[Metadata Source Plugin] Question: Amazon.com

[silbaer]

Hi!

I have ebooks in german and in english. If I select "Germany" mostly all english ebooks get no metadata and if I select "USA" most if the german ebooks get no data. Is it possible to select both? Or to copy the plugin with an other name and select different countries? Or even a shortcut to toggle the country...

silbaer

[BetterRed]

@silbaer - I think this was fixed in latest release - see calibre - What's new

BR

[silbaer]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@silbaer - I think this was fixed in latest release - see calibre - What's new

Thanks for your answer, but unfortunately not. It works to fetch the metadata from amazon.com or amazon.de, but only from one of the sites at the time. I want to fetch from both (amazon.com and amazon.de) the same time without the need to switch in the setting of the plugin.

silbaer

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by silbaer

Thanks for your answer, but unfortunately not. It works to fetch the metadata from amazon.com or amazon.de, but only from one of the sites at the time. I want to fetch from both (amazon.com and amazon.de) the same time without the need to switch in the setting of the plugin.

@silbaer - the amazon metadata download is provided by the calibre core (albeit by a plugin), the Calibre/Plugins sub-forum is targeted at the optional plugins, so I am going to move this thread to the main calibre forum.

Would it help of you were to segregate books into specific Virtual Libraries based on the Language?

If you wanted to make an official enhancement request to use the Language code in the book to trigger searches to different Amazon sites you can do that here ==>> Bugs : calibre

BR

[Joanna]

I second your request (even just a simple toggle would help A LOT). In fact, I wanted to post a thread/feature request about it some time ago . Post it on launchpad, as @BetterRed has already suggested (and share the link here).

@BetterRed, unfortunately this doesn't work even for physical libraries. This setting is set per Calibre installation.

I think using the language code to trigger the right Amazon search wouldn't work for me (when I download metadata, I often don't have any language code or don't have the right one). I would prefer simple checkboxes in the settings (to check the Amazon stores I want to use for the search), and then initiating automatically multiple searches (as in the case of using multiple search plugins).

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Joanna

@BetterRed, unfortunately this doesn't work even for physical libraries. This setting is set per Calibre installation.

@Joanna - I was referring to the Language Metadata item for the books



BR

[Joanna]

Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. What did you mean by this?

Would it help of you were to segregate books into specific Virtual Libraries based on the Language?

Has the screenshot been taken from the "Edit Metadata" dialog? (I use another layout of that window.)

I know what the Language Metadata item for the books is . If the plugin was to choose the Amazon store depending on that, this would hamper my normal workflow. Usually, I hit "Extract ISBN", open "Edit metadata", check if the title of the book is the right one and try to download metadata straight away. Having downloaded the data, I check/modify the rest, including the language, if need be.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Joanna

Has the screenshot been taken from the "Edit Metadata" dialog? (I use another layout of that window.)

Yes - the all-in-one layout.

Originally Posted by Joanna

I know what the Language Metadata item for the books is . If the plugin was to choose the Amazon store depending on that, this would hamper my normal workflow. Usually, I hit "Extract ISBN", open "Edit metadata", check if the title of the book is the right one and try to download metadata straight away. Having downloaded the data, I check/modify the rest, including the language, if need be.

Firstly most of my books are not commercial books, they're academic, government papers so I don't get my metadata from the commercial book stores. That said I can normally determine a 'books' language based on the title.

But if you have an ISBN then you have the country of publication, and in many instances a books language will be the main language of that country ==>> see List of ISBN identifier groups.

Perhaps an option could be added to Extract ISBN Plug in to fill in the books language based on the country 'code' of the ISBN. Then it could be—

But, I think this would be better, the Amazon Metadata download function could choose the Amazon store based on the ISBN country prefix - so a 2 would lookup Amazon France, a 3 would lookup Amazon Germany, a 981 would lookup Amazon Singapore, if there is such a thing, Singapore publishes in English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.

Maybe a combination - if a book has an ISBN use its country prefix to determine which Amazon site, otherwise if a book has a Language use it to determine which Amazon site, otherwise use the US Amazon site.

Its never going to 100% accurate - I have a first-edition commercial book from an Ivy League university press that has the wrong ISBN! It was corrected in subsequent editions.

BR

[silbaer]

Why an automatism that can (and will) fail and not the ability to look in all amazon stores I want? Just a checkbox for the stores to look in and the results like now if I use more than one metadata source.

silbaer

[Joanna]

I have quite many academic books published e.g. in Poland and in Germany but in English... so in the case of my books, the ISBN would not be all that accurate.

Obviously, the fact you can't be 100% accurate doesn't mean you should stop looking for automatic solutions. However, in this case just like silbaer I would prefer a simple search in more than one Amazon store, and the ability to choose the right book manually. Alternatively, as I mentioned I'd be glad with a handy shortcut to switch between Amazon stores. It would be nice to have this option at least in the "Configure metadata download" dialog where you can quicky choose the metadata sources (even though I usually leave all my usual sources on, and don't change the configuration for a couple of books).

I've just checked: my usual config includes ADLIBRIS_SE, Amazon.com, BOL_DE, BOL_NL, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Google, ISBNDB, LubimyCzytac, Open Library and biblionetka.pl (so basically English, German, Polish, Dutch and Swedish). It would be nice to have more than one Amazon available for the search at the same time.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by silbaer

Why an automatism that can (and will) fail and not the ability to look in all amazon stores I want? Just a checkbox for the stores to look in and the results like now if I use more than one metadata source.

silbaer

@silbaer - you can make a formal request for an enhancement here ==>> Bugs : calibre

BR

[silbaer]

I have made a enhancement request and this is the reply:

This is not suitable for core calibre, where amazon is simply one of
several metadata sources. It could however be made into a standalone
amazon plugin, but that is not something I am interested in developing/maintaining.

status wontfix

So I think, this is a hint to grab the source from the original amazon.com plugin and implement this. Or simply a howto to install the plugin with a different name. But unfortunately I am not a phyton hacker...

silbaer

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by silbaer

I have made a enhancement request and this is the reply:



So I think, this is a hint to grab the source from the original amazon.com plugin and implement this. Or simply a howto to install the plugin with a different name. But unfortunately I am not a phyton hacker...

silbaer

@silbaer - I wonder if the Quick Preferences optional plugin could be used as a model to create a quick Amazon source switch plug-in (with a kb short) as you and/or Joanna have suggested.

BR

[eschwartz]

Or your could create individual per-country plugins.
Should be as simple as subclassing the "Amazon" class from

calibre.ebooks.metadata.sources.amazon

and restricting AMAZON_DOMAINS to one item I think?