[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BobC

Where I came across the problem was in large books. Imagine a book with 1000 pages. Until you get to page 10 you won't have read 1% of the book and with the percentage read being an integer it won't have advanced beyond 0%. (O.K. I don't know how the device "rounds" values and it might advance at page 6). My Glo certainly shows the book as 0% read in it's own reading stats during the first few pages of some books and I assume this is the reason.

It's probably true that if you get 0% rather than no value then the book has been opened (perhaps only at the title page). Ultimately it all depends on your own definition of what constitutes "reading" the book - simply opening it or actually moving beyond the first page.

I indicate my current reading by using the Column Colouring. I was testing for %read before but now if I use the Current Location and test if it is set it will show books with 0% read but which have been opened and thus have a current location.

"Other solutions are available" .

Unless there is a bug in the plugin, the reading percent is a safe bet for working out the reading status. If the device shows the book as unread, then the percent read will be unset. If the book has been finished, the percent read will be 100. Any other value, means the book is being read. Including 0.

If you open a book on the device, it sets the ReadStatus to 1 and updates the current location, percent read and last read timestamp as you read the book. There is no difference between opening the book the first page and reading all the way to the end and then going back to the first page. Paging through a long book that needs several pages for each percent read, will just record the percentage as zero. But, the stored reading location will be track the correct place.

What you are doing will work. But, the plugin will still get the reading location when the book is finished. Just looking at the reading location won't tell you if the book is being read or finished.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is no difference between opening the book the first page and reading all the way to the end and then going back to the first page. Paging through a long book that needs several pages for each percent read, will just record the percentage as zero. But, the stored reading location will be track the correct place.

I understand the technical viewpoint of what constitutes "reading" a book although it might differ from a user's viewpoint. My problem really was that a large number of books on my Glo showed up as "reading", perhaps because I had had a problem with the cover displaying when I added the book so I opened the book to check. This rather skewed my view of what I was currently reading and the real ones were lost in the noise.

The answer has been for me to use the plugin to reset the books I have opened but am not reading. Calibre now shows me a more realistic view of the books I am currently reading.

BobC

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BobC

I understand the technical viewpoint of what constitutes "reading" a book although it might differ from a user's viewpoint. My problem really was that a large number of books on my Glo showed up as "reading", perhaps because I had had a problem with the cover displaying when I added the book so I opened the book to check. This rather skewed my view of what I was currently reading and the real ones were lost in the noise.

The answer has been for me to use the plugin to reset the books I have opened but am not reading. Calibre now shows me a more realistic view of the books I am currently reading.

Ok, that makes sense. And that is exactly why the option to set the status is there. The store/restore came a lot later.

[davidfor]

@eXistenZ and Heartloop: Something occurred to me over the weekend and testing it on the Mac at work reproduced the problem.

Did you put KoboUtitlites in the menubar? When I configured this on the Mac, I put it on the "Main toolbar when a device is connected". When it is there, it works perfectly. When I put it on either of the menubar choices, calibre crashes when I try to use it.

Could you try removing KoboUtilities from both of the menu bar and putting it on the toolbar? The context menu for books seems to work as well. If that works, you will be able to use the plugin. And I'll hunt for what I missed.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by davidfor

PeterT has asked to have the storing of the state happen automatically when the device is connected. I plan to do that in the next couple of weeks.

A concern about automatically storing the state on connection is what happens if I factory reset my Kobo ? Will I still be able to restore bookmarks etc to where they were before the reset or would the Calibre database be "updated" from the device with everything now unread ? I suppose if the storing was optional I could switch it off before connecting a factory reset device.

If this was part of the plan no worries.

BobC

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BobC

A concern about automatically storing the state on connection is what happens if I factory reset my Kobo ? Will I still be able to restore bookmarks etc to where they were before the reset or would the Calibre database be "updated" from the device with everything now unread ? I suppose if the storing was optional I could switch it off before connecting a factory reset device.

If this was part of the plan no worries.

That is one of the things to be worked out. Being able to do a restore after a factory reset is a big reason to do this. Preventing data loss in these circumstances is important.

[jgoguen]

Would it work to say that you don't change the reading state on auto-updates? So if I have a purchased and side-loaded KePub with some percentage read, when I reset and reload these would be unread (except the purchased one may already have it's reading state set). Then the plugin would not update the side-loaded book because the reading state is different. Similarly, the purchased book would either be a different reading state or identical and not updated anyway.

Or I'm way out in left field

[eXistenZ]

Originally Posted by davidfor

@eXistenZ and Heartloop: Something occurred to me over the weekend and testing it on the Mac at work reproduced the problem.

Did you put KoboUtitlites in the menubar? When I configured this on the Mac, I put it on the "Main toolbar when a device is connected". When it is there, it works perfectly. When I put it on either of the menubar choices, calibre crashes when I try to use it.

Could you try removing KoboUtilities from both of the menu bar and putting it on the toolbar? The context menu for books seems to work as well. If that works, you will be able to use the plugin. And I'll hunt for what I missed.

I found the time to test, removed beta3, restarted, installed Beta4, restarted again, and now it works!!!!!!!!

By the way when I firstly installed the plug in chose to put it everywhere (contextual menu, Main toolbar and menubar) when device is connected, but only in the contextual menu when there is no device. On every further upgrade (with or without removing the previous version) I was asked no more to chose where to put it, and I don't know how to change my first choice, anyway Beta4 works perfectly from main toolbar and from contextual menu (wich is, now that I know how the plugin works, the best choice).

Really thank you again it works great also on home-made kepubs.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

Would it work to say that you don't change the reading state on auto-updates? So if I have a purchased and side-loaded KePub with some percentage read, when I reset and reload these would be unread (except the purchased one may already have it's reading state set). Then the plugin would not update the side-loaded book because the reading state is different. Similarly, the purchased book would either be a different reading state or identical and not updated anyway.

Or I'm way out in left field

Firstly, I leave the purchased kepubs to Kobo. They can sync the reading position, so I let Kobo take care them.

For sideloaded books, my intention is have a way to automatically store the current reading position. It will probably be an extra job run after the current ones have finished.

At least on the first release, restore will stay manual. After a factory reset, sideload the books, let the device process them. Reconnect, select all the books that are on the device and restore the reading position. Preventing the automatic job from running or overriding the reading positions in calibre is the concern.

I think it actually works now, though I haven't tried it for a while. The "Clear if unread" is supposed to work like that. If this is not checked, and you store the position of a book that is unread, it should not change the calibre library. Just checked the code and that's what it saysm but I haven't tested it in a while.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by eXistenZ

I found the time to test, removed beta3, restarted, installed Beta4, restarted again, and now it works!!!!!!!!

That's good news. And I just realised I didn't install beta4 at work today. I was using either beta2 or 3.

By the way when I firstly installed the plug in chose to put it everywhere (contextual menu, Main toolbar and menubar) when device is connected, but only in the contextual menu when there is no device. On every further upgrade (with or without removing the previous version) I was asked no more to chose where to put it, and I don't know how to change my first choice, anyway Beta4 works perfectly from main toolbar and from contextual menu (wich is, now that I know how the plugin works, the best choice).

The first time you install a plugin, it prompts for which toolbars and menus to use. After that, it doesn't have to. Uninstalling them doesn't remove the configuration, or at least it hasn't for any that I've used. I had to delete files when I was testing.

To change the toolbars or menus, open the preferences and go to "Toolbar" in the top section. Select the toolbar you want to change from the drop-down list. The right hand list is what is currently on the toolbar, the left is what you can add to it. And you can change the order with the arrows on the right.

Really thank you again it works great also on home-made kepubs.

Glad you like it and thank you for being persistent and supplying good bug info,

[taming]

David, is anything you are planning going to be problematic when two people are using calibre--and have different books open , in process, finished? Currently I am the only one using the utility, but that could change.

[eXistenZ]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Firstly, I leave the purchased kepubs to Kobo. They can sync the reading position, so I let Kobo take care them.

For sideloaded books, my intention is have a way to automatically store the current reading position. It will probably be an extra job run after the current ones have finished.

At least on the first release, restore will stay manual. After a factory reset, sideload the books, let the device process them. Reconnect, select all the books that are on the device and restore the reading position. Preventing the automatic job from running or overriding the reading positions in calibre is the concern.

I think it actually works now, though I haven't tried it for a while. The "Clear if unread" is supposed to work like that. If this is not checked, and you store the position of a book that is unread, it should not change the calibre library. Just checked the code and that's what it saysm but I haven't tested it in a while.

About this, storing these infos from the ereader into calibre automatically seems a great feature to me, but if this happens just after the connection of the ereader, if user has just hard resetted the kobo the store action risks to start to soon an overwrite the data stored in calibre with empty one from the reader (hope it's clear what I want to explain).

A solution could be to let the auto storing action from just after the connection, to just before the disconnection (from the Eject Device command), I don't know
if it is possible, or another solution is to double the reading position creating an OLD and a NEW reading position for each book, so at the connection of the ereader, data in the NEW are moved in OLD as a safekeper, only after that reading positions in the kobo DB are stored to NEW, doing so if the store action from device to NEW is accidental the real data are safe in OLD ready to be restored (once again, hope it's clear what I want to say).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by taming

David, is anything you are planning going to be problematic when two people are using calibre--and have different books open , in process, finished? Currently I am the only one using the utility, but that could change.

Not a situation I had thought about. There shouldn't be a problem if they do not have the same books opened. But, I one of the read a book and finished it and recorded that, then when the other read the same book, their reading position would replace the stored finished state. It is sort of what would happen if you finished a book on the reader and passed the reader on to another person to read the same book.

The workaround would be to create two sets of the columns and change between them in the configuration for the two users.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Not a situation I had thought about. There shouldn't be a problem if they do not have the same books opened. But, I one of the read a book and finished it and recorded that, then when the other read the same book, their reading position would replace the stored finished state. It is sort of what would happen if you finished a book on the reader and passed the reader on to another person to read the same book.

The workaround would be to create two sets of the columns and change between them in the configuration for the two users.

Or tie the columns to a device with the option to change devices?

[jgoguen]

What about using two different calibre libraries?