[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Or tie the columns to a device with the option to change devices?

That's an idea. It still needs the extra columns, but makes using them easier. Of course, I have no idea how to do. But, the Reading List plugin probably has some hints.

Originally Posted by jgoguen

What about using two different calibre libraries?

That's the easy way. The only complaint is the duplication of books.

[davidfor]

Version 1.1.0 has been released with the following changes:

• New: Create/delete database trigger for dismissing tiles.
• Update: Support sideloaded kepubs for reading location.
• Fix: If rating wasn't set, attempted to divide None by 2.
• Fix: Keep reference for all menu items to solve problem with OSX.

This is identical to 1.1.0beta4 except for one word in a tooltip.

[booklover6]

Wow, thanks for this! I played with it yesterday and it seemed pretty complicated. But today I tried it again, and was able to dismiss the sync tile, fabulous!

[auspex]

When I change the "Reading Status", shouldn't it update the Shortlist? There has to be some way to update that damn menu page...

[auspex]

Originally Posted by davidfor

PeterT has asked to have the storing of the state happen automatically when the device is connected. I plan to do that in the next couple of weeks.

That would be awesome. As I just said to Peter in another thread, that sort of manual input is what I'm trying to avoid. You might want it to be optional, though - if I know my on-device database is wrong, for whatever reason (perhaps the case of someone who reads on two different devices, but with one Calibre), I wouldn't want to be forced to store the wrong number.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by auspex

When I change the "Reading Status", shouldn't it update the Shortlist? There has to be some way to update that damn menu page...

Unless there has been a change in recent firmware that I haven't noticed, the Shortlist is just a shelf. You add books to it in exactly the same way as other shelves.

Or are you talking about what is on the home screen?

[auspex]

Well, I'm talking about wanting to change what's on the Home Screen, which afaict, is determined by the Shortlist - but it's not a "shelf", as such, because you can't put a book on a shelf named "Shortlist" (or "Read" or "Im_Reading") -they just don't get created.

And they don't show up on the menu page, either.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by auspex

That would be awesome. As I just said to Peter in another thread, that sort of manual input is what I'm trying to avoid. You might want it to be optional, though - if I know my on-device database is wrong, for whatever reason (perhaps the case of someone who reads on two different devices, but with one Calibre), I wouldn't want to be forced to store the wrong number.

That is one of the challenges. PeterT's suggestion is to have the store of the reading position run automatically after connecting the device. Preventing clearing the position after a factory reset is easy and the code should already handle this. This is easy because all the sideloaded books will be unread.

What you are after is a lot more complicated. There is now way to automatically know if the reading position on the device is the one you want or not. One of the uses I have for the restore is when i have looked back in the book and lost where I was up to. I usually set a bookmark before doing this, but frequently forget. Restoring the reading position will get me to the last known place.

There is no way good way to handle this. Taking the further in of the two is one way, but, there are reasons this doesn't work. One is that I have book on my Glo that I am about 50% into, but haven't read for over six months. The last time I looked at it, I realised I was going to have to start from the beginning and at least skim through it to remind me what has happened. When I start, this will put me at an earlier spot in the book. There is no way to tell the difference between the above two situations without some manual intervention.

The first version of this will be an optional automatic job that stores the current reading position for all books on the device. If the book is unread on the device, it won't change the position in the library. If there is a problem with this, you will need to turn the job off before connecting the device. The later versions of this will probably get more complicated.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by auspex

Well, I'm talking about wanting to change what's on the Home Screen, which afaict, is determined by the Shortlist - but it's not a "shelf", as such, because you can't put a book on a shelf named "Shortlist" (or "Read" or "Im_Reading") -they just don't get created.

And they don't show up on the menu page, either.

Ah no, the home screen is separate. The Kobo firmware had the concept of a Shortlist. With firmware 1.9.x, in the library list there was a little heart at the beginning of each line. Pressing that added the book to the shortlist. And the Shortlist was on the menu to display in a similar way. And the later 1.9.x could display the Shortlist at the bottom of the home screen. FW2.0.0 continued some of this, but it was implemented as a shelf. In current firmware, I think if there is a shelf called "Shortlist" it gets put as the first on the shelf list.

The Touch has the mosaic to display five books. The book displayed are in timestamp order. There are two timestamps involved: DateLastRead and SyncTime. SyncTime is basically when the book was put on the device. DateLastRead is when you last read the book and is one of the things the plugin stores and restores.

The Touch home screen displays the books with the latest DateLastRead or SyncTime that have not been finished. The SyncTime is only used if the book doesn't have a DateLastRead.

Because of the above, restoring the last read position will only push a book back on the home screen if its DateLastRead timestamp is more recent than the timestamps for the other books. After restoring the books after a factory restore, this is not likely to be the case. When you put the books put back the device, they will have a SyncTime later than the last time you stored the positions and hence any that you don't restore a position for will be first choice for the home screen. The workaround, which I don't particularly like, is to check the "Set date to now" option during the restore. That should set DateLastRead to the current time of your PC and hence make them the books for the home screen.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by davidfor

What you are after is a lot more complicated. There is now way to automatically know if the reading position on the device is the one you want or not. ...
The first version of this will be an optional automatic job that stores the current reading position for all books on the device.

No, that's really exactly what I wanted. I know automatic syncing over multiple devices is difficult-to-impossible (though Amazon's Whisper-sync that supposedly syncs text and audio books sounds awesome!), so I just wanted to be sure that you weren't going to always store the current position without the user having a choice.

[PeterT]

David: let me share some figures.

Just added 329 eBooks to my Glo in a single attach session. All books went to main memory, and all books were in native ePub format.

Due to not knowing how many would fit, they were sent in chunks. All times in minutes:seconds.
send 101 books 3:31
metadata 0:21
send 101 books 1:59
metadata 0:26
send 101 books 2:53
metadata 0:24
send 14 books 0:25
metadata 0:18
send 6 books 0:09
metadata 0:11
send 6 books 0:05
metadata 0:14

All books were on one shelf "Performance Test" as well as other, series specific shelves.

The Glo took around 5 minute to process all the new books.

The next attachment of the Glo took 0:13 for the list of books, and 0:49 for it's metadata management.

The storing of location data though is proving to be quite slow; with all books on device selected (474) it's already been at least 7 minutes.

** Storing completed; roughly 10 minutes for 474 books.

[skip_sands]

Slightly OT: I know this has been asked before but am not sure if it has been solved. At least I couldn't find it. The new firmware still has that empty space between a paragraph on a page and the page count ("Chapter One - Page 1 of 17" for example). I tried the widows and orphans solution suggested elsewhere but to no avail. Is there some setting in this plugin to get rid of that space?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by skip_sands

Slightly OT: I know this has been asked before but am not sure if it has been solved. At least I couldn't find it. The new firmware still has that empty space between a paragraph on a page and the page count ("Chapter One - Page 1 of 17" for example). I tried the widows and orphans solution suggested elsewhere but to no avail. Is there some setting in this plugin to get rid of that space?

These are two separate things.

The line between the paragraphs is a result of the formatting use in the book. The styles used for paragraphs probably specify a top and/or bottom margin for the paragraph. To fix this, you need to change these styles to use a top and bottom margin of zero. There are several ways to do this. You can do it during a conversion in calibre or by editing it in Sigil.

The page numbering means that you are using reading a kepub. These books use a different reader application that displays the page number in this way. If you read the epub version of the book, you will just have "PG. x OF y" where "y" is the total number of pages in the book. If these are kepubs you have purchased, you can download the epub version from the Kobo shop. If you are sideloading them, then you are probably using the extended driver and disabling or removing it will revert to standard epubs.

[taming]

Originally Posted by davidfor

PeterT has asked to have the storing of the state happen automatically when the device is connected. I plan to do that in the next couple of weeks.

I attach three different Kobo readers to calibre. I would not want automatic storing unless it could differentiate between them. I only use the Utilities on my Aura (because I am selfish and mean and my other family members are even more clueless than I am).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by taming

I attach three different Kobo readers to calibre. I would not want automatic storing unless it could differentiate between them. I only use the Utilities on my Aura

At the least it will be optional to turn on. Other thinks like a configuration per device will come later.

(because I am selfish and mean and my other family members are even more clueless than I am).

Hmm, I don't think I'd better touch that statement