Calibre2opds v3.4 - OPDS catalogs from your Calibre library

[itimpi]

This first post will be updated as required for the latest news and downloads on the 3.4 release to avoid you having to read through the thread to get the most up-to-date status.

News
Development of Calibre2opds 3.4 has now started and beta builds sill be made available as new functionality is introduced and/or bugs found in the 3.3 release are fixed.

The latest 3.4 beta Release (rev 304) is available at the Calibre2opds Googledrive download site. The ZIP distribution is installed by unzipping the contents over the previous release or by following the Manual Install instructions for the ZIP install in the User Guide.
Hint: there may be later builds available from the download site than the one mentioned here as sometimes updating this thread gets can get delayed.

Localization
The localization of Calibre2opds to languages other than English has become rather incomplete. If anyone is willing to help in getting Localizations up-to-date (for an existing language) or add a new one), then details on the process can be found here. No special development skills are required - just familiarity with the target language(s) and some time to dedicate to the task.

Description:

The calibre2opds tool can generate OPDS and HTML catalogs from the metadata of the Calibre ebook library manager. The calibre2opds catalogs are intended for scenarios where use of the Calibre Content Server is not appropriate (see here for a comparison). These catalogs can then be used both to browse your ebook library online and also to download books on demand.

Changes for Calibre2Opds v3.4 (rev 304)

New features under development:

• Improve GUI validation for Custom Catalogs

New features that are under consideration:

• #c2o-156: Allow Calibre Custom Column values to be used to create new sub-catalogs
  criteria. This feature will not appear before release 3.4 as it is proving non-trivial to implement.
• #c2o-157: Allow Calibre Custom Column values to be used in calibre2opds search

Bug Fixes/New Features completed:

• Change: Some of the filenames in the generated catalog have changed their structure. Not really visible to users except that first run with this release may take slightly longer than expected during Copy phase
• Change: Checkbox for generating external links moved to tab defining them as more logical place.
• Change: Search is now deprecated as it is based on a HTML5 database capability that did not make it through the standardixation process. Gives error message on browsers that do not support the database capability.
• New: Option to view File Sync log added to Tools menu. Can help with debugging caching issues.
• New: When generating the active step is now highlighted in the progress dialog in Red to make it more obvious
• Fix: A Null pointer error if title_sort not set (should not be possible with current Calibre releases)
• New: #c2o-93: Make supported formats and Mime type extendable by users
• Fix: #c2o-204: Problem navigating to author from an author series in HTML catalog
• Fix: #c2o-205: Destination folder uses Default value instead of the per-profile one
• Change: #c2o-207: Show current profile name in the program window's title
• New: #c2o-208: Add rel="prev" links on the XML files and back to previous page
• New: #c2o-209: Provide a facility to put custom catalogs above the standard ones at top level view.
• Fix: #c2o-210: If the loaded Profile is renamed then it should be reloaded.
• New: #c2o-212: Option to sort books within a tag by author and then title
• New: #c2o-213: Option to suppress split-by-letter within a tag
• Fix: #c2o-214: Cross links for author do not work if Authors catalog not generated
• New: #c2o-215: Provide more control over which cross-reference types should be generated
• Fix: #c2o-216: Cannot change value for Maximum entries in recent catalog
• Fix: #c2o-217: Wrong default location for creating new Configuration folders. As a side-effect this could cause Calibre2opds to fail to start when first used on a new system.
• New: #c2o-218: Add support for DJVU downloads
• Fix: #c2o-219: Problem with relative links in generated tags pages when using SplitTagsOn option
• Fix: #c2o-220: Problem in tag pages with titles, beginning with numbers

Useful links

• calibre2opds home site
• calibre2opds forum
• calibre2opds downloads
• calibre2opds source code repository
• calibre2opds issue tracking

[8140david]

Thanks for this beta!

Unfortunately, I can' find where to choose the 2 new options:
New: #c2o-212: Option to sort books within a tag by author and then title
New: #c2o-213: Option to suppress split-by-letter within a tag

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by 8140david

Thanks for this beta!

Unfortunately, I can' find where to choose the 2 new options:
New: #c2o-212: Option to sort books within a tag by author and then title
New: #c2o-213: Option to suppress split-by-letter within a tag

They are on the catalog structure tab.

[8140david]

It's because the link for the google drive site only shows version 278!
I had to go up in the google site to find the proper version, 280M.

[8140david]

So I just tried these options. Great! Thanks!

Here is another suggestion: in the 'output by cover', optionally show below the cover, in small characters, the author_sort and title_sort.
This way, if the size chosen for the covers is small, one can still clearly read the author.
Also, it clarifies for the user that everything is ordered as it should, eg that "U, W" is indeed before "V, T" in the alphabetical list (which isn't always obvious with foreign names, eg Japanese ones).

[8140david]

I found a small bug.
If the catalog by authors is not generated, on the page of a given book, the name of the author is a link to a non-existing page.

[8140david]

I would make the png icons smaller, eg for authors and tags.
In order to display more authors or tags on the screen.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by 8140david

So I just tried these options. Great! Thanks!

Here is another suggestion: in the 'output by cover', optionally show below the cover, in small characters, the author_sort and title_sort.
This way, if the size chosen for the covers is small, one can still clearly read the author.
Also, it clarifies for the user that everything is ordered as it should, eg that "U, W" is indeed before "V, T" in the alphabetical list (which isn't always obvious with foreign names, eg Japanese ones).

We tried that at one point - it looked completely wrong! We do set information up as a tooltip for the image - I cannot rember offhand exactly what it is - maybe that could be improved?

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by 8140david

I would make the png icons smaller, eg for authors and tags.
In order to display more authors or tags on the screen.

That DOES sound like a bug! I must admit I cannot remember ever trying to generate he catalog with authors not being generated.

[8140david]

I admit that it's useful to have the authors catalog.
Maybe not directly (too many).
But when looking at a book, it's interesting to see what other books of the author are in the library.
So don't worry too much about this small bug.

[8140david]

Originally Posted by itimpi

We tried that at one point - it looked completely wrong! We do set information up as a tooltip for the image - I cannot rember offhand exactly what it is - maybe that could be improved?

Maybe indeed.
I was thinking of what is done in ubooquity:

[8140david]

But that's right, I just noticed the information up as tooltip (not obvious that it exists!).

A small bug again: the author is repeated twice.
Eg: Hugo, Victor - Hugo, Victor - Contemplations, Le

***
Also, in the display by Authors, sometimes it displays under an Author the title of his book (good), sometimes only "1 book" (even though the book does have a title). Why is that?

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by 8140david

But that's right, I just noticed the information up as tooltip (not obvious that it exists!).

A small bug again: the author is repeated twice.
Eg: Hugo, Victor - Hugo, Victor - Contemplations, Le

That is probably an artefact of the code to support sorting by author within tags. I'll need to look at that.

Also, in the display by Authors, sometimes it displays under an Author the title of his book (good), sometimes only "1 book" (even though the book does have a title). Why is that?

That will be because the title text will exceed the maximum length for the summary list (as set on the Advanced tab). In that case the summariser switches to the alternative display format giving the count.

[8140david]

Thanks.

Would there be a way, with some kind of script, to implement this generally?
For example, suppose I have clicked at Authors.
Then I click on one.
Then, there would be arrows back and forward, that would show me directly the previous author or the next one.
Ths scrip would have to follow my actions, to know whether I'm looking for next author, or next in the tag, of what have you.
But perhaps the various Back and Forward options could be proposed depending on how I have set up the catalog?

[8140david]

Originally Posted by 8140david

I would make the png icons smaller, eg for authors and tags.
In order to display more authors or tags on the screen.

Could this be set up as an option?
For my own use, I have resized the icons to 24 pixels (instead of 48).