CC with Cloud Connection

[schoenbi]

Hi,

I am using Calibre on my notebook and sync the entire library through DS Cloud on my Synology NAS and with my mobile devices (an Android smartphone and a pad). So I always have all books stored in the cloud of the NAS any synced with all my devices.

To read my books and make annotations I use ezPDFReader (I mainly use the PDF formats). It is however cumbersome to find and select books from the mobile devices.

I therefore thought of using CC. With CC I am able to connect to the library and see all the metadata of my books. CC however doesn't recognize that the files are already locally available and asks me to download the books.

Is there a way such that CC recognizes that the library is locally present and open the book from there without downloading it?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by schoenbi

Is there a way such that CC recognizes that the library is locally present and open the book from there without downloading it?

If the entire library is duplicated on your device, including the metadata.db file then there is a way to connect Calibre Companion to it as explained in this section of the Calibre Companion FAQ.

[schoenbi]

Thank you for your answer DoctorOhh,

I believe that I haven't made myself clear:

"Is there a way such that CC recognizes that the library is locally present and open the book from there without downloading it?"

The main point is in bold now. By there I mean the library and not the CC space. I don't want to duplicate my books on the devices for the following reasons:

1. I don't want to waste space. I see no reason to download books into the CC space if they are available on the device all the time in the Calibre library. A simple pointer would suffice.

1. I take notes in the book itself which I am reading. I want to have this notes synced back to the original PDF in the library and not just in the CC space

[chaley]

Originally Posted by schoenbi

Thank you for your answer DoctorOhh,

I believe that I haven't made myself clear:

"Is there a way such that CC recognizes that the library is locally present and open the book from there without downloading it?"

No. CC requires a copy of the file that it hands to the reader app.

[schoenbi]

Originally Posted by chaley

No. CC requires a copy of the file that it hands to the reader app.

Well, then this would be a great feature to have implemented in CC

Do you know if & how features for CC can be requested?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by schoenbi

Well, then this would be a great feature to have implemented in CC

Do you know if & how features for CC can be requested?

See Calibre Companion Trello Board. I don't know if the thread [Android] Wish List is still followed.

[schoenbi]

Originally Posted by chaley

See Calibre Companion Trello Board. I don't know if the thread [Android] Wish List is still followed.

Much appreciated , chaley!

[stumped]

Originally Posted by schoenbi

Well, then this would be a great feature to have implemented in CC

Do you know if & how features for CC can be requested?

surely that is impossible with modern android security restrictions, a book has to be in a folder that the reader app has ownership of i.e. can read AND modify, if you want it to write annotations back into the book.

and surely you don't intent to give write access to remote devices for your source calibre library ?

[schoenbi]

Originally Posted by stumped

surely that is impossible with modern android security restrictions, a book has to be in a folder that the reader app has ownership of i.e. can read AND modify, if you want it to write annotations back into the book.

and surely you don't intent to give write access to remote devices for your source calibre library ?

Your first assumptions is wrong, since I am already successfully doing this, just without CC. I use my own cloud and have a client installed on my devices (DS Cloud). The client syncs among other data my content with the calibre library. On my devices I have a reader installed (ezPDFReader as mentioned in my initial post) which is able to access the folder where the data is synced to; any changes in there are synced back by DS Cloud.

Your second assumption is also wrong; I allow my remote devices write access to the source calibre library (indirectly through the cloud). Until now I didn't encounter any issues with that but if so I still would have a backup

[stumped]

sure - you can do it all with cloud folders, if you are ignoring the warnings all over this forum about the dangers of using calibre library in a cloud or on NAS . One day you will break it and get little sympathy.

meanwhile see Chaley's post here
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ight=card+oreo
post 2

"It is worth noting that starting in Nougat (Android 7), Google has totally broken sharing files between apps. Later this year CC will be forced to hand copies of books to reader apps instead of pointing the reader app at CC's local copy. I know that this is terrible but there is zero I can do about it. If I don't implement this stupid system then later in the year I must stop releasing CC updates."

[schoenbi]

Originally Posted by stumped

sure - you can do it all with cloud folders, if you are ignoring the warnings all over this forum about the dangers of using calibre library in a cloud or on NAS . One day you will break it and get little sympathy.

The solution I am using stores the data locally and not directly in the network drive; it syncs the data back to the network store; so what EXACTLY are the dangers you are implying? Even if the system should fail (I am running with this around 6 months without ANY issues) I still would have a backup

Originally Posted by stumped

meanwhile see Chaley's post here
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ight=card+oreo
post 2

"It is worth noting that starting in Nougat (Android 7), Google has totally broken sharing files between apps. Later this year CC will be forced to hand copies of books to reader apps instead of pointing the reader app at CC's local copy. I know that this is terrible but there is zero I can do about it. If I don't implement this stupid system then later in the year I must stop releasing CC updates."

for the link. Is the Android version of CC still being maintained? It would be a pity if not

I had mentioned DS Cloud and ezPDFReader where I can do this without any issues on my Samsung S9 and a Huawei M5; one with SD card, the other without (both without root access or any customizations) so technically it can be done. Unfortunately I am not savvy enough to come up with a technical spec on how this can be achieved nor do I have insights what it would mean for CC.

I have now posted a feature request in the Trello board and in the Whish list thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...235659&page=36