CC Cloud

[CRussel]

An exciting development, Chaley. I look forward to it. But I'm afraid only if OneDrive is supported. (And logging in shouldn't be required every time, from my experience connecting to it on my Fire. But if it is, it is.)

[Terisa de morgan]

This would be very useful for me as:
1.- My on-device library is in dropbox
2.- From time to time I can't add books to my ereader (or I forget to add them to my phone -calibre companion-), so it would be very useful

[BetterRed]

@chaley - I do some work for a law practice, some of the partners use Calibre/CC. Dropbox for Business (D4B) is integral to some of the practice's Line of Business systems, so they would prefer anything but Dropbox.

Their main concerns are that it won't 'interfere' with the D4B account, and that CC will continue to work as it does now. We've found that some Dropbox 'enabled' apps don't play nicely in this D4B installation, so we're somewhat wary of them. The LoB apps are bespoke, so it could be that they're the 'fly in the ointment', but... you know the rest.

They'd prefer OneDrive because that's where they keep their personal stuff - e.g. the backup of their calibre libraries. They use Office365, as a result they have personal 1TB Onedrive accounts. But CC in the Cloud is not something they want, let alone need.

Their personal and work computers are one and the same - .

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@chaley - will it work with a multi-user Dropbox for Business account.

I do some work for a law practice, some of the partners use Calibre/CC.

Because D4B is integral to some of the practice's Line of Business systems they would prefer anything but Dropbox. They'd prefer OneDrive because that's where they keep their personal stuff - e.g. the backup of their calibre libraries. They use Office365, as a result they have personal 1TB Onedrive accounts.

We've found that some Dropbox 'enabled' apps don't play nicely in this D4B installation, so we're somewhat wary of them. The LoB apps are bespoke, so it could be that they're the 'fly in the ointment', but... you know the rest.

BR

TBH I have no idea. I am currently using the Dropbox SDK for authenticating and fetching files, but I intend to change to using their REST API. From what I read, "Dropbox for Business" is different from "Dropbox", using different REST endpoints. It also seems that apps require different permissions and the like. Handling this complexity doesn't seem to be somewhere I want to go.

Also FWIW: today I signed up for Onedrive and am looking at how to use their REST api. I am able to authenticate. Next is being able to fetch files. Onedrive has some very strange authentication rules. For example, authentication seems to give 1 hour (clock time) of privilege. I don't know what happens when that hour expires. It is hard to believe that whatever happens will be good.

[BetterRed]

@chaley we x-posted - I had the wrong emphasis in my original post so I edited it.

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@chaley we x-posted - I had the wrong emphasis in my original post so I edited it.

BR

Certainly the changes to CC will not break any current use of CC. If you don't use the "cloud connector" then it has no consequence at all.

If someone does attempt to use CC Cloud then the effects will be minimal. CC will never attempt to write to the cloud. CC does not "sync" with the cloud, instead downloading files into its own caches when needed. If the user gives permission then CC will attempt to "access" (read-only) the cloud. If this access causes any strange workflow processing to be triggered, well so be it. There isn't anything I can do about it.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by chaley

Certainly the changes to CC will not break any current use of CC. If you don't use the "cloud connector" then it has no consequence at all.

one of the users is signed up for CC beta's, not sure if she uses much, if she's in country when the beta becomes available we'll check it out.

BR

[chaley]

Do any of you have an opinion on how often I should check if covers have changed? I can see any of

1. every time the cover is accessed
2. the first time after "CC Cloud" (whatever it is called) is started
3. every so often (once per hour, once per day)
4. every time the user looks at book details
5. only the first time the cover is shown

If works acceptably well with #1, but I am concerned that the cloud service might decide CC is checking to frequently and slow down any responses. I am also not convinced that checking so often is necessary.

One factor to consider is how easily a user can understand what is happening. Another factor: things can get messy if the user is simultaneously changing the library with calibre and using CC Cloud. Currently the metadata.db is checked with CC Cloud is started, which means that the database and potentially the file system in CC Cloud would be different from the database in the cloud until CC Cloud is stopped and restarted. Should I periodically check whether metadata.db has changed? If so, how often?

The two factors make me partial to #2, where the behavior has the same explanation. Of course #2 doesn't deal with file system/metadata.db changes while CC Cloud is running, but I don't see any way to handle that gracefully.

Of course there will be a way to empty the cache, but that seems to be a big hammer.

[cybmole]

I think 5, or " never" , with the nuclear" delete cache" option to fall back on.

Once I've started reading , I lose interest in the cover, unless Kindle is bugging me with it's in-your-face Carousel display.. I don't spend much time in CC simply admiring the shelves

but I'd be fine with #2 also

[chaley]

I have Dropbox and Onedrive working. I will look at adding other providers as the need arises. Copy.com is currently not on the "possible" list because their documentation does not include how to download a file (!). Box is possible. Google Drive is not because it can destroy a calibre library.

[cybmole]

is amazon cloud drive on the maybe later list ? it has a generous amount of free storage

[chaley]

Originally Posted by cybmole

is amazon cloud drive on the maybe later list ? it has a generous amount of free storage

After a quick read of their documentation it seems so, but their process is a pain. One must go through some sort of "test and approve" process in addition to registration. It should be fun telling Amazon that they must put a calibre library into their cloud.

I am not sure what adding CC Cloud will do to CC availability on Amazon, especially if we don't support Amazon Cloud.

At any rate, I am going to stop messing with cloud providers for the moment and get on with the rest of the app. What I have shows that supporting multiple companies is possible, which is what I wanted to know.

[cybmole]

well hopefully you won't do anything that breaks amazon store availability, even it that means leaving a old non-cloud version in the amazon store, & giving the cloud version only to google/apple.
if amazon were to pull the app, they would probably zap my working Kindle Fire version.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by cybmole

well hopefully you won't do anything that breaks amazon store availability, even it that means leaving a old non-cloud version in the amazon store, & giving the cloud version only to google/apple.
if amazon were to pull the app, they would probably zap my working Kindle Fire version.

If Amazon rejects "CC Cloud" for some reason then we will do as you said, release it without the cloud support. The amazon version is already special for several reasons, and this would be just one more.

[eschwartz]

re: caching covers. I favor option #2

If people modify the library in Dropbox/whatever while CC Cloud is running, that could/will mess up several things, so why make covers the exceptional thing you guard agaist?