[Android] Wish List

[nebby]

Originally Posted by chaley

Why? The message takes no real estate from anything else, does nothing toxic if accidentally tapped, and is useful for new users.

I can understand that, but why is it within the connect menu? It seems like an item that's more appropriate next to the help option of the main menu.

I guess I was just surprised to find myself viewing a web page when I accidentally missed the content server option, not realizing that there was a new option there.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by nebby

I can understand that, but why is it within the connect menu? It seems like an item that's more appropriate next to the help option of the main menu.

It would be my guess that since most major problems for folks running CC for the first time relate to connecting properly to calibre via wireless, that placing this link front and center under the connect menu is a giant plus toward directing folks to self correct their problems.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nebby

I can understand that, but why is it within the connect menu? It seems like an item that's more appropriate next to the help option of the main menu.

I guess I was just surprised to find myself viewing a web page when I accidentally missed the content server option, not realizing that there was a new option there.

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

It would be my guess that since most major problems for folks running CC for the first time relate to connecting properly to calibre via wireless, that placing this link front and center under the connect menu is a giant plus toward directing folks to self correct their problems.

DoctorOhh perfectly expressed my intention. However, I can instead put that button on the dialog that pops up when connection fails, which will serve the same purpose without creating the (very small) unhappiness from mistouches in the menu.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by nebby

... It seems like an item that's more appropriate next to the help option of the main menu.

... and it does already appear in both the 'Help' and 'About' menu options.

[binarygoddess]

Hopefully this is the right place for this!

First off, amazing app... LOVE IT!

There are a couple things that would pretty much make it the absolute MOST amazing calibre companion ever.

I believe I saw mentioned you were considering cloud connect? Please please please PLEASE do add this! I keep my library on dropbox, and I've been using Calibre Cloud Pro to access it on the go, but it doesn't allow me to search by series, and the book information does not display series numbers that have decimal points, so a book 0.5 or 0.75 (prequels to the series, for example) are displayed with no series number at all, and books 2 and 2.5 are both displayed as Book 2. I read a LOT of books in series, so it gets confusing, and annoying, and reporting this to the dev has gotten no response in months.

Secondly, it would be super nice if you could do, at least, an "open with" type operation when your app option isn't available. A couple things CCpro does right is that it allows you to click-upload books to google play when they are epubs, and more importantly, click-email mobi books to my kindle email address, which lets me get them into the "amazon clouds" and I can keep my reading progress synced between my Nexus 7, my Moto G phone and my Kindle Paperwhite. (CCPro supposedly will add books to your kindle app without the email, but it's never worked for me so.. meh)

I can obviously do these things manually once I get the books onto my device, it's just a couple neat features that would be cool to see pop up someday

Edited because the google play feature was in there, just a bit harder to find

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by binarygoddess

I believe I saw mentioned you were considering cloud connect? Please please please PLEASE do add this! I keep my library on dropbox, and...

I like to keep my books locally, so this is not something I would want, but I was thinking about this a bit and I think I might have come up with a way to do this that is much less development work then a full-on content server.

So, the really simple way to do this would be to just allow the user to select a dropbox folder as the default folder. Then work normally, except that instead of saving the books to a local directory, as you copy them from the computer, save them to dropbox. Then, when the person wants to do something with them, just copy them from dropbox to a local directory and proceed normally.

If you want to get more complicated, You can detect if the selected directory in dropbox is a Calibre folder and then skip the "copy file to dropbox" part. It will make things a little more complicated, because when you later copy them to open them locally, you will have to traverse the author/title directory structure on dropbox, but it is much friendly way to go for people who already have their library in dropbox.

You will have to have some sort of policy about how long to keep books locally, but the nice thing about this idea is that all of the parts of the program that don't deal with the actual book files will not need to change at all.

Originally Posted by binarygoddess

A couple things CCpro does right is that it allows you to click-upload books to google play when they are epubs,

Calibre Companion does this as well. Its on the menu when you are at book details.

[binarygoddess]

I'm not sure you understand what I want to do with cloud connect.. or maybe I don't understand what you are trying to say there.

I keep my whole calibre library in a dropbox folder, and I was using calbre2opds to browse my library from a web page and download books to my devices. It works great but every time I want to update the database I have to do it manually. Then I found Calibre Cloud Pro which connects to my dropbox and reads in the calibre library, which allows me to search and browse my library and then download the books I want to read, but there are the aforementioned annoyances.

I would like if Calibre Companion would offer a cloud connect option to allow me to browse my library when I am not at home, from the internet, and just like when you connect to the content server at home I'd be able to search and browse, and then copy over my books to the local device folder to do with what I will. It doesn't matter if someone else doesn't want to do this because it would be an option, like "content server" and "wireless device"

[binarygoddess]

Calibre Companion does this as well. Its on the menu when you are at book details.

Aha, I see that now, and that is great The emailing to the kindle email is more important to me though, since (at least at this time) my e-ink reader is a Kindle.

Now if only the Moon+ reader would put out their own e-ink reader... that would be perfection.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by binarygoddess

I'm not sure you understand what I want to do with cloud connect.. or maybe I don't understand what you are trying to say there.

I think I understand, but I believe that Chaley has said that he doesn't want to read the Calibre metadata directly. If you look through this thread, I think you will find some comments from him on this subject.

I was trying to come up with a compromise that allowed you to (at least) share the same data in dropbox even if it didn't give you everything you wanted.

[binarygoddess]

I don't see where he said that, but on the first post in this thread he has this:

Wish list items from other recent conversations:
-A content-server like interface to access a calibre library in the cloud.

And that's what I would like, so I just was adding my voice to the "me too" list of people who would like to see this done. If the "answer" is just a kludge then I can continue to use calibre2opds or CCPro despite their limitations, no big deal.

[kaufman]

I wasn't trying to discourage you from presenting your voice, and I apologize if I came off that way.

I was just trying to present (what seemed to me to be) an interesting idea.

It might not address your problem, but it's a possible solution to the "I keep my large book library in dropbox and I don't have much space on my device" problem.

[binarygoddess]

I could fit my entire library on my device if I wanted to, but then it would be only accessible from my device, the purpose to a cloud connect is to be able to access your library from anywhere, and any device and quite frankly to also be able to share my library with a chosen few others (only legal, un-drmed books of course, not advocating piracy here ) I could sell my nexus 7 and get a Sony Xperia Z2 and I'd be able to install an app and peruse my library from the coffee shop.

Aside from zero support or communication from the dev, and some weirdness with the series numbers, Calibre Cloud Pro does this very well. I thought it would be cool if this app would do it because I really love supporting apps that have active and responsive developers. I've already paid for Calibre Companion and I have no regrets, but for a cloud connect interface I'd be willing to make a further donation to support an excellent service. If it can't be done, I still do really enjoy the wireless device feature, that is super neat and I wish my Kindle did it.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by binarygoddess

I could fit my entire library on my device if I wanted to, but then it would be only accessible from my device, the purpose to a cloud connect is to be able to access your library from anywhere, and any device and quite frankly to also be able to share my library with a chosen few others (only legal, un-drmed books of course, not advocating piracy here ) I could sell my nexus 7 and get a Sony Xperia Z2 and I'd be able to install an app and peruse my library from the coffee shop.

Aside from zero support or communication from the dev, and some weirdness with the series numbers, Calibre Cloud Pro does this very well. I thought it would be cool if this app would do it because I really love supporting apps that have active and responsive developers. I've already paid for Calibre Companion and I have no regrets, but for a cloud connect interface I'd be willing to make a further donation to support an excellent service. If it can't be done, I still do really enjoy the wireless device feature, that is super neat and I wish my Kindle did it.

I keep my Calibre library in dropbox, but I also have my entire library on my Nexus 7 as well - why not do both if you have room? Any meta data I update in Calibre automatically gets updated on my tablet when I connect wirelessly so it's always in sync and I can also update my read column from Calibre Companion. If I am using my phone away from home I can download a book to it using the content server thru Calibre Companion . I guess I can't see what Calibre Cloud does that Calibre Companion doesn't except I Calibre's content server.

[binarygoddess]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I keep my Calibre library in dropbox, but I also have my entire library on my Nexus 7 as well - why not do both if you have room? Any metadata I update in Calibre automatically gets updated on my tablet when I connect wirelessly so it's always in sync and I can also update my read column from Calibre Companion. If I am using my phone away from home I can download a book to it using the content server thru Calibre Companion . I guess I can't see what Calibre Cloud does that Calibre Companion doesn't except I Calibre's content server.

I'm confused as to how you get to calibre's content server when you are away from home, how does your phone see your local home network when you are outside of that network? Do you have a VPN? Is there some other feature of calibre that I'm missing? Please do enlighten me! I'd love it if this feature exists and I'm just not seeing it!

I do not have a VPN at this time so I keep my calibre library in dropbox, and Calibre Cloud Pro connects to my dropbox and loads in my calbre library so I can browse and search it. It has some glitches in the way series data is displayed, but otherwise is a pretty elegant solution. Sadly for me the series data is important to me, so it really mars the experience for me.

I >could< keep all my files on my nexus 7, but I see no reason to have 4 gigs of space used up when I can just pop into an app and grab just the books I want to read. I don't use the "read" column in calibre or ... anywhere. But the main reasons to use a cloud connect is because I read my books on 3 different devices depending on the situation. I read on my phone in an absolute reading emergency in the unlikely event I did not bring my kindle or my nexus, mostly I just carry my nexus and use it to read when I am out, but I ultimately prefer the reading experience and battery life on the Kindle. With my library on dropbox I can access said library through calibre2opds on the kindle (not perfect but it works), and with Calibre Cloud Pro on either my phone or nexus, so if I have run out of books to read on the device, and I'm not at home (and this does happen to me, because I read a lot, and I read fast) I can access my full library no matter where I am or what I'm reading on.

I mean I could go into much further detail on why, when and where I prefer to use each of the devices, but in the end all that matters is that I DO use all three and I like that if I have my book in the amazon cloud I can just sync reading progress between all three of them. It's the ONLY thing keeping me on a Kindle right now. If there was a Google Play Books eReader or a Moon+ eReader that did not suck I'd jump on it. (There is a thing called Onyx Boox Lynx or somesuch, but it's really an eInk "tablet" and all the reports I've read indicate it is not really ready yet)

Right now I much prefer Calibre Companion as a way to access my library when I'm at home, but when it comes right down to it I mostly need to access my library when I'm not at home, so the addition of a Content Server accessed through the cloud, for ME, would be the absolute coolest addition that could be made.

[Glorfindel]

port forwarding. but I am still trying to figure out how to do that
EDIT- Never mind, this is the wrong thread