[GUI Plugin] Goodreads Sync

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by azuravian

Tried the new beta. When adding books to shelf, the progress bar doesn't show (I think it's hidden behind the main plugin window). After all books are added to the shelf, the main window goes away and I see the progress bar showing 100%. The progress bar doesn't close on its own, however. I have to manually close the progress bar. Progress bar for syncing from a shelf seems to work fine.

Yeah, I noticed that the next time I used one of the other functions. I have fixed that in the attached beta, and added some more progress bars. It should be working for "Sync from shelf" and "Update reading progress"

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by azuravian

This error still exists for this single "book". Other Lightspeed Magazines have been synced with no issues.

Sorry, I somehow missed the original post. I just tested it here and it did work.

The error is "Book with that book_id not found". What is the id set to? When I added the book, the id is "goodreads:31845322".

Otherwise, please run calibre in debug mode and post the log. That will show the call details to work out what is going wrong.

[azuravian]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Sorry, I somehow missed the original post. I just tested it here and it did work.

The error is "Book with that book_id not found". What is the id set to? When I added the book, the id is "goodreads:31845322".

Otherwise, please run calibre in debug mode and post the log. That will show the call details to work out what is going wrong.

Hmm, strange. My book shows as 31823465, however when I click the Goodreads link in Calibre it does open the right book and the book shows 31845322. Goodreads must have both numbers linked to the same book. Let me see if I can change it to 31845322 and see what happens.

[azuravian]

Yep, that fixed it. Not sure how I got the wrong number for mine, but if you go to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31823465 you can see that it redirects to the right number, so they must be associated somehow. I also checked the latest beta and the progress bars seem to be working now.

[davidfor]

My guess would be that there was another edition and they have been merged. Or something like that. But, I'm surprised there wasn't a redirect. I might have a look at that when I have time.

[Rellwood]

Quick question,

If the books are linked to gr, do I need to go in and make sure that they match the exact book in GR? meaning, do I need to switch editions to make sure that the one with the icon is the one that is linked, or can I skip it if the books are linked. I don't feel like going through and checking each link if I know that they are linked but not sure if they are the goodreads edition.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rellwood

Quick question,

If the books are linked to gr, do I need to go in and make sure that they match the exact book in GR? meaning, do I need to switch editions to make sure that the one with the icon is the one that is linked, or can I skip it if the books are linked. I don't feel like going through and checking each link if I know that they are linked but not sure if they are the goodreads edition.

Yes and no. No if the books are correctly linked as editions. Yes, if they aren't and you care.

If you link to a GR book, update the reading status/shelves and visit the page. No matter what edition you have chosen, it will show the status. If you look at the page that lists all the editions, that will show the status against your selected edition.

If the books aren't linked as editions, then you need to decide which is the correct book. Or get them linked as editions on GR. Or decide that it is close enough to work with. And other than doing some searching on GR, I don't know of a way to prove if this has happened.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by Rellwood

Quick question,

If the books are linked to gr, do I need to go in and make sure that they match the exact book in GR? meaning, do I need to switch editions to make sure that the one with the icon is the one that is linked, or can I skip it if the books are linked. I don't feel like going through and checking each link if I know that they are linked but not sure if they are the goodreads edition.

It depends on what you are trying to do and how OCD you are as to how important it is. Do you have books on goodreads shelves already that you are trying to match up against books in calibre? Or are you trying to do something else?

Editions are a bit of a pain tbh. The Goodreads metadata plugin will just use whatever edition the search on the website returned as it's best match. Unless you have an exact ISBN match, chances are that the edition it chooses is often not the "Kindle" edition that you "might" want. Even then it often isn't that simple as Goodreads frequently has many Kindle editions representing various iterations of the book over it's lifetime, with varying quality of metadata when it comes to data you might be interested in when browsing the Goodreads website, such as covers, number of pages etc.

My personal approach to Goodreads editions (I use this plugin to upload books to a shelf, not sync the other way) is to "not care" unless either:
1. The edition metadata returned for is giving me bad metadata (e.g. a german description) for the Goodreads metadata plugin.
2. I've linked to an edition that after uploading my shelf I notice via the website browsing my shelf that it happens to not be the best "Kindle" one it could be, by it either missing cover or #pages. Just so I'm sure Goodrreads end of year summary stats pages have a better chance of looking better

Then I will fix it using the Link to Goodreads feature of the plugin to switch editions. If I had less books/more time I would use this particular feature on every book when I add it to Calibre before getting metadata so the editions match my preference...

[Rellwood]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

It depends on what you are trying to do and how OCD you are as to how important it is. Do you have books on goodreads shelves already that you are trying to match up against books in calibre? Or are you trying to do something else?

I am attempting to link the books already shelved with books in Calibre so I can sync and upload shelves and status'.

I jettisoned my "archived" books to another library, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of "re syncing" them again if they have the GR id on them.

One of the biggest reasons I keep blending my libraries into one big one is the easy of matching up the Goodreads shelves. Not just in the Goodreads Sync but when I import the Goodreads Library export csv to update the shelves. It is a major pain in the ass to try and import those csv's if the books aren't in the library.

I intend on creating shelves that match the Calibre libraries (Archived, Read, Series to Read, etc.) and only use those shelves to sync in their appropriate libraries, but before I can do that, I need to make sure all the books are linked.

If I go to "link to Goodreads shelves" and it isn't greyed out then I know the books are linked, but I didn't know if I had to go into each one and check the editions. Normally they are all synced according to edition, but moving them to another library changed that. So knowing that they are linked but not needing to change the editions makes a big difference.

I did notice that uploading/downloading shelves as tags only works if the books synced are synced to the edition.

[Rellwood]

@davidfor

Has the plugin updated to download/upload the entire text review if it is longer than whatever that arbitrary stop point it used to be?

I used to sync the review text until I realized that I was getting reviews cut off when downloading them from the site, and then I ruined them all together when (unknowingly) I re-uploaded the shortened review when adding shelves or whatever.

I want to download my current reviews.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rellwood

@davidfor

Has the plugin updated to download/upload the entire text review if it is longer than whatever that arbitrary stop point it used to be?

I used to sync the review text until I realized that I was getting reviews cut off when downloading them from the site, and then I ruined them all together when (unknowingly) I re-uploaded the shortened review when adding shelves or whatever.

I want to download my current reviews.

No it doesn't. The hassle is that there is no API call to get the full review. Or at least there wasn't the last time I looked. To do this, it would need to check if review downloaded as part of the sync is complete, and if not fetch the review page and parse it. That should't be to hard, but it hasn't been something I'm interested in doing. If someone else wants to, I'm happy to give some help.

[Packerfan]

I am getting an error message when I add my books to my Goodreads shelves. It connects to Goodreads, lets me pick the book to add, adds the tag to Calibre but then gives me this error message...The request contacting Goodreads has failed. Please try again. When I check Goodreads nothing has been updated.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Packerfan

I am getting an error message when I add my books to my Goodreads shelves. It connects to Goodreads, lets me pick the book to add, adds the tag to Calibre but then gives me this error message...The request contacting Goodreads has failed. Please try again. When I check Goodreads nothing has been updated.

Press the details button to show the full message. There is a fair chance it will tell you what is wrong. Otherwise, post the full details so I can look at it.

[sammayor]

I maintain a reading list with books I want to read. This books are sent to Kindle after connecting it to Calibre. It will be awesome to have option in 'Sync from Shelf' menu to update reading list after syncing.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by sammayor

I maintain a reading list with books I want to read. This books are sent to Kindle after connecting it to Calibre. It will be awesome to have option in 'Sync from Shelf' menu to update reading list after syncing.

Interesting idea. I'll have a look at it. I've done it for other plugins, so it should be possible. Of course, the obvious extension is to send a Reading List to GR.

But, you can achieve something like this now. A Reading List can be based on a search. If you have a sync action set a value in a column, then the reading list could use a search to find all books with that value. That should do what you want.