Development Using Calibre to manage eDGe library

I have started a project which will allow us to use calibre on a PC to manage tags for books and synchronise them (the tags) to the eDGe library.

see:
http://code.google.com/p/edgelibrarylib/
and
http://andy.aspellclark.org.uk/calibreedge.html

is anyone else interested in this or is it just me?

andy.

12 Sept 2010 19:25 (UK) : I have changed tack and have decided to write this as a library. it reads in the calibre metadata file and displays a list of books from it. you can filter on tags and author. Please download it from the google code website and have a look.

I know there is a lot of work to do on the UI (speed, making it look good etc...), but let me know if this would still be usefull to anyone.

13 Sept 2010 19:11 (UK) : this is probably useable now. it has a list and a grid view. the drop down lists are now sorted. please download and let me know what you think.

I also use Calibre but not effectively with the edge (with a Kobo).

I am very interested in integrating the edge as a reader device within Calibre rather than just a mass storage device with the rigamarole needed to add books to edge's library.

Are you only doing the android end of the transaction?

If you are also working the Calibre end, is it possible to access both the internal mem as well as the SDcard seperately (like with the Kobo)?

I was also wondering about using the Calibre content server as a live feed for the edge, I don't have a library set up well enough to experiment with yet.

Anyway I will be very interested in what you and others can do.
SeeYa. FJH...

This is amazing. Count me in if you want to do any beta testing.

I would also be interested in this. Thanks.

okay, well so far, I can read in the calibre metadata file and parse all of it's content, and I can read in the book information from the eDGe library.

to be able to use this you will need to have moved your library onto the SD card. it will not work unless you have done this as security will not allow other apps to access private data (general android security thing)

I will keep this post updated with my progress.

p.s. if anyone has any ideas for a UI for this please get in touch, I haven't a clue at the moment.

andy.

Originally Posted by mrspaceman

p.s. if anyone has any ideas for a UI for this please get in touch, I haven't a clue at the moment.

You are asking how to organize the (PC client) UI appearance, or what toolkit/library to use for the GUI?

My 2 cents on the latter: use QT to make it portable between different desktop Operating Systems.

I would be interested in this -
Matt

Originally Posted by kenjennings

You are asking how to organize the UI appearance, or what toolkit/library to use for the GUI?

My 2 cents on the latter: use QT to make it portable between different desktop Operating Systems.

I am looking for some ideas for the UI that would run on the eDGe.

once calibre has written the books and metadata to the eDGe, we would need to run my app.

my app would need to show the books in the library and the books from calibre. I guess it would need to try to match books and let the user decide which data to merge from calibre to the eDGe library.

it would also have to mark books which have come over from calibre, but are not in the eDGe library and ask is the user wants to add them.

so, if anyone would like to do some mockups, please post them to me.

thanks,
andy.

Question to Entourage Systems:

Do you have any issues with me reverse engineering some of your apk files?

I want to look into some of your providers to learn how to use them (instead of modifying the DB directly).

also I want to launch the reader intent (if it's possible).

andy.

(Keep in mind that enTourage will be releasing their SDK most likely before the end of the year. I would expect this to include libraries, utilities and documentation for achieving these types of interactions. Of course, 3 months is not soon enough )

OK, I've been conceptualising an integrated desk app to manage in a traditional(read old) way books, journals, references, links, bibliographies, etc. The prime use of this system would be an effective project(homework, research, subject or productions) manager that simplifies access to ALL related material with on click.

How I invisage it is as an older style desk at the botom of the screen with 3 or 4 shelves above(minimum height 1" each on the EE screen). Working down the top 1 or 2 sheves are for general books(e.g. novels, magazines, poetry, etc.) With the lower pair for reference books, one for all reference books available with the other shelf split between general reference(dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, etc,) and project binders. The back of the desktop below the botom shelf is where wiget like displays can be placed.

Without going into more detail I had this worked out before I found Calibre or had access to a Android device. Once I used Calibre it did in detail many of the things I had thought of. A couple of things that are likely to be very useful are the saved tag sorting(I looked at this as a way to customise catalogue drawers, like library catalogues 20 or more years ago, with each drawer presenting a result set in the form of "cards".) The second being the visual cover display that equates to the shelves but done in a less resource hungry way.

I planned that each shelf was a display for a predefined search, in effect displaying a data list. I had some concerns about processing on the EE and planned to have a desktop computer generate the lists and just have EE display them. But I may have been overly pessimistic. Anyway each shelf object would have the same responce to user input, namely tap on the horizontal of the shelf changes the sort order(e.g. title, author, etc.). Tap and swipe scrolls the shelf in the swipe direction. Tap on the verticle sections swaps the contents of the shelf with the next group depending on direction and a tap and swipe up or down canges the search criterion(I liken this to categories). There are other combinations but I'm running out of battery.

I'll try to send my simple outline journal doc.

A great imagination! It would be awesome to see it implemented. enTourage came up with one idea (that's good), but there are always other ways

Entourage hasn't came through in the past, I wouldn't rely on them for a custom SDK. We enabled the debug bridge so we can now actually test and debug apps, and they gimp it the next release. So don't expect much support for developers.

mrspaceman,

Here in the US, RE is legal if done for interoperability purposes, I would check for UK laws like that. If you need assistance, let me know and I will tear it down with you.

it would be great if Entourage could release some beta documentation to us (hint, hint). I am hoping that it will just be a call to an intent to open a book in the reader on the e-ink side. I have Re'd the EsiLibraryProvider, EsiReader and EsiLibrarian apk's.

I have found a few promising bits to do with Intents, so I will try these and see what happens.

andy.


p.s. I have found the following snippet:

final Intent localIntent = new Intent("android.intent.action.VIEW");
	localIntent.addCategory("entouragesys.intent.category.LIBRARY");
	if ((paramContentItem.getContentType() == 1) || (paramContentItem.getContentType() == 5)
		|| (paramContentItem.getContentType() == 6)) {
		localIntent.setDataAndType(localUri2, "vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.entouragesys.library.book");
}

which may be what I want.

Well, I've made some progress on the functionality.

it currently reads in the calibre library file, displays a list of books (only the calibre ones, not the ones from the eDGe library).

You can select a book and it will open with the default viewer (which means it will open on the eink side if you select 'Library'.

I will now start on making it more 'Pretty' and I want to get filtering working.

andy.

p.s. There is an apk file on my google code website (see my original post)