[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by oren64

This is only a request, and if you have the time to do it, I don't know if it's even possible.

To take the book status (Read, Unread, Finished), from sqlite file (I didn't find where it's in sqlite file), and to load it, into a custom column.
So if you finished a book on your device, when you connect the device to calibre, it will change to Finished in the custom column.
I don't know how it will work if somebody have more than one device.

Um, the plugin has been able to do that from the very start. But, it isn't getting the state, it gets the reading percentage. The state is also used, but, the percent read will be 100 if the book has been finished. The fetch can be run at connect time and can also check date and current status before doing the fetch. I also use column icons rules to display different icons in the percent read column based on the percent read.

For owners of multiple devices, you can either use the last read timestamp and state to decide if you update the state. Or you define a profile for each device and store the reading status in different sets of columns for each device.

And in the database, on the table "content", the column "ReadStatus" contains the reading status. 0 means unread, 1 is reading and 2 is finished. 3 is "Closed" but I don't think that is used in any recent firmware, and I never worked out exactly what it meant.

[oren64]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Um, the plugin has been able to do that from the very start. But, it isn't getting the state, it gets the reading percentage. The state is also used, but, the percent read will be 100 if the book has been finished. The fetch can be run at connect time and can also check date and current status before doing the fetch. I also use column icons rules to display different icons in the percent read column based on the percent read.

I missed that

[oren64]

I want to use the percentage column to build status read column (text), but I find it a little difficult to make a template function.

If percentage is 1-99 return "Read".
If percentage is 100 return "Finished".

Edit: I managed to make the function.

[PeterT]

@davidfor Would it be practical to have either the device driver or the plugin check to see if the user has columns defined for shelving, but has left metadata management at anything other than automatic, and alert them?

[iostrym]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The Kobo devices do annotations in two ways. They store annotations for all book formats in the internal database. For epubs and PDFs, annotations are also stored in files. The two annotations functions in the plugin work on these two different different mechanisms.

Personally, I don't recommend either of these. The "Backup Annotation File" was a quick and dirty addition that I don't find very useful. The "Copy Annotations" was intended for copying and pasting the annotations elsewhere. Depending on what you want, a better method to extract the annotations is the Annotations plugin. It copies them to a column in calibre with some reasonable formatting. But, if the purpose is to back them up and restore them later, there isn't an automatic way to do this. Some people have written scripts to extract the data from the database. A search of the Kobo subforum should find them.

Hello, I thought that Kobo devices were not able to do annotation in PDF ? And for epub I was said that annotation are stored in a different file. Is there a major modification concerning this for Kobo devices ?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by iostrym

Hello, I thought that Kobo devices were not able to do annotation in PDF ? And for epub I was said that annotation are stored in a different file. Is there a major modification concerning this for Kobo devices ?

For PDFs, you can make a bookmark by tapping the top right-corner of the screen. Then you can add a note to this from the annotations list. You cannot mark text in a PDF to save as a highlight.

Other than that, it works as I said. The annotations/bookmarks/highlights are stored in the database for all formats. For PDF and epubs on the main memory of the device, the are also stored in a file. It has been like this all the time I have been using Kobo device and I haven't seen any recent changes.

[iostrym]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For PDFs, you can make a bookmark by tapping the top right-corner of the screen. Then you can add a note to this from the annotations list. You cannot mark text in a PDF to save as a highlight.

Other than that, it works as I said. The annotations/bookmarks/highlights are stored in the database for all formats. For PDF and epubs on the main memory of the device, the are also stored in a file. It has been like this all the time I have been using Kobo device and I haven't seen any recent changes.

Thanks. I was used to do this to annote pdf but I stop doing this since I notice that very often annotation were deleted. So I think myself that this tips was more a bug than a feature...

This kind of PDF annotation can be retrieved using the Kobo driver calibre like epub ?

Without calibre I could be able to retrieve also the annotation as there are stored by Kobo also inside the epub or the pdf ? Using official metadata ? Like xmp ?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by iostrym

Thanks. I was used to do this to annote pdf but I stop doing this since I notice that very often annotation were deleted. So I think myself that this tips was more a bug than a feature...

I don't think it is a bug. Allowing bookmarks in PDF should be OK. Then attaching a note to that should work as well.

This kind of PDF annotation can be retrieved using the Kobo driver calibre like epub ?

The annotations fetch that the driver does reads the database. It should fetch any annotations for any book format.

Without calibre I could be able to retrieve also the annotation as there are stored by Kobo also inside the epub or the pdf ? Using official metadata ? Like xmp ?

Only if the device copies the annotations from the book to the database. I haven't looked to see what happened.

[iostrym]

thanks but I don't understand the last part : "Only if the device copies the annotations from the book to the database. I haven't looked to see what happened. "

did I correctly understand previous messages when you said that kobo store annotation of epub and pdf in internal database of kobo AND inside the file itself ?

if yes, I wonder if it is possible to do a copy paste of the epub or the pdf from the kobo to the pc and read the annotation using a windows pdf reader for instance.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by PeterT

@davidfor Would it be practical to have either the device driver or the plugin check to see if the user has columns defined for shelving, but has left metadata management at anything other than automatic, and alert them?

Any thoughts david?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by iostrym

thanks but I don't understand the last part : "Only if the device copies the annotations from the book to the database. I haven't looked to see what happened. "

The annotations are being retrieved from the database. If there are annotations elsewhere, such as in the PDF, they will not be retrieved. But, it is possible that sometime during the processing of the PDF, that any annotations inside it are copied to the database. If this happens, and I have no idea if it does, then these annotations would be copied by the plugin as well.

did I correctly understand previous messages when you said that kobo store annotation of epub and pdf in internal database of kobo AND inside the file itself ?

All annotations created on the device are stored in the database. Annotations for epub and PDFs that are on the main memory are also stored in a file. This file is created by the Adobe RMSDK.

if yes, I wonder if it is possible to do a copy paste of the epub or the pdf from the kobo to the pc and read the annotation using a windows pdf reader for instance.

Probably not. It depends on what the PDF reader is doing. The place it can work is in ADE on the PC. This uses the same format for the annotations as the file on the device. I have copied the file back to the ADE file directory and edited it to get some keys to match. Then ADE used this file for annotations while reading an epub.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Any thoughts david?

Just about anything is possible. I'm not sure whether it is worth doing or not. It would be possible to add something to the driver configuration to display a message when the collection options get set to remind them to do it. But I don't think that adding something that when the driver is actually doing something to remind them is a good idea. But, I might highlight it in the debug log so that it is easier to find.

The utilities plugin could also do something, but when is the question. I can't think of a good way or time to do it. Do I run a job each time that checks? What I have considered is adding status/debug data function. This would be a dialog to display all the info about the device and be easy to export or copy to the clipboard to past into a thread like this. Including this would make sense. It's been in the back of my mind for a while, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

[iostrym]

Originally Posted by davidfor

All annotations created on the device are stored in the database. Annotations for epub and PDFs that are on the main memory are also stored in a file. This file is created by the Adobe RMSDK.

Thanks, so I did not corretly understand. annotation are stored in the database and also in a file. but not inside the corresponding pdf or epub file. thanks for the precision

[iostrym]

I did a try to backup in calibre some annotations stored in a pdf file and it fails. nothing was retrieved, no error message also. It works perfectly with epub.

[anacreon]

moved to the appropriate thread (KoboTouchExtended)