How to write a Metadata plugin

[modnar_wylde]

I'm looking for some guidance.

I want to see how to write a plug-in to gather metadata from
onebookshelf & DMsGuild for identifying and collecting metadata from there.

[jackie_w]

Maybe have a look at the code in some of the existing plugins in the Metadata Source section of the Index of calibre plugins sticky thread.

[davidfor]

That's the simplest thing to do. There are plenty of examples you can look at. I don't know which is the best to look at as they all do things a little differently. You should also look in the calibre source at src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/sources/base.py. You can see the API and what needs to be overridden.

And having a quick look at the two sites mentioned, onebookshelf.com seems to be parent site for a group of others. And they look like they probably use the same source code for all the sites. And it is likely they have an API. If so, the results from that are usually easier to handle than parsing a web page.

[modnar_wylde]

I think I have functional rewrite, but it how do you generate a usable/testable plugin?

and yes, they (OBS) is a single code build, with various skins for their properties, I'm working from the belief they all should respond similarly.

I just need to test the code in an enviroment to troubleshoot responses.

[davidfor]

You just need create the zip file and install it. The latter can be done from the Plugins page of the preferences. But, I use small script file to build, install and restart calibre when testing. They look like:

del "..\Annotations.zip"
"c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a "..\Annotations.zip" *.py developer_notes.txt dialogs\* help\* images\*.png plugin-import-name-annotations.txt readers\*.py -x!readers\_* README.md about.txt run.cmd translations/*.po translations/*.mo
mode 165,999
calibre-customize -a "..\Annotations.zip"
SET CALIBRE_DEVELOP_FROM=E:\Development\GitHub\calibre\src
calibre-debug  -s
calibre-debug  -g

That isn't for a metadata source plugin, but the overall concept is the same. The "SET" statement is for running from calibre source. You probably don't need to do this.

Once calibre is started, just test the metadata download and look at the log produced for errors. I tend to put a lot of logging statements in so that I can see what is happening.

You can test the identify method without the GUI, but, I don't usually do it that way.