Marvin 3 Messes up Comic Book Import from Calibre

[American_Desi]

Hello all,

Returning Calibre user here, using Mac OS Sierra

Trying to sync books with Marvin 3 on my iPad Pro 12.9" running iOS 10

Have not yet purchased premium upgrade for Marvin 3 because I'm evaluating it to make sure it does what I want it to.

Main problem I'm having is that books don't sync and sort properly once they get to Marvin 3.

epubs appear to list in proper series order, but comic book files (cbr, cbz) are syncing in reverse order. Also names of comic files are not being preserved from Calibre format, but instead are being renamed in some strange format with numbers I do not recognize from Calibre e-book metadata. This is *after* import into Marvin 3 - *before* import while selecting from the Calibre data server, the comic books have the proper Calibre names and order. Example:

Before import: "Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi - Force Storm (2012) #2 (Of 5)"
After import: "Star Wars- Dawn of the Jedi - - Jan Duursema & John Ostrander_262"

What I want it to do is put all of my books and comic books in the proper order I have them arranged in using Calibre, and keeping the proper title as listed in Calibre. I am using the "number" metadata field to create the proper order which I believe is the correct approach. The Sort Title metadata field also is being used properly, from what I can see.

How can I get around this annoying glich? Is there some setting I am missing that makes it do this? Some setting in either Marvin 3 or Calibre, perhaps?

[Turtle91]

This is not a Marvin 3 issue. This is the settings you have selected in Calibre.

In Calibre you need to go into Preferences/Saving Books to Disk and adjust your "Save Template".

For example, the template I use is:
{author_sort} - {series} {series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}

It changes the filename of the epub to:
The author sort string(name: Last, First) - Series name (If it has a series) and it's Series number with a leading zero - Book Title

Like this:
Estep, Jennifer - Elemental Assassin 14 - Bitter Bite.epub

The name is only changed when you use the "Save to Disk" feature...although it may be changed under other circumstances as well...you'd probably find more help asking about this in their forum.

Cheers,

[American_Desi]

Thanks for this. That make some sense except... if I have the number metadata labeled correctly in Calibre, shouldn't it put the books in the proper order in Marvin 3 regardless of the title?

The problem is only occurring with cbr/cbz files, not epubs. The epubs are still being saved to my device in the proper order, whereas the cbr/cbz files are saving in reverse order.

Does Marvin 3 not understand the series number metadata imported from Calibre? Do I need to save the series number and series name in the file of the cbr/cbz files in order to get the files to organize properly in Marvin?

[Turtle91]

Again, this is a Calibre issue and you will get much better answers if you ask in the Calibre forum about how Calibre handles metadata.

A quick search turned up this thread which IIUC describes that the only metadata that Calibre handles natively in the .cbz format is the "author". As Kovid (the creator of Calibre) states, all fields are listed as "author", so ... I don't think it'll work. But you may find someone over there that knows better than I do.

However, if you wish to take the time and edit the metadata - within - Marvin (long tap on the cbz, then select "Metadata and cover") you can add whatever info you wish including author, series, series #, etc., and Marvin will sort and display them just like an epub.

So, again, this is not a Marvin issue as much as it is a lack of metadata support in the .cbz format. Which, BTW, is nothing more than multiple images in a single folder. You can test this by changing the ".cbz" file extension to ".zip" and opening it with your file explorer.

Cheers,