experienced, especially with how the 'Back' action is handled from a nested collection.

I found these issues with the 'Back' action from nested collections all the time on Kindle Touch FW 5.3.2.1 but since I downgraded to 5.1.2 it does not happen anymore.
So in addition to having the additional jbpatch patches (progressbar, tts, fontsize) KT FW5.1.2 also has an advantage when dealing with nested collections.

[Steve8x8]

I think it's time to say Hi to ixtab and friends - you've been doing a fantastic work here!

I purchased a PW last week, as a birthday present for a special lady, and eagerly unpacked it (leaving the packaging intact; to check everything is OK with the device, and perform some initial setup).
Before, I had checked this thread's first post, and downloaded a bunch of files.

My story:
- PW came with 5.3.4 installed, so I bumped that to 5.3.5 (now that CM 2.4.0 supports that, and there's a JB for it, it seemed to be the wisest choice for a start).
- JB, Kindlet JB and DevCerts installed smoothly. (During JB install, I saw the RescuePack being mentioned, so I skipped that.)
- I went on to install the BackdoorLock Hack (non-KUAL version, for now). Which was a good idea since there was an incomplete 5.3.6 download already in /mnt/us... I also created a dummy directory in place of it.
- Next was Collection Manager (2.4.0). I hadn't got the knack of nested collections yet (I had to walk through the 41 pages of this thread to understand how to create a collection within a collection).

There are some questions remaining.
-1- Once made invisible, I cannot find books in the CM root anymore to move them, or make them visible again. Calibre doesn't seem to care, but also not to have a way to toggle visibility.
-2- Selection and copy/move options only work for the 5 books in the top panel. Selecting, then scrolling will clear selections. Bug or feature?
-3- Making a book invisible will keep me at the same position. Moving to collection will send me back to page 1. Although this resembles Amazon's library: Bug or feature?
-4- I understand that I will have to reinstall Kindlet JB and DevCerts when upgrading (while that should leave the device JB intact) - what will happen to my CM collections in the meantime?

-2- and -3- together made it a bit tedious to move *most* books into collections - now that I think about it I should have created a collection "Uncollected", drop everything in my way there, and empty that one when done...

I've still got a couple of days to play with the device, every hint is appreciated.
And... did I say "Thank you" yet?

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by Steve8x8

-1- Once made invisible, I cannot find books in the CM root anymore to move them, or make them visible again. Calibre doesn't seem to care, but also not to have a way to toggle visibility.

Menu -> Display Options -> Show invisible items in Home.

-2- Selection and copy/move options only work for the 5 books in the top panel. Selecting, then scrolling will clear selections. Bug or feature?

Neither nor. It's a limitation imposed by the Kindle. Because of the severely limited memory on Kindles, CM can only deal with a few items at the same time. Essentially, you can only interact with what you see on the screen. Anything else would result in an explosion of the program logic complexity and memory requirements.

-3- Making a book invisible will keep me at the same position. Moving to collection will send me back to page 1. Although this resembles Amazon's library: Bug or feature?

Same reason as above. You only interact with what you see. If you change the collection, you start from "scratch" (page 1).

-4- I understand that I will have to reinstall Kindlet JB and DevCerts when upgrading (while that should leave the device JB intact) - what will happen to my CM collections in the meantime?

Nothing - they're kept.

-2- and -3- together made it a bit tedious to move *most* books into collections - now that I think about it I should have created a collection "Uncollected", drop everything in my way there, and empty that one when done...

Menu -> Display options -> Upper pane: show unfiled items only. Well, now you know

I've still got a couple of days to play with the device, every hint is appreciated.
And... did I say "Thank you" yet?

Hope the above helps a bit. And thanks for the kind words

[nypaulie]

I installed the 5.3.5 upgrade to my PW.
Installed Jailbreak with success.
Installed Kindle-Jailbreak.
Installed Developer-Certificates.
Put the CollectionsManager.azw2 into my Documents directory.

When I select the Collections Manager icon I get this message:"

"Kindle Jailbreak Required
This application requires the Kindlet Jailbreak to
be installed. This is an ADDITIONAL jailbreak
that must...... and so on.

So I REinstalled the Kindlet-Jailbreak update fut I still get the error message.
Tried rebooting too, no dice. Any ideas???

[twobob]

hmm.. Ixtab would know more but in essence this "Kindle Jailbreak" is a patched version of one the jars.

5.3.5 huh... should be supported.
So you have ssh access to the device?

We could CHECK the jar is being updated I guess then