Classic B&N library management

[TheCrazier]

Originally, i was just going to convert my .lit books into PDF and read them from my documents library but after discovering calibre, i want to convert them to epub with the metadata so that i can place them in the B&N download library. Specifically, so that i can browse through my books by the nice color covers that attracted me to the nook. Is this possible or do i have to be satisfied with documents library?

Alternatively, has anyone tried that App from softrooting that combines all ebooks on the nook in one library? anyone think that might help me?

thanks

[afa]

Originally Posted by TheCrazier

Specifically, so that i can browse through my books by the nice color covers that attracted me to the nook. Is this possible or do i have to be satisfied with documents library?

The latter. Cover Flow in the nook only works with B&N ebooks, not sideloaded content.

Alternatively, has anyone tried that App from softrooting that combines all ebooks on the nook in one library? anyone think that might help me?

I haven't tried softrooting my nook, yet. But yes, I imagine that would help.

[iandix]

here is a short video showing what you can do with a nook running trook for cataloguing of books. Anyone who has a standard nook will tell you the system they use to catalogue the books is hopeless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaJOt4OSlJw

[ejm]

Originally Posted by TheCrazier

Alternatively, has anyone tried that App from softrooting that combines all ebooks on the nook in one library? anyone think that might help me?

I did try soft-rooting, in part, to gain this very same functionality (color cover flow and a combined folder). In reality, I found the color cover flow to be more sizzle and less meat - preferring to see the name/author of my books anyhow, rather than just the cover.

I think softrooting is really neat and applaud everyone involved. For me, at this time, however, the gap between the official B&N firmware and what can be accomplished with softrooting is not all that significant (at least given the way I use the nook) that I reverted back to the 1.3 official firmware (and now 1.4).

Having said that, I regularly read posts about the latest softrooting efforts because I'd have no problem going back to softrooting my nook if the benefits outweighed the minimal hassle - and will likely try it again just for hoots. Unless you're intimidated by the steps involved, softrooting is definitely worth trying - just so you know the possibilities. [Again, I salute those who have made this fun option available to the nook community!! ]

Personally, I find my two directories of books (B&N vs. My documents) to be annoying, but already overwhelming anyhow. Combining them into 1 single directory actually makes the lack of book management on the nook all the more cumbersome. (Calibre is likely your best best for content management, at least at this time - major kudos to Kovid, who deserves our donations.)

Yes, B&N needs to add some important functionality (e.g., folder management) and combined cover flow would be nice. The problem for some of us is that, as our collections of books increases, one giant combined parade of color books covers becomes unwieldy anyhow. It's nice eye candy, but practically speaking, picking out a particular book by looking cover by cover in linear fashion is a hard way to select books in the real world (either at a physical bookstore or even at your home library), so it really doesn't lend itself to book selection on an ereader all that well either.

Just my $0.02 - of course different strokes for different folks. Hope these thoughts are useful to you.

Enjoy!

[TheCrazier]

thanks, i have no problem rooting, as i have done many devices before, i just didnt see any big advantage to root my nook when i read the apps list on the dev website...

Its the color cover browsing that attracted me to the nook and yea i think it might be harder to use than the standard author/title search but it would be nice to see the covers somewhere on my nook.

I can wait if B&N decides to release that kind of support in an update...anyone knows if they are?

Trook looks useful but i dont want to root my nook if BN will do something official...

[bgalbrecht]

IMHO, if you've got more than 100 or so sideloaded ebooks, you'll probably want to softroot your nook so that you can search for sideloaded books. With the B&N library software, you have to search through tens of pages (in my case, hundreds of pages) for sideloaded books.

[Scarpad]

I kinda like how the books were organized on the Sony Reader I had, you could include the sideloaded books with the purchased then sort by collection, author , etc

[BooksOnBowser]

Originally Posted by Scarpad

I kinda like how the books were organized on the Sony Reader I had, you could include the sideloaded books with the purchased then sort by collection, author , etc

+1 for the collections facility in the Reader.

Lets face it the nook is designed to function better with B&N than sideloaded stuff (no covers, no search) for a good reason, B&N want you to buy from them

[envy]

This is how I catalog my own books on the nook since it does not have a collection folder like the sony prs 600:

Example:

[Night Huntress 01] Halfway to the grave
[Night Huntress 02] One foot in the grave



So that way the books are alphabetized by the series. It works out perfectly for me.

and when I upload the books from the Calibre it brings the book cover along with it, so I see the cover for the book at the bottom of the screen.

Totally works.

[jjansen]

I wouldn't have bought the Nook if it had not had the softroot available. I have sideloaded 2,500 epubs on my Nook and thanks to the softrooting it works great. I can find everything I want easily. I can show of the cover scan to other people - I don't use it myself but it is nice to flaunt! I use Calibre to organize and download my books. I will tell you that neither the iRex or my Sony 505, which I loved, could properly handle this many books. I know that many of you will say that I don't need them all on my reader and you might be right, but I like it and if I can make it work I will.

One really nice feature on the iRex was the ability to view books in the sequence last opened. This meant that if I had opened multiple books recently, for whatever reasons, I could easily see all of them at the top of a list.

Still as much as I preferred the iRex's capabilities in theory, I have replaced it for the much faster and more reliable Nook (at least in my limited experience).........Jackie

[TheCrazier]

I have a lot of books and i even bought a 16gig microsd card for this and im worried that maybe after a certain number, it will get capped and even though i have enough space, the nook just cant handle browsing through all of them (or so i read somewhere) Thats probably my biggest concern right now...

currently im only formatting about 100 to use on my nook and im sure it will be a long time before i finish reading them all... but i like to have all those ebooks in one place so i will gradually add them...

@Envy, thats similar to how i was organizing my files but i didnt know that uploading through calibre allows a picture to be shown... how does that work?? i asked the creator and he told me cover browsing work only with B&N library if unrooted...

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by TheCrazier

@Envy, thats similar to how i was organizing my files but i didnt know that uploading through calibre allows a picture to be shown... how does that work?? i asked the creator and he told me cover browsing work only with B&N library if unrooted...

This is because "allowing a picture to be shown" is NOT the same as "cover browsing."

He is correct, an unrooted Nook will only allow cover browsing within the B&N library.

Now, if you use Calibre to add a book cover, you still cannot use cover browsing in your My Documents library. However, once you open a specific book in My Documents, it's cover will be displayed in the lower color window, to the left of the menu items.

[ejm]

Originally Posted by TheCrazier

... I can wait if B&N decides to release that kind of support in an update...anyone knows if they are?.

While I admit that I have NO way of actually knowing what the B&N firmware code writers are up to at this point, but based on (1) how universal the calls for folders/collections book management are by us (happy) users, (2) how often B&N has been releasing meaningful upgrades to their firmware (GREATLY appreciated by these same happy users!), and (3) how file and directory management is at the core of basic info mgt, it would be reasonable to assume that a content management feature would be at the top of their list

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by TheCrazier

I have a lot of books and i even bought a 16gig microsd card for this and im worried that maybe after a certain number, it will get capped and even though i have enough space, the nook just cant handle browsing through all of them (or so i read somewhere) Thats probably my biggest concern right now...

currently im only formatting about 100 to use on my nook and im sure it will be a long time before i finish reading them all... but i like to have all those ebooks in one place so i will gradually add them...

@Envy, thats similar to how i was organizing my files but i didnt know that uploading through calibre allows a picture to be shown... how does that work?? i asked the creator and he told me cover browsing work only with B&N library if unrooted...

I've got an 8 GB card, half full, with about 3300 ebooks. The softrooted library manager crashes with an out of memory condition if I select cover browsing. I suspect that there will need to be some optimizations to support really large libraries.

[envy]

Originally Posted by TheCrazier

I have a lot of books and i even bought a 16gig microsd card for this and im worried that maybe after a certain number, it will get capped and even though i have enough space, the nook just cant handle browsing through all of them (or so i read somewhere) Thats probably my biggest concern right now...

currently im only formatting about 100 to use on my nook and im sure it will be a long time before i finish reading them all... but i like to have all those ebooks in one place so i will gradually add them...

@Envy, thats similar to how i was organizing my files but i didnt know that uploading through calibre allows a picture to be shown... how does that work?? i asked the creator and he told me cover browsing work only with B&N library if unrooted...

I'm sorry, I only can see a cover while reading. but I can't browse through covers like browsing by title, author etc.