[GUI Plugin] Marvin XD

[Philantrop]

This plugin is DEAD due to changes by Apple. This thread should be kept for historical reference.

This plugin is NOT compatible with iOS >= 8.3. Nothing can be done about it till Marvin itself is adapted to the changes by Apple.

Many of you will know this plugin and might be surprised to see me post a new thread. I'm taking over maintainership from Greg who decided to retire from Calibre development. I'm very, very grateful to you, Greg, for creating these great plugins and I'll try my best to keep up to your standards.

I'll post more about this soon! Cheers, Wulf

Marvin XD makes it easy to manage Marvin with calibre.
Think of Marvin XD as a remote control for your Marvin library.

Main features of Marvin XD:

• Synchronize metadata between Marvin and calibre
• Identify duplicates
• Preview and transfer highlights and annotations from Marvin to a custom column in calibre
• Add books from Marvin to calibre
• Delete books from Marvin
• Calculate word counts for one or multiple books
• Generate Deep View content of names, dates, events and places in your books
• View reading progress and date last read, optionally transferring them to a calibre custom column
• Manage NEW, READING LIST and READ flags
• View vocabulary words, Deep View content and pinned articles
• Manage collections assignments, including creating, renaming and deleting collections
• Sort and filter your Marvin books by title, author, series or tags

Marvin XD requirements:

• calibre v1.0.0 or later (Linux, OS X and Windows supported)
• iOS reader applications plugin v1.3.5 or later, configured with Marvin as the preferred reader application
• Marvin 2.0 or later installed on your iDevice, with the calibre connector actively running

Installation:

• Disconnect your iDevice from your computer.
• Install the iOS reader applications plugin (v1.1.0 or later). If this is the first time you have installed this plugin, you will need to configure it with Marvin as your preferred iOS reader application. See the instructions at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=241143 for more details. If you have previously installed this plugin, update to the most recent version.
• Install the Marvin XD plugin.
• When prompted for the location, choose The main toolbar when a device is connected.
• Open calibre Preferences|Interface|Toolbar.
• Select The main toolbar when a device is connected.
• Select the Marvin XD icon (should be at the bottom), then click the up arrow repeatedly to move it just below the Location Manager icon. This will display the Marvin XD icon next to the Marvin icon when Marvin's calibre connector is running.
  
• Accept all changes.
• Exit calibre.

Using Marvin XD:

• Connect your iDevice.
• Start Marvin (version 2.0 or later) on your iDevice.
• Initiate Marvin's calibre connector by touching Get books in the lower right corner of the Home screen or the Library screen (iPad) or Library screen (iPhone), then touching 'calibre'.
• Start calibre.
• After calibre is finished initializing, you should see the Marvin icon in the main toolbar, with the Marvin XD icon next to it.
• Click the Marvin XD icon to view the Marvin Library.
• For a full overview of Marvin XD capabilities, click the Help button.
• Hover your cursor over individual cells or right-click for a context menu of possible actions.
• Click Close to exit the Marvin XD window.

Tips & Tricks:

• The first time that you use Marvin XD with an iDevice, caches are created which will make subsequent connections much faster.
• If you have a very large calibre library, you can speed up initialization by creating a Virtual Library, which will limit the number of books in your calibre library that Marvin XD is analyzing.
• Marvin XD has been tested with a library of more than 4000 books.

Special note for iOS7 users:

The first time that you connect your iDevice to your computer after updating to iOS7 you will see a dialog that looks like this:

Click Trust. Once you have confirmed that the connected computer is trustworthy, you shouldn't see that dialog again. You need to confirm this dialog before Marvin XD will work.

Special note for Linux users:

You need to use a system encoding that supports UTF-8. See this post for more details.

If you have problems:

• Please report issues at Marvin XD's issue tracker.
• Provide as much detail as possible to recreate the problem. At a minimum, your OS, the type of iDevice you're using, the version of Marvin you have installed, and the steps necessary to recreate the problem.
• If the problem is a crash, please post a debug log with your issue. Instructions for creating a debug log may be found in Creating a new issue.
• Important note for Linux users: If you have iOS 7 installed on your iDevice, you may not be able to click Trust and dismiss the dialog. This is a known issue with libiMobileDevice and eventually will be corrected through a patch to your distro. You will be unable to use Marvin XD with iOS7 until the patch is available for your system. Users with earlier iOS versions will not be affected.

Paypal Donations:

Say thanks with PayPal!

Version History:

Spoiler:

v1.2.4 - 02 September 2014
• Support for Calibre 2.x, thanks to Davidfor for contributing most of the code!
• Metrics logging has been disabled as the server is down.

v1.2.3 - 31 August 2014 - no public release

v1.2.2 - 15 June 2014
• New feature: Backup & restore your entire library (requires Marvin 2.7.2)
v1.2.1 - 8 March 2014
• Fixed typo in default CSS elements
v1.2.0 - 7 March 2014
• Added new metadata status colors: light gray, dark gray, magenta
• New configuration options to mark books with updated content
• Add support for syncing and setting Ratings
• Added ability to send locked books from calibre library (GitHub issue #34)
• Update Locked synchronization logic
• Added support for Book notes, Bookmark notes
• Requires iOSRA 1.3.5 or later
v1.1.1 - 1 January 2014
• Changed cover management to support Marvin 2.6
• Fixed issue #31
• Various UI improvements and bug fixes
v1.1.0 - 10 December 2013
• Added support for multiple libraries
• Reconfigured main window with busy spinner
• Fixed pubdate handling under Windows when pubdate < 1970
• Added auto-refresh option when launching MXD
• Various UI improvements, bug fixes, performance enhancements
v1.0.9 - 01 November 2013
• Improved cover matching algorithm
• Various bug fixes and performance improvements
v1.0.8 - 25 September 2013
• Improved metadata comparison when Published date is unknown
v1.0.7 - 21 September 2013
• Added error handler for illegal filenames when generating Marvin hashes
v1.0.6 - 18 September 2013
• Fixed issue #17
v1.0.5 - 16 September 2013
• Improved error handling
• Ignore series_index when no series information
v1.0.4 - 16 September 2013
• Fixed issues #12, #14, #15, #16
v1.0.3 - 15 September 2013
• Fixed issue #10
• Improvements in error handling
v1.0.2 - 14 September 2013
• Fixed issue #4
v1.0.1 - 13 September 2013
• Fixed crash during load on fresh installation
v1.0.0 - 13 September 2013
• Initial release

[chilady1]

I would like to take this opportunity to personally THANKS GRiker for all his hard work and dedication to this and other plug-ins that make Calibre that much better!

Wulf - thanks goes out to you as well for taking over the maintenance of this truly wonderful plug-in.

THANKS TO YOU BOTH!

[vikarti]

I would also like thank them. Without them I couldn't use almost all Marvin's advanced functionality...

[ac4lt]

I just discovered Marvin and Marvin XD a couple of days ago and it looks like what I've been wanting for years now! Thanks to all those who had a hand in development.

I have one question:

I have custom columns in calibre that for "read" (a boolean) and "date last read" (a date) and have configured Marvin XD to use those columns. It seems to work properly in terms of bringing the right data back from Marvin but if I send a book over that has read==true and a value in the "date last read" field then those values aren't transferred over to Marvin.

I know it seems odd to transfer over books that are read but sometimes it's useful to refer back to old material and having those show up as unread in Marvin is not ideal. I can mark them as read manually but I don't see a way to fix the date.

Is there a way to send the data from those columns from calibre to marvin?

Thanks!

Linda

[Philantrop]

Hello Linda,

sending books from Calibre to Marvin is done via the iOS reader applications plugin which doesn't know about your custom columns and, thus, can't transfer them.

Best regards, Wulf

[ac4lt]

Originally Posted by Philantrop

Hello Linda,

sending books from Calibre to Marvin is done via the iOS reader applications plugin which doesn't know about your custom columns and, thus, can't transfer them.

Best regards, Wulf

Wulf, I think I didn't do a good job of describing what I was talking about. In Marvin XD, when you choose "Explore Marvin Library" it shows the last read and read columns but only seems to pull info on those from Marvin and not send those columns to Marvin when syncing metadata.

That's why I posted about it here. Was I in error?

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by ac4lt

Wulf, I think I didn't do a good job of describing what I was talking about. In Marvin XD, when you choose "Explore Marvin Library" it shows the last read and read columns but only seems to pull info on those from Marvin and not send those columns to Marvin when syncing metadata.

That's why I posted about it here. Was I in error?

I understood that. Nevertheless, my answer is still the same: That doesn't (and won't) work.

[ac4lt]

Originally Posted by Philantrop

I understood that. Nevertheless, my answer is still the same: That doesn't (and won't) work.

Ah well. It would be nice if the sync was two-way but at least I know what to expect. Thanks for the reply.

[pacobar]

When i try to connect from my ipad
I see a message saying

error en la comunicación con el dispositivo

and on see details


calibre, version 1.48.0
ERROR: Error: Error en la comunicación con el dispositivo

[Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Users\\FBARBA~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calib re_8j7xc5\\b13k8x_ios_local_db\\mainDb.sqlite'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 86, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 490, in _books
File "C:\Users\FBARBA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_8j7x c5\b13k8x_ios_local_db\Marvin_overlays.py", line 276, in books
File "C:\Users\FBARBA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_8j7x c5\b13k8x_ios_local_db\Marvin_overlays.py", line 2050, in _localize_database_path
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Users\\FBARBA~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calib re_8j7xc5\\b13k8x_ios_local_db\\mainDb.sqlite'


What can i do?
Thanks in advance

[theducks]

Originally Posted by pacobar

When i try to connect from my ipad
I see a message saying

error en la comunicación con el dispositivo

and on see details


calibre, version 1.48.0
ERROR: Error: Error en la comunicación con el dispositivo

[Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Users\\FBARBA~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calib re_8j7xc5\\b13k8x_ios_local_db\\mainDb.sqlite'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 86, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 490, in _books
File "C:\Users\FBARBA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_8j7x c5\b13k8x_ios_local_db\Marvin_overlays.py", line 276, in books
File "C:\Users\FBARBA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_8j7x c5\b13k8x_ios_local_db\Marvin_overlays.py", line 2050, in _localize_database_path
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Users\\FBARBA~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calib re_8j7xc5\\b13k8x_ios_local_db\\mainDb.sqlite'


What can i do?
Thanks in advance

This may not be a Marvin question at all
I think it is a variation on this FAQ issue:

http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq.html#id49

Something is interfering with temp files being used/needed by calibre.
I bet a conversion fails also.

[kguil]

Heads up: The iOS Reader Applications and Marvin XD calibre plugins are currently incompatible with the latest calibre 2.0. @Philantrop and myself are aware of the issue and are investigating a fix.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kguil

Heads up: The iOS Reader Applications and Marvin XD calibre plugins are currently incompatible with the latest calibre 2.0. @Philantrop and myself are aware of the issue and are investigating a fix.

There's nothing to investigate. Calibre 2.0 has switched to using Qt5 instead of using Qt4 as the previous versions were using. The plugins have to be modified to work with both Qt4 and Qt5.

There is a thread on modifying plugins to go from Qt4 to Qt4/Qt5. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=242223

[davidfor]

OK, I give in.

After watching all the comments, plus receiving a few direct requests, I have talked to Philantrop about this plugin. Due to other commitments, he can't get to it yet.

So, I give in. And yes, I am using the same text and bad jokes in for both plugins. But, make sure you read the whole post as it isn't exactly the same.

Attached is a beta version of the plugin that should work with both calibre v2 and v1.48. I am not a user of this plugin, so haven't done that much testing in either environment. As far as I can tell, it works. I have tested it with my iPad with no problems. But, as I don't normally use the plugin, it is very likely I have not tested something important.

Please test the attached version and report any errors here. I am only fixing errors caused by the change to Qt5. If there are existing errors or other changes that you want, please see the first post of the thread for how to report or request them.

And please make sure you have the latest beta of the iOS reader applications plugin. Beta version 1.4.3 of the iOS reader applications plugin is here.

If you find an error, I need as much detail as possible. If calibre displays an error message, press the copy button and post the COMPLETE message. And tell me what you were doing. In precise detail. Don't leave anything out as unimportant. It's amazing how often it is the little insignificant detail that was left out was the clue to solve the problem. If you report an error, I might ask you to run in debug mode. This creates a log of the calibre session. Again, I want to see the full contents of the log.

My testing is on 32 bit Windows 7. I need the other OSes as well.

The attached beta is version 1.2.4. I expect to release several betas, so please check the version number before reporting an error.

And please report if everything is OK. If I don't see anything, then I don't know if it is all working, or if no-one has tried it.

When I am satisfied that that the plugin is working properly in both versions of calibre, I will hand the code over to Philantrop for the official release.

[Jwt0001]

Tested using the following:

Mac OS X 10.9.4
Calibre 2.1
Marvin 2.7.2
iPad Air iOS 7.1.2

Plugin worked properly, was able to connect to Marvin as required, it properly found the books from my library that were already on the device, and synced a book without any problems. No error messages.

[Philantrop]

I've just posted a new release (1.2.4) that fixes 2.x compatibility and some other minor issues.

Thanks, David, for contributing most of the code needed for 2.x compatibility. Greatly appreciated!