exlibris - add a nice ex libris to your EPUB eBook!

[AlPe]

I have just updated the initial post, with a link to v. 1.07, which includes:

1) now the user can also select the insertion point of the ex libris in the TOC;
2) added --no-guide switch to prevent inserting the ex libris in the guide;
3) added --guide-string and --toc-string switches to specify the strings to be used for the ex libris in the guide and in the TOC lists.

IMPORTANT: the option switch -i, which was used to specify the insertion point of the ex libris in the spine, has been renamed to -s (spine) to be consistent with -t (TOC) switch.

[AlPe]

I'm working on the GUI, with Tkinter.

You might want to check the first screenshot (plus the resulting ex libris as seen in ADE) out, that I attach to this post.

[AlPe]

I have just updated the initial post, with a link to v. 1.08, which includes:

1) the GUI version, both in English (exlibris-gui.py) and in Italian (exlibris-gui-it.py).

I attach several screenshots taken under Windows.

[AlPe]

Hi guys,

I was informed that the exlibris-gui does not start under Mac OS X.

Unfortunately I do not own an Apple machine, so I cannot confirm or provide help on that; I think it might depend on the Tkinter port, but I do not want to shoot too wild guesses. Both on my linux box (Debian + awesome) and on Windows XP it works well.

Is there anyone who successfully ran exlibris-gui under Mac OS X ?

Besides this problem, is there anyone using it? Would you like to provide some feedback?

[AlPe]

Update on the Mac OS X "error".

Another source reported that exlibris-gui works fine on his Mac OS X machine.

The error might depend on some conflict between Apple's development tools and a previous user installation of Python. Also, renaming the Python files to .pyw might help as well.

[AlPe]

They told me that you might want to rename exlibris-gui.py to exlibris-gui.pyw, but NOT exlibris.py, or associate the files to the Python launcher. (sorry for being vague, I do not have an OS X box to try)

[AlPe]

Big news coming... stay tuned!

[Jozawun]

Great idea, this.
Did you get any further with the Calibre plug-in?

[AlPe]

Hi, thank you for your interest in exlibris.

I planned to release the Calibre plugin during this weekend, but a very strange and unanticipated series of coincidences and duties will keep me away from coding in the next 5-7 days.

I guess I might be able to release it at the end of the next week or at the beginning of the subsequent one.

[Jozawun]

No worries mate, she'll be jake.

[AlPe]

I want to apologize for the shameful delay, but I am currently developing the calibre plugin of exlibris.

I plan to release it after my (supposed-to-be-)vacation, around 8/20.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlPe

I want to apologize for the shameful delay, but I am currently developing the calibre plugin of exlibris.

I plan to release it after my (supposed-to-be-)vacation, around 8/20.

Hi:

Not to be particularly dense (and heavens knows, I can be), but what's the advantage of this over simply creating a templated page, inserting it into the ePUB and typing 2-3 things?

I ask because I looked at this for a form of watermarking (as we occasionally have had issues with client theft, which forced us to move to payment upfront for everything), but obviously, during editing rounds, that gets cumbersome; I'd rather do the editing invoicing at the end, than during. A watermark might help solve some of this, but I'm not sure I see the advantage of using this, given that we can just make a file/page and insert it?

Thanks,
Hitch

[AlPe]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hi:
Not to be particularly dense (and heavens knows, I can be), but what's the advantage of this over simply creating a templated page, inserting it into the ePUB and typing 2-3 things?

Hi,

I am not sure about what "this" refers to (the Calibre plugin or the entire exlibris project?), so let me explain the rationale of exlibris.

Initially exlibris has been developed as a command line tool, with the idea of using it inside a massive EPUB production loop. In particular, I had in mind the needs a friend who wanted to have a personalized ex libris inside each of his 1000+ EPUBs. He just needed to run a (Bash) command like:

$ for book in `ls *.epub`; do python exlibris-cli.py "$book" "$book.epub.new" exlibris.xhtml; mv "$book.epub.new" "$book"; done

to have the task accomplished. No manual editing at all!

Later, someone suggested that exlibris should have had the capability of replacing strings in the exlibris.xhtml template with the book metadata or strings passed on the command line. The latter was requested exactly for a watermarking-like process, aimed at creating "personalized" ebooks:

while read member
do
   id=`echo $member | cut -d" " -f1`
   name=`echo $member | cut -d" " -f2`
   python exlibris-cli.py book.epub "book-$id.epub" exlibris.xhtml -r "name=$name;"
done < members.txt

This would personalize book.epub by creating a different file for each member and inserting a personalized "Happy Birthday $name !" ex libris in it.
Again, besides creating the file members.txt (in my case, exporting it from a database, and containing id and name for each "member", one member per line) there is no manual editing at all. In the specific case, I had to create a personalized EPUB for more than 100 people.

Finally, someone suggested the idea of providing a GUI for those that are not in friendly terms with the command line and, eventually, a Calibre plugin, given the popularity of the latter. But these are intended just as different ways of invoking the main exlibris library. To continue the analogy, for example by selecting a subset of your calibre library rather than using the for loop of my first example.

Let me know if something is still unclear.

[Hitch]

I see. You're contemplating an environment in which all the ePUBs already exist. In that instance, yes, I can see how this would be very helpful.

In my shop, obviously, we make ePUBs one at a time, and we ship them to clients the same way, with certain very few exceptions, like when a client has several books in production. Having to use this one book at a time wouldn't be a time-saver; it's easier just to use an image for watermarking with house CSS and delete the watermarking code and image than to do this. I mean..it's six of one, half-dozen of another. (We do not use Calibre for eBook-making or conversion). As I said, I can see how exlibris would be useful in a large-scale situation, in which you had a bunch of books to watermark, but when you're shipping 20/books a day, (none all sitting in the same dir), it's probably easier just to have the Crews simply have it in the CSS, I suspect. I'm certainly open to thoughts or concepts of time to the contrary. ;-)

Hitch

[Jellby]

An exlibris is usually added by the book owner, not by the publisher/printer. I guess it's similar in this case: the script is intended for ebook owners to mark their books, not for the ebook creator to add a watermark.