[Device Plugin] Kobo Touch Extended Driver

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

Ahh! Perhaps that's the big delay I sometimes see after syncing books. (It'd sure be nice to have some kind of background job progress update on that!)

Updating the series info is part of the "Sending metadata to device" job. The collections are also part of that job. If you make a lot of changes, then this job can take a lot longer to run.

Maybe what I want is manual updating of the series info too!

There is an option to turn it off in the driver and you can use the utilities plugin to set it.

Actually, what would be nice would be a manual trigger that checkes for the missing "already updated" tag and automatically updates and tags those with series and the rest of the metadata.

You can easily search for all the books without the tag, select them and run the update. And if I was implementing something like that, I'd be more likely to do it based on the existence of a tag. Or have it use a reading list.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by reinhardtjh

I have had a Kobo Aura since 2015. And sometime in April I upgraded the firmware to the new 4.x series, currently 4.5.9587. I went a few weeks before adding any new books, but when I finally did, i started getting this error on "Send to Device"

calibre, version 3.7.0
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

This file is locked with DRM. It cannot be edited.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 88, in run
  File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 592, in _upload_books
  File "calibre_plugins.kobotouch_extended.device.driver", line 335, in upload_books
  File "site-packages/calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 2014, in upload_books
  File "calibre_plugins.kobotouch_extended.device.driver", line 179, in _modify_epub
  File "site-packages/calibre/ebooks/oeb/polish/container.py", line 1165, in __init__
  File "site-packages/calibre/ebooks/oeb/polish/container.py", line 1237, in process_encryption
DRMError: This file is locked with DRM. It cannot be edited.

I fussed with it for quite a while, going so far as to reset my Aura to factory setting, deleting all books and starting over but still I got the error - even on books I'd previously (before the firmware upgrade) loaded with no problem. Not on every book but most of them. I finally switched the Calibre driver back the "main" Kobo driver and no error. Books that would not load, did. So I switched back to the extended driver and I get the error. So whatever it is, it's something between the extended driver and the newer firmware on the Aura.

I watched here to see if anyone else would report it but I haven't seen it (or I missed it). So could it be something that I'm doing?

Sorry, I completely forgot about this. The attached beta should solve the problem with DRM protected books. They will be uploaded to the device with no changes made to them. Please test and report how it goes.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That is correct.


And this is one of the reasons I've never implemented the metadata update in the driver; it could take to long.

Why not do it in the Reading List plugin? When we make a change to the metadata, we mark the book in the list to have the metadata updated on next connect. That way it's up to us to do it just like it is to use the Reading List to automatically put books on the device on connecting to Calibre.

That would make it much faster and as I don't update Metadata once the book in on the device, I would not have to wait for Kobo Utilities to find out I have no metadata to update.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why not do it in the Reading List plugin? When we make a change to the metadata, we mark the book in the list to have the metadata updated on next connect. That way it's up to us to do it just like it is to use the Reading List to automatically put books on the device on connecting to Calibre.

In my country we would say that you repeat the same as the cucumber

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

In my country we would say that you repeat the same as the cucumber

I don't like cucumbers.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't like cucumbers.

But you repeat the same :P

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

But you repeat the same :P

And why wouldn't metadata updating be best as part of the Reading List plugin?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And why wouldn't metadata updating be best as part of the Reading List plugin?

How many times has you said it? At other thread when we already talked about this? When I told you that it is Kobo specific? Something I think you're aware as you are at Kobo driver thread?

Anyway, it's not up to me, I'm not going to code at any of both places.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And why wouldn't metadata updating be best as part of the Reading List plugin?

Well, the main reason for me would be that I've never felt the need to install the Reading List plugin

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Well, the main reason for me would be that I've never felt the need to install the Reading List plugin

It's really good. It's allowing me to keep track of what books I have on my H2O and it also allows me to select which books I want to send to my H2O. I just select the books I want, add them to the list and when I plug in my H2O, they get sent. It means I don't have to remember which books I wanted.

Now, because it already has the facility to let me select books I want to copy to my Reader upon connect, it could be modified to do the same for Metadata. Kobo is not the only Reader where a metadata update would work and be beneficial.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's really good.

I'm sure it is, given how popular it is. It's just that I had a different simple workflow in place long before the Reading List plugin became available and I never found enough reason to change it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I'm sure it is, given how popular it is. It's just that I had a different simple workflow in place long before the Reading List plugin became available and I never found enough reason to change it.

But, putting metadata updating into the Reading List plugin would benefit more than Kobo users.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But, putting metadata updating into the Reading List plugin would benefit more than Kobo users.

No it wouldn't. If you look, all the other devices either update the metadata automatically when the device is connected, or don't update it at all. As far as I know, Kobo Utilities is the only way to update metadata on the device that isn't in the driver. So to have the Reading List plugin update the metadata for any device, someone would need to add code to the plugin to be able to update the metadata for all the devices out there. And, that would be very time consuming. And to be honest way beyond stupid.

The sensible way is to use the Reading List plugin as a way to collect books. Other plugins can then be configured to use a list as an input to do some action. Such as the Kobo Utilities using a list as the set of books to update the metadata for on the device.

Now the Reading List plugin can trigger uploading books when a device is connected. So, it could be possible to add function to call another plugin when the device is connected and supply the list as a input. That is a good idea, with only one issue.

The issue? There is only one plugin out there that has function that makes sense to be called when a device is plugged in. Can you guess which it is? Yes, Kobo Utilities plugin.*

There are other issues, but, they are design/development ones. Such as, do you allow multiple plugins to be called? If so, what order? What if one fails? And we starting jobs or waiting for function to finish before the next.

* Well not quite true, but I'll let you work out why. And please, actually look at the plugins before you use them for justification.

[compurandom]

Ok, I've got a feature request, and I'm not sure this driver (or the kobo utilities) is where it should go...

Under preferences -> import/export -> sending books
I have metadata management set to manual for some reason I can't remember, maybe I didn't want calibre deleting categories from books that I added directly on the device or something.

Is there a way I can force calibre to re-update the metadata for a book manually?
Specifically, I've added shelves to a bunch of books in calibre (I know which ones) since they were originally sent, and I'd like to resync those by hand.

Alternately, if I could tell it to automatically sync all new shelves without deleting existing ones, that would be even better.

I was hoping "update metadata" in kobo utilties would update shelves, but unless I missed a checkbox, it doesn't. There's a "get shelves" option, but no corresponding "put shelves".

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

Ok, I've got a feature request, and I'm not sure this driver (or the kobo utilities) is where it should go...

Under preferences -> import/export -> sending books
I have metadata management set to manual for some reason I can't remember, maybe I didn't want calibre deleting categories from books that I added directly on the device or something.

Is there a way I can force calibre to re-update the metadata for a book manually?
Specifically, I've added shelves to a bunch of books in calibre (I know which ones) since they were originally sent, and I'd like to resync those by hand.

Alternately, if I could tell it to automatically sync all new shelves without deleting existing ones, that would be even better.

I was hoping "update metadata" in kobo utilties would update shelves, but unless I missed a checkbox, it doesn't. There's a "get shelves" option, but no corresponding "put shelves".

The driver is the only way to get the collection management done. And you need metadata management set to automatic. You can choose "Only on send" and the collection management should be done whenever you send a book, but not on connect. There is a function on the device button when it is connected that updates the metadata.calibre file on the device. I can't remember if that goes through the collection management code or not, and if it does, I can't remember what the affect of the metadata management setting is.

I did recently noticed the lack of a way to manually run the collection management. I haven't decided what to do about it. But, it would most likely just be a way to trigger what is in the driver and use the same options. I'm not sure if that is possible without refactoring the code in the driver.

If I do this, I will be actively resisting suggestions to only add new collections to the device. The code currently compares what should be there based on the columns in library with what is on the device. Then it adds or removes entries to get them to match. Just adding certain collections means that there needs to be a way to remove them later.