Calibre Companion 3 beta for Android released

[PatNY]

Good news -- the empty shelf syndrome seems to be fixed with the new beta. I tried rotating my device maybe 20-30 times and could not make the empty shelf appear.

Moreover, scrolling through the shelf and also opening and closing the drawer appear to be a little snappier, though that may just be perception.

I'm very happy with this major upgrade. It's like a whole new app! CC users will be very pleasantly surprised when they see all the new options.

--Pat

[snoozer]

Don't know if I am missing something, but is it possible to make more then one group for custom columns?
Seems like when I try to add more then one the first one gets overwritten.

Thanks
Mark

[chaley]

Originally Posted by snoozer

Don't know if I am missing something, but is it possible to make more then one group for custom columns?
Seems like when I try to add more then one the first one gets overwritten.

Thanks
Mark

The keys are comma-separated, as in
#key1, #key2, #key3

[chaley]

Originally Posted by PatNY

Good news -- the empty shelf syndrome seems to be fixed with the new beta. I tried rotating my device maybe 20-30 times and could not make the empty shelf appear.

Now that is good news.

Moreover, scrolling through the shelf and also opening and closing the drawer appear to be a little snappier, though that may just be perception.

It should be faster. A contributor to the spurious image problem was that CC was computing info for books that came onto the screen as part of a scroll (which android explicitly asks apps to do) then immediately went off the screen because the scroll was a fling. These computations were a total waste of time, but android doesn't make it obvious that it no longer wants the info. The new implementation does a better job of noticing this situation and canceling the rendering of the no-longer-needed covers. My guess is that this optimization bought back around 15% in cover-rendering performance.

I'm very happy with this major upgrade. It's like a whole new app! CC users will be very pleasantly surprised when they see all the new options.

--Pat

Thanks for your help. It was invaluable.

[PatNY]

Originally Posted by chaley

Thanks for your help. It was invaluable.

You're welcome. Always glad to help.

CC is one of my favorite mobile apps ever. It's much better than Stanza, which was the standard on iOS for many years.

Those who are only on iOS don't know what they are missing!

--Pat

[snoozer]

Originally Posted by chaley

The keys are comma-separated, as in
#key1, #key2, #key3

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

As part of chasing down the "all shelves missing" and the "spurious books" problems (below), I have improved somewhat the performance of painting and reduced some of the flickering. It still paints on demand, but it might be easier on your eyes.

It is easier on my eyes. Thanks!

[jackie_w]

@chaley,

I have just tried beta v3.0.3 by using all the things I typically use. I could not find any problems, specifically no more fling problems

[chaley]

The beta is over. We will make a general release as soon as we prepare the screen captures and text to put on Google Play.

The general release will have two changes not in beta 4: a fix for the searching problem when using user collections reported by DoctorOhh, and a fix for a problem when queuing downloads in the content server for a book that has no suitable formats.

Thank you again all for your efforts!

[itimpi]

I guess this means we might be about to reach the fabled 1.0 release ?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by itimpi

I guess this means we might be about to reach the fabled 1.0 release ?

For CC it is the fabled 3.0 release, almost a year in the making, but yes, same principle.

And IIRC Kovid said that general availability of new DB would be calibre release 1.0, which I think will happen in a week or so. I could be wrong about both the number and the timing, but if not then both CC and calibre will have major upgrades within days of each other.

[RobFreundlich]

chaley,

I missed the beta (it's been a while since I've been to the forum), but having just skimmed through this thread, I'm looking forward to the general release of the new version - it looks great!

With all of the changes you've made, have you had any opportunity to further explore launching the K4A app on the Kindle Fire? (see old thread here). I'm using CC every day to download my morning newspapers, and I still have to exit CC, switch to GO Launcher, use its SD Card toggle, and go back into Kindle Newsstand in order to read them (see other old thread here). If you've been able to find a way to launch K4A directly, you'll save me a lot of hassle and make me a very happy man!

If not, the new version of CC still looks great, and maybe it's time to wean myself away from the K4A reader and start using CC as my launch point instead of the Kindle Fire bookshelf and newsstand ...

Rob

[Merischino]

Hi -- it looks like in all my cc playtime I neglected to ever come back during the beta to post my results. Just finished reading through the thread, and I see that my only issue didn't ever get discussed. I'm not entirely sure it's a cc thing anyway, it is most likely a calibre phenomenon, but here goes.

I have a nexus 7 FHD (aka 2013). I'm guessing that translates in your list to the 1.6% "tilapia" installs.
I've been working with caliber .9.4.3, .9.4.4 and now, today, 1.0

I have sent many hundreds of books to the n7 sucessful, and have opened and read several of them in the various readers I have installed, moon+ pro, FBReader, Cool Reader, Mantano Lite, Aldiko, and Perfect Viewer, jjComics Viewer, and Komik.

I would really like to see CC add some more customizability of which readers you prefer, and also some expansion to formats to include some popular comic formats.

For example, I have CBZ and CBR files, which you cannot open via CC because no reader app appears that is compatible with that format. unless, and I suspect Calibre is at fault here, for some reason a .mobi format is associated with that comic.

every cbz or cbr file with correct metadata information in CC opens (in mobi) to a single file which is unrelated to the actual title chosen in CC.

edit: I suspect the presence of the .mobi for comic files is in fact a calibre companion phenomenon, as my method for adding those to the n7 was via wireless content server through cc. I don't maintain mobi versions of comics, period. I suspect that the reason for those taking so long (many hours) to download to the n7 was that they were triggering a conversion to .mobi as part of the download request.

I don't know why, but something like 40 cbz books in calibre companion all open to the same one .mobi.

---

I love the grouping drawer
I love the cover view
I am seriously in love with the fact that I can adjust the sizes and, for my huge library, view a 9x8 grid and fling my way through with virtually no lag (yes, I can see some covers populating as I fling, but hey -- there's no wait and its fast fast fast).

I really liked the original wood shelf background, tried the light gray which was snazzy, but have settled on the latest dark gray shelf.

Not new to the beta but awesome about calibre, I love being able to connect as a wireless device to the content server. Super cool.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by RobFreundlich

chaley,

I missed the beta (it's been a while since I've been to the forum), but having just skimmed through this thread, I'm looking forward to the general release of the new version - it looks great!

With all of the changes you've made, have you had any opportunity to further explore launching the K4A app on the Kindle Fire? (see old thread here). I'm using CC every day to download my morning newspapers, and I still have to exit CC, switch to GO Launcher, use its SD Card toggle, and go back into Kindle Newsstand in order to read them (see other old thread here). If you've been able to find a way to launch K4A directly, you'll save me a lot of hassle and make me a very happy man!

If not, the new version of CC still looks great, and maybe it's time to wean myself away from the K4A reader and start using CC as my launch point instead of the Kindle Fire bookshelf and newsstand ...

Rob

Nope, we haven't looked at it, mostly because we don't have any model of the Fire. It hasn't seemed worth it given Amazon's attitude toward us. However, we might need to rethink that given that (it seems) more than a few people are willing to root their Fire.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Merischino

I have sent many hundreds of books to the n7 sucessful, and have opened and read several of them in the various readers I have installed, moon+ pro, FBReader, Cool Reader, Mantano Lite, Aldiko, and Perfect Viewer, jjComics Viewer, and Komik.

I would really like to see CC add some more customizability of which readers you prefer, and also some expansion to formats to include some popular comic formats.

I am confused. CC already allows you to specify a default reader per book type (extension), and you can put each extension into a different folder in case the reader app wants that. What more should it to do?

For example, I have CBZ and CBR files, which you cannot open via CC because no reader app appears that is compatible with that format. unless, and I suspect Calibre is at fault here, for some reason a .mobi format is associated with that comic.

Have you told CC that it can manage CBZ and and CBR? Settings -> Book formats & folders (the first preference in the settings display).

There are lots of readers that claim to handle CBZ. I haven't tried any of them, and I don't know if they "advertize" (in Android) that they handle CBZ, but I strongly suspect that they do.

every cbz or cbr file with correct metadata information in CC opens (in mobi) to a single file which is unrelated to the actual title chosen in CC.

If you have not told CC that it can manage the comic book formats, then calibre might be auto-converting the books. The process is:
- You tell CC what formats it is allowed to receive
- CC tells calibre what formats it is allowed to send
- If the format of the book to be sent is not in that list, calibre offers to auto-convert the book. You can ask calibre to do the auto-convert without prompting.

My guess is that you have not added CBZ etc and calibre is auto-converting.

As for opening the wrong file, that is strange. I suspect that this is the reader app being your friend, opening the last book it knows about instead of opening the the book it is being told to open. Kindle for Android does this.

edit: I suspect the presence of the .mobi for comic files is in fact a calibre companion phenomenon, as my method for adding those to the n7 was via wireless content server through cc. I don't maintain mobi versions of comics, period. I suspect that the reason for those taking so long (many hours) to download to the n7 was that they were triggering a conversion to .mobi as part of the download request.

As noted above, they easily could be triggering a convert.

I don't know why, but something like 40 cbz books in calibre companion all open to the same one .mobi.

CC has zero capability to convert files, and it never changes extensions. If it is seeing .mobi, then calibre is sending .mobi.

To reiterate, and at the risk of , I think that the root of the problem is that you haven't told CC that it is managing the comic book formats.

I love the grouping drawer
I love the cover view
I am seriously in love with the fact that I can adjust the sizes and, for my huge library, view a 9x8 grid and fling my way through with virtually no lag (yes, I can see some covers populating as I fling, but hey -- there's no wait and its fast fast fast).

I really liked the original wood shelf background, tried the light gray which was snazzy, but have settled on the latest dark gray shelf.

Not new to the beta but awesome about calibre, I love being able to connect as a wireless device to the content server. Super cool.

Very glad you like it.