Plugin ideas... add yours here

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by trungng2006

I did install, but so far unsuccessful to in fetching the highlighs from my kindle.

I understand the part about different annotation styles and accessability. Would it also be possible that the annotation plugins have a template for users to paste in their highlights? By providing a template for user to paste in their annotation, its provide the user with an alternatives to import their highlights in my opinion.

The plugin supports importing annotations from files generated from some ereader apps. The list is in the first post of the plugin. Adding other formats is completely possible. It just needs someone to write the code. Supporting pasting from the clipboard is also possible, but, it means that whatever is in the clipboard has to be in an appropriate format. Odd are that means you just cut it from a file that could have been imported. If you are suggesting the plugin has a dialog to past the annotation into that is

Furthermore, rrom what i read (in the annotation plugin thread and the website), I think the current functionality of annotation plugin is great. But what i was looking for is to further integrate the annotation with calibre book by linking the annotated text with the calibre highlights/annotation
So when i export the annotation from calibre annotation browswer, i can have book ID, start CFI, and spine index to create the highlight URI that i can access from another program

It is my intention to extend the Annotations plugin to create calibre annotations. But, that requires time, and enough information in the annotation on the device to make that worthwhile. For Kobo devices, I can get the actual location of the annotation in the book and should be able to translate that to what calibre needs. But, for Kindles there is only a page number or location number. It will be impossible to use these to correctly put the annotations in the book.

[trungng2006]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Supporting pasting from the clipboard is also possible, but, it means that whatever is in the clipboard has to be in an appropriate format. Odd are that means you just cut it from a file that could have been imported. If you are suggesting the plugin has a dialog to past the annotation into that is

Yes, this is exactly what i mean . I think cut and paste will not solve the different format/template problem. I think the first step, maybe the plugin can implement a CSV format template (where user can paste in the information in respective cell/collumn with excel).

It is my intention to extend the Annotations plugin to create calibre annotations. But, that requires time, and enough information in the annotation on the device to make that worthwhile. For Kobo devices, I can get the actual location of the annotation in the book and should be able to translate that to what calibre needs.

This is very exciting to know!
May I ask, would this also apply to Kobo reading application?

But, for Kindles there is only a page number or location number. It will be impossible to use these to correctly put the annotations in the book.

This is the problem i stated in my first post. All the devices and app will have their own format. I am not a programer so this may sound weird, but what i am suggesting is that the annotation plugin just extract the book title and annotation from the reading app/device. Then using the book title to match book. Then use calibre search to locate the annotation text in the book passage. Then use this information to generate/integrate the fetched annotation into calibre annotation. In my opinion, this is the way to by pass the format problem.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by trungng2006

Yes, this is exactly what i mean . I think cut and paste will not solve the different format/template problem. I think the first step, maybe the plugin can implement a CSV format template (where user can paste in the information in respective cell/collumn with excel).

While that would be possible, honestly, no-one has ever expressed an interest in this before. I have no interest in doing it myself. If someone wants to code it, I'll be happy to add it to the plugin.

This is very exciting to know!
May I ask, would this also apply to Kobo reading application?

If you mean the Kobo iOS or Android apps, then no. It will be exactly the same as it is now. It will only apply to apps/devices where the annotations can be seen somehow and someone writes code for them. The Kobo apps do not put the annotations somewhere they can bee seen.

This is the problem i stated in my first post. All the devices and app will have their own format. I am not a programer so this may sound weird, but what i am suggesting is that the annotation plugin just extract the book title and annotation from the reading app/device. Then using the book title to match book. Then use calibre search to locate the annotation text in the book passage. Then use this information to generate/integrate the fetched annotation into calibre annotation. In my opinion, this is the way to by pass the format problem.

You mean, like the Annotations plugin works right now? This is what the annotations plugin does when it gets annotations. It tries to match the book the annotations are against to books in the calibre library. For Kobo devices this is exact. For Kindle, tolinos and any apps, it is an educated guess because the titles and authors are not guaranteed to be the same everywhere. And it will prompt for a confirmation if the match is not very good.

Following that up with a search of the book would take a long and be very expensive. And I don't know if the search can be triggered in that way. I'll consider it, but, I doubt I will do it at this point. And of course, it also requires that the string being searched for is unique.

[trungng2006]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Following that up with a search of the book would take a long and be very expensive. And I don't know if the search can be triggered in that way. I'll consider it, but, I doubt I will do it at this point. And of course, it also requires that the string being searched for is unique.

This would be great! Thank you!

[kblair210]

Sincere apologies if these ideas have been posted and my search-fu didn't find them in the 99 pages of this post.

1. A plugin that would scan a book cover file (or covers for a selected batch of books) for the Width/Height/Bytes and populate that information into a custom (text?) column or into two custom columns (1 for dimensions, 1 for file size - e.g 1466x2200x704KB or 1466x2200 then 704KB) If no cover is present, put 0 or n/a (or better yet, make this user definable). I'm not asking for something that's dynamic or runs automatically, and yes I know this would be a one-time 'at that moment' bit of information. I know about the Quality Check plugin to check for covers but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that I can populate a custom column with.

2. A plugin to scrape from Goodreads whether a book has any 'Literary Awards' entries. An example of what this looks like is Goodreads ID 19398490.

3. If it's possible, scrape from Amazon whether a book supports 'Word Wise' and/or 'X-Ray'. In the 'Product details' of Kindle books these will appear as "Word Wise : Enabled" and "X-Ray : Enabled". If not supported, they should say 'Not Enabled' (or in some cases the specifications won't show up at all) These usually appear near the top under the book description as well. I would assume a minimum requirement would be to have a proper AMAZON (or ASIN/MOBI-ASIN) identifier in Calibre so you're sure you're scraping a Kindle book page and not a paperback, etc. The purpose of this app and/or having this information would be for those of us that use the X-Ray files generating app and the WordDumb plugin which generates Word Wise files. Knowing if a book supports either before wasting time trying to generate them would be nice instead of visiting Amazon for every single book you want to check. A simple Y/N output to a custom column for each would be spiffy.

Again my apologies if these have already been discussed.

[chris33]

Hi All,
I use to select and save some ebook in a folder "export folder" (save to disk) and then read them with my ipad.
For instance saving an ebook will save:

• filename.pdf (the eook itself)
• filename.jpg (cover)
• filename.opf (metadata file)

On the Ipad I may add some annotations to the pdf file and would like to add some comments in the opf (<dc:description> section).

Then I copy back to some "import folder" all the files.

I would like to be able to reimport and replace with my changes.

Of course the "import folder" depends on the library (can be books, magazines...).

I would like to have a button launch a scan of the "import folder", diff contents with "export folder" and import only the modified files, then delete all files in both folders.

I haven't found anything existing so far.
Would this be a difficult plugin dev ?

Anyone interested in such a feature ?

[gandoe]

Perhaps I'm missing the obvious...but after a number of different searches, both within this sub-Forum as well as across the broader Calibre forums, I have been unable to find metadata source plugins for a number of free/paid ebook internet sources, including: Project Gutenberg, Delphi, Standard Books, Manybooks, Internet Archives, and others. (Although I did find a plugin for the Baen website, formerly known as "webscription").

I'm a bit surprised...I would have thought these sources would have been incorporated into some plugin long ago.

Those sites often have epubs with metadata that differs from other sites (e.g., Amazon, Goodreads, etc.), in such things as translations, editions, collections, even artists or illustrators.

Is there a plugin which incorporates a number of those sources? How do others incorporate that metadata into their Calibre entry.

Just as examples, I currently have three different versions of Dante's Divine Comedy (one from Gutenberg with illustrations by Gustave Dore); four different translations of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and three different translations of Beowulf. So have complete metadata is important for my library.

TIA for any help!
Ed

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by gandoe

Perhaps I'm missing the obvious...but after a number of different searches, both within this sub-Forum as well as across the broader Calibre forums, I have been unable to find metadata source plugins for a number of free/paid ebook internet sources, including: Project Gutenberg, Delphi, Standard Books, Manybooks, Internet Archives, and others. (Although I did find a plugin for the Baen website, formerly known as "webscription").

I'm a bit surprised...I would have thought these sources would have been incorporated into some plugin long ago.

Those sites often have epubs with metadata that differs from other sites (e.g., Amazon, Goodreads, etc.), in such things as translations, editions, collections, even artists or illustrators.

Is there a plugin which incorporates a number of those sources? How do others incorporate that metadata into their Calibre entry.

Just as examples, I currently have three different versions of Dante's Divine Comedy (one from Gutenberg with illustrations by Gustave Dore); four different translations of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and three different translations of Beowulf. So have complete metadata is important for my library.

TIA for any help!
Ed

For the most part, metadata plugins, actually almost all user-installed plugins, have been written by someone interested in using them.

Think of it as an opportunity to work on your Python skills and practice at borrowing code.

[gandoe]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Think of it as an opportunity to work on your Python skills and practice at borrowing code.

Yep, that would be the next step. Before diving in, I wanted to check whether I would be :recreating the wheel".

Thanks for the response!
Ed

[compurandom]

Actually, the overdrive plugin does a pretty good job of covering gutenberg.

I've also added some gutenberg plugs in the wikidata-gui plugin, but wikidata's coverage of gutenberg lags at best and is incomplete typically. I considered fixing that and doing a mass import of gutenberg data into wikidata, but the wikidata people were too picky about how they wanted the data imported and I decided I didn't have time to follow their rules when they already don't follow them. (I kind of rely on that, their "ideal" data import is convoluted and would make it hard to match books if they actually used it.)

Wikidata does contain (spotty) references to many other databases (maybe a couple hundred actually), and the calibre wikidata-gui plugin (which I will update by the end of the weekend) can import any of them if you configure them. I've considered writing plugins to further use that imported data to get more complete data from the other databases than what is in wikidata. Ask nicely for specific ones and there's a slim chance I might be motivated.

But like I said, there's several hundred, and not all of them have API's.

[gandoe]

Originally Posted by compurandom

Actually, the overdrive plugin does a pretty good job of covering gutenberg.

I've also added some gutenberg plugs in the wikidata-gui plugin, but wikidata's coverage of gutenberg lags at best and is incomplete typically.

Thanks...I'll check both the wikidata-gui, and the overdrive plugin as well.

[law_ct]

I know we can add a website to each author under 'manage authors', but it would be great to have a text field available somewhere. I'd like to be able to note their pen names, biographical info, or problematic issues, or note if they've retired etc. I keep looking stuff up over and over right now

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by law_ct

I know we can add a website to each author under 'manage authors', but it would be great to have a text field available somewhere. I'd like to be able to note their pen names, biographical info, or problematic issues, or note if they've retired etc. I keep looking stuff up over and over right now

You can put any type of URI in the Link field in Manage Authors, not just web page URL's. It could be link to a file, a web page, a note in a notebook app like Evernote or OneNote, or even a 'book' in another or the same calibre library using the recently implemented calibre:// URL scheme

I just converted from using Evernote notes to using the latter. I created an Authors library with various custom columns, including some long text columns. In my Books library I have 'show-book' links to the author's 'book' in the Authors library and in the Authors library I have 'search' links to the authors 'books' in my Books library.

For me at least, it has worked out surprisingly well - especially since I discovered the Choose library->Switch to previous library keyboard shortcut.

I'm also using the calibre:\\ scheme to link related books, avoids having to fabricate relationships out of thin air e.g. Ran and King Lear.

BR

[Terisa de morgan]

Thank you very much for this post, BetterRed. I have the library for authors, but these shortcuts you mention (and links) I didn't know about.

[law_ct]

Interesting. Thanks for the info