Filename conventions for organization?

[Turtle91]

Hi,
I've been using a particular ebook reader app on my iphone for a couple years primarily because of it's ability to place books within folders and sub-folders. I carry around several hundred books at a time (yes, I know I'm weird ) and I like to be able to look them up by authors last name initial - then authors name - then series name (if any) - then book name listed in series order.

Unfortunately said app just doesn't support the formatting options I want to see, and doesn't support ePub very well in general. So it's time to move on.

My biggest question is: is there some sort of file naming convention I should use when I create ePubs?
e.g "LastName, FirstName MI - SeriesName Index# - BookName.epub"

Or is there an ePub ereader that will allow sorting/organizing the list based on the metadata inherent in the file - thus allowing a filename of "Bookname.epub"?

Cheers!

[AlPe]

No naming convention is mandated by EPUB specs.

Calibre can help renaming your files, based on each ebook metadata. Take a tour in the Calibre section of the forum.

[Turtle91]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't very clear. I know how to rename the files and wasn't concerned with the "spec" per se (although I wouldn't want to violate one...). I was wondering if there was a "best practice" or a "method" of naming the files to get them to be organized properly in the reader.

Right now If I put more than 50ish files onto the device, all I get is a list of book titles that aren't sorted very well - if at all. Imagine one author with 120 titles! It's kind of hard to find the book you are looking for...and it's really hard to find the next book in the series when you don't know what the name of the book is and can't see series names or numbers!

I can sort based on author...and filter by collection...which helps a little. But I would like to either sort by filename - where "LastName, FirstName MI - SeriesName Index# - BookName.epub" would be handy - or have a device that would organize the books by the internal metadata of author, series name, series index, title.

Does anyone know if there is a ereader/iApp that will do that kind of metadata organization? Or, if not, is there a way to name a file so that it will show up in the list in an organized order?

[AlPe]

Some eReaders show the library as a filesystem hierarchy (e.g., PocketBook's, Onyx's, Bookeen's) which allows you to structure your library using the handy and reasonable directory-based approach, maybe supported by a management software like Calibre.

Unfortunately this approach is not common within apps for iOS/Android --- right now I cannot name one that adopts it.

[Turtle91]

Thanks AlPe! I appreciate the info!

After several hours of reading through the forums later....I found an ereader that does exactly what I want....sort and organize based on meta-data...plus about a gazillion other features that ereaders SHOULD have been incorporating for the last several years!

The reader is called "Marvin" and you can read about it on this MR thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ghlight=client

or you can go to the app's website at http://marvinapp.com/

Free Download. It is for iPad only right now, but the Developer - someone very active on the above thread - has an iPhone and Android version in the plans for the near future.

This app has been touted as a Stanza/Kindle/iBooks/Bluefire replacement...and those using it actually mean it!!

Cheers!

[AlPe]

Nice, I should check it out, thanks for writing back.

[DiapDealer]

I like to be able to look them up by authors last name initial - then authors name - then series name (if any) - then book name listed in series order.

I found an ereader that does exactly what I want....sort and organize based on meta-data...plus about a gazillion other features that ereaders SHOULD have been incorporating for the last several years!

Are you certain it will be able to do exactly what you want? There is no official "series" metadata being used that I know of in ePub2.

[Turtle91]

It is the Calibre "Series" and "Series_Index" tags from what I understand.

Sigil does not have these as part of it's Metadata options, so I don't know if it is part of the "spec", but Calibre and ePubMetadataEditor both allow assigning values.

The Developer says that is how it works....??

[AlPe]

The EPUB standard allows using several metadata schemes, plus defining custom metadata fields.

Hence, I guess that app uses the Calibre-custom metadata for book series.

[DiapDealer]

Gotcha. So the "series" functionality of this app is dependent on calibre's series metadata. Makes sense... even if it's a bit of a fragile relationship. Thanks.

[Jellby]

If I were to write such an app, I'd try to implement some kind of heuristic that would parse the metadata (<meta> tags in particular) looking for anything that looks like "series" or "number" (maybe some kind of regex on the "name" attribute). That should catch calibre's metadata, but also other possible schemes.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Jellby

If I were to write such an app, I'd try to implement some kind of heuristic that would parse the metadata (<meta> tags in particular) looking for anything that looks like "series" or "number" (maybe some kind of regex on the "name" attribute). That should catch calibre's metadata, but also other possible schemes.

That would certainly work. I used a similar process when I wrote my (very basic) program to convert the html files I had created into ePub...it used those meta tags to do everything from automatically naming the file and placing the file in the appropriate subfolder to creating and then putting the appropriate info in the toc/ncx/opf.

It wasn't too difficult - although I made it easier on myself by being consistent with the tags I put in the html in the first place.

I'm not sure how this particular developer - Kris is his name - will go about doing that...or even if it's specifically Calibre's set of meta tags...I can't recall if he specifically said calibre, or if he just said "series/#" and I assumed it was calibre because that is what ePubMetadataEditor uses...I'll have to go back through that thread and see. If you take a look at what he has already accomplished with Marvin, he is WAY more advanced than me in his programming skills and shouldn't have any problem getting it to work.