Firmware Update Kindle Collection Manager for Windows

[jangell2]

I'm sure there's something I'm not understanding. I created several collections and put books into them, applied, and rebooted.

At first I thought nothing had happened because all the books were still on the home screen (several of them). On the last screen there were my collections with books in them.

How do I get the books that are in collections to display only in the collections?

[TheKindleWorm]

Originally Posted by jangell2

I'm sure there's something I'm not understanding. I created several collections and put books into them, applied, and rebooted.

At first I thought nothing had happened because all the books were still on the home screen (several of them). On the last screen there were my collections with books in them.

How do I get the books that are in collections to display only in the collections?

You need to sort by Collections. Use your 5 way controller to go right to the top of your Kindle page and click right to select Collections.

[acolegate]

Originally Posted by megachirops

I just started using this at v0.4. Very nice work so far! It's made creating collections quick and easy enough that I finally got around to organizing my books.

However, topaz books don't seem to be working correctly yet. They always show up in the list of files in the left-hand pane, but the collection pane shows 2 different behaviors.

1) If I place a topaz book in a collection with your app: the app shows it as being in the collection, but the Kindle does not.

2) If I place a topaz book in a collection using the Kindle interface: the Kindle shows it as being in the collection, but the app does not.



The files in question:

e:\documents\Vinge, Vernor\Vinge, Vernor - Across Realtime 01 - 01 The Peace War.tpz
e:\documents\Vinge, Vernor\Vinge, Vernor - Across Realtime 02 - 02 Marooned in Realtime.tpz



And the relevent contents of the collections.json file. If they are...


placed in the collection by your app: (the app sees it in collection, but Kindle doesn't)

"KCM Test #1 (Placed by app)@en-US":{"items":["*e3af1a6e463a532bce84447088709550ed184a97","*ef79 06550ebcfbf7f748eb9e7e39db6423226c37"],"lastAccess":0}


placed in the collection by the Kindle: (Kindle sees it in collection, but the app doesn't)

"KCM Test #2 (Placed by kindle)@en-US":{"items":["#B000TUB3DY^EBOK","#B001JQLUBC^EBOK"],"lastAccess":0}

Aha!

I think I might know what the problem is here.

Would you mind mailing me the .tpz files?

Thanks

[acolegate]

Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the Kindle Collection Manager v0.4. It really is invaluable to be able to test the application on so many varied machine configurations and also exposing the app to some weird & wonderful ebook files!

It would appear that the Kindle is quite tolerant of multiple references to the same ebook files in it's collections.json file and will only display 1 entry for each set of duplicates.

The KCM however treats the collections.json file as gospel and will display whatever it finds there.

I'll change the app so the KCM actually 'cleans up' the collections.json file and reconciles the items with the files on the device.

Thanks again to everyone for your feedback!

[jangell2]

Originally Posted by TheKindleWorm

You need to sort by Collections. Use your 5 way controller to go right to the top of your Kindle page and click right to select Collections.

Yup, that was the missing ingredient. Thank you.

In another thread I read that using certain special characters at the beginning of a collection name would cause them to sort alphabetically, and they are not doing. I used a period at the beginning of names and it isn't working.

BTW, I noticed that I could not drag a book from one collection to another. I had to delete the book from a collection and and then drag the book from the left pane into the new collection. Is dragging from one collection to another not allowed?

[babyd]

on the kindle itself........if you use symbols infront of collection names you need to sort by title not collection, the collections will sort and show on the first pages, before the books. If you use a full stop as your symbol you must make sure there is a space between the full stop and the collection name . fiction not .fiction

[jangell2]

Originally Posted by babyd

on the kindle itself........if you use symbols infront of collection names you need to sort by title not collection, the collections will sort and show on the first pages, before the books. If you use a full stop as your symbol you must make sure there is a space between the full stop and the collection name . fiction not .fiction

Ok, got it. That means my choice is between a randomly sorted list of collections and no books on the home page, or a sorted list of collections preceding all the books on the home page. Amazon really blew it on this one. Frankly, I doesn't seem like some obscure design element but basic way the Kindle should display things.

[whitearrow]

I swear, the topaz format just needs to be firebombed out of existence. It causes nothing but trouble and it's horrible to read.

[megachirops]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

I swear, the topaz format just needs to be firebombed out of existence. It causes nothing but trouble and it's horrible to read.

Definitely!

I've got 3 in my collection. Those 2 mentioned in this thread (that I bought before I knew any better) and 1 more by mistake.

[jangell2]

I've noticed some oddities:
1) If I sort by Collections, I've got several books that show up on the Home screen even though they are in a collection.

2) I bought two free games, Shuffled Row & Every Word and they don't show up in the left pane of Collection Manger. Neither do the Oxford Dictionary of English or The New Oxford American dictionary. Which means I can't use Collection Manger to put them in a collection.

[anesthezea]

I used the program early this morning, but when I tried to open it again this evening, it wouldn't open. I restarted my laptop and tried again. Then I uninstalled the program and reinstalled it again. It still won't open. Has anyone else had this problem?

[jekoby]

Originally Posted by ElizabethN

I downloaded the program (KCM_v4) and, running it without a kindle plugged in, I get the "plug in your kindle message." So I plugged in my kindle, try running the program, and then get "KCM has stopped working." I just sent Adrian an email with the details from the error message in case those details mean anything to him.

Using a Kindle DX (firmware 2.5.3) in USB drive mode with several collections already present and several 1000 files. OS-Vista. Add/remove program list shows .NET Framework 4 supposedly present.

I even tried the program using megachirops Kindle on a USB trick with no luck.

If anyone knows what to do that would be great.

I so want this to work, I'm excited at the prospect of not having to put each book into a collection(s) manually.

Thanks

Additional info --

I just got my K3 charged and tried it with KCM and KCM works. Why does it work with the kindle 3 (3.0) and not the kindle DX (2.5.3)?

kindle 3 vs DX - have not yet loaded anything on K3 except a few books ordered off of amazon where the DX has 1000s of books loaded (using calibre). I have "hidden folders" turned on and other than the calibre.metadata folder for the DX, I don't see any differences. I deleted the metadata folder but KCM still didn't work for the DX. If there is a setting on the kindle that needs to be tweaked for the DX to work with KCM, I will definitely need help.

KCM did work with another program that uses calibre, a kindle 2nd gen. File types appear to be the same in the K3, K2 & KDX - but the KDX is still not recognized.

I'm thinking that I have some character or file name that KCM doesn't like, but I can't figure out what yet.

Thanks again

I emailed Adrian last week too but haven't heard from him yet so I'm still not able to get the program to run. I also have a large number of books on my K2i and quite a few collections already set up.

I would really love to be able to use this program - I hope he can figure out what's keeping it from running for us.

[ElizabethN]

Originally Posted by jekoby

I emailed Adrian last week too but haven't heard from him yet so I'm still not able to get the program to run. I also have a large number of books on my K2i and quite a few collections already set up.

I would really love to be able to use this program - I hope he can figure out what's keeping it from running for us.

I feel that the issue for me is something on the kindle DX as I have gotten the KCM program to run on a K2i and K3. So I'm slowly adding files to the K3 (primarily thru calibre) and then checking that KCM still works. And, I'm gradually removing some files from the DX, restarting then checking if the KCM works - still no luck. A brute force way of trying to figure out what's on the DX that KCM doesn't like. If I stumble across something, I'll leave a post.

Just pulled about 50 files - still the same "stopped working message." It means nothing to me, but this is the problem detail that appears (using vista).

Description:
Stopped working

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: kindlecollectionmanager.exe
Problem Signature 02: 0.4.0.0
Problem Signature 03: 4c81144d
Problem Signature 04: mscorlib
Problem Signature 05: 4.0.0.0
Problem Signature 06: 4ba1da6f
Problem Signature 07: 214
Problem Signature 08: 10
Problem Signature 09: System.ArgumentException
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

[jangell2]

Originally Posted by jangell2

I've noticed some oddities:
1) If I sort by Collections, I've got several books that show up on the Home screen even though they are in a collection.

2) I bought two free games, Shuffled Row & Every Word and they don't show up in the left pane of Collection Manger. Neither do the Oxford Dictionary of English or The New Oxford American dictionary. Which means I can't use Collection Manger to put them in a collection.

Anyone have any ideas on this?

[Unolord]

Originally Posted by jangell2

I'm sure there's something I'm not understanding. I created several collections and put books into them, applied, and rebooted.

At first I thought nothing had happened because all the books were still on the home screen (several of them). On the last screen there were my collections with books in them.

How do I get the books that are in collections to display only in the collections?

I have the exact same problem and sorting by collection doesn't change anything. I've created collections twice and I still only see the collections I manually created on the K3.

Any suggestions?