[GUI Plugin] Kobo Utilities

[buffaloseven]

Just curious if a feature like this could work or if it would be too difficult...

I've had a couple instances where it would be handy to swap a book from internal to external memory or vice versa. Could this be done in this plugin while maintaining the single DB entry (I assume you'd just have to change the path to the file)?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

Just curious if a feature like this could work or if it would be too difficult...

I've had a couple instances where it would be handy to swap a book from internal to external memory or vice versa. Could this be done in this plugin while maintaining the single DB entry (I assume you'd just have to change the path to the file)?

It is possible, but not as easy as it sounds. The file path is actually used as a key and needs to be changed in a lot of places. I'll think about it, but I have a couple of other things I'm in the midst of.

In the meantime, if you want to move a book and keep the reading position, store the reading position, delete the book from the device, send it to the SD card and eject. Then connect and restore the reading position.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by davidfor

In the meantime, if you want to move a book and keep the reading position, store the reading position, delete the book from the device, send it to the SD card and eject. Then connect and restore the reading position.

Of course, you also have to archive it off the "main" device, or Kobo will try to download it again as soon as you connect to their server.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by auspex

Of course, you also have to archive it off the "main" device, or Kobo will try to download it again as soon as you connect to their server.

I was only thinking about sideloaded books. But, strangely enough, moving a downloaded kepub would actually be easier. Other than moving the book and covers, it should be only one database change.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I was only thinking about sideloaded books.

And I wasn't thinking of sideloaded books at all, because I couldn't think why I'd have them on two different cards... but it happens all the time that I download books from Kobo to calibre and sideload them to my external SD, then Kobo insists on downloading the same book to my Main storage.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by auspex

And I wasn't thinking of sideloaded books at all, because I couldn't think why I'd have them on two different cards... but it happens all the time that I download books from Kobo to calibre and sideload them to my external SD, then Kobo insists on downloading the same book to my Main storage.

That is a completely different circumstance to what I think buffaloseven was asking for. I interpreted the request as "I sideloaded a book on the main but like to move it to the SD card. Is there any way to do this without losing the reading stats, bookmarks etc?"

As far as the device is concerned, those are two completely separate books. The device is completely happy with having multiple copies of the the same book as long as the file path is different. And copies in different formats perfectly OK. And as to where the downloaded kepub goes, it is always in ".kobo/kepub" on the main memory unless there is no space on the drive left. Then it is put into "koboExtStorage/kepub" on the SD card.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That is a completely different circumstance to what I think buffaloseven was asking for. I interpreted the request as "I sideloaded a book on the main but like to move it to the SD card. Is there any way to do this without losing the reading stats, bookmarks etc?"

As far as the device is concerned, those are two completely separate books. The device is completely happy with having multiple copies of the the same book as long as the file path is different. And copies in different formats perfectly OK. And as to where the downloaded kepub goes, it is always in ".kobo/kepub" on the main memory unless there is no space on the drive left. Then it is put into "koboExtStorage/kepub" on the SD card.

If you filled up your main memory/storage temporarily with a large file would anything new or re-added than automatically go to SD card when you synced?

If you deleted a book and then filled main storage would that book then be readded to the SD card with bookmarks intact?

I have no urge to do this but I am curious

Helen

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

If you filled up your main memory/storage temporarily with a large file would anything new or re-added than automatically go to SD card when you synced?

If you deleted a book and then filled main storage would that book then be readded to the SD card with bookmarks intact?

I have no urge to do this but I am curious

Well, my curiosity got the better of me a while ago

I put a big file on the disk and left 10 or 20MB free. Then I archived a book and downloaded it again. The book and its covers were put on the SD card. After that, the book stayed there. After freeing the space, I'm pretty sure that when I archived and downloaded the same book, it went to the SD card again.

I don't remember if the book had bookmarks. But, I am sure these would have been OK. The bookmarks for kepubs are purely in the database and nothing in the various ids used refer to the disk.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Well, my curiosity got the better of me a while ago

I put a big file on the disk and left 10 or 20MB free. Then I archived a book and downloaded it again. The book and its covers were put on the SD card. After that, the book stayed there. After freeing the space, I'm pretty sure that when I archived and downloaded the same book, it went to the SD card again.

I don't remember if the book had bookmarks. But, I am sure these would have been OK. The bookmarks for kepubs are purely in the database and nothing in the various ids used refer to the disk.

Interesting. Thanks

Another experiment I keep meaning to try but haven't worked myself up to is filling the 32G SD card up and see if there are any memory conflicts with main memory. One of these days

Helen

[buffaloseven]

Originally Posted by davidfor

It is possible, but not as easy as it sounds. The file path is actually used as a key and needs to be changed in a lot of places. I'll think about it, but I have a couple of other things I'm in the midst of.

In the meantime, if you want to move a book and keep the reading position, store the reading position, delete the book from the device, send it to the SD card and eject. Then connect and restore the reading position.

I forget and can't get to my main computer right now…can your plugin store the bookmarks and notes as well, or does it need a whole DB backup for those?

And you were right, I was referring to side-loaded books.

[jbennion]

I have a Kobo Aura HD, and I have installed this plugin and have configured the custom columns. However, the custom columns are not getting populated, except for one book, and one book only. I don't know if there's a button I need to push to get it to query the device database and then populate these custom calibre columns? I see plenty of options for pushing information TO the Kobo, but nothing to have it "read" from the Kobo what's already there. I was assuming it would just populate this when Calibre is "getting list of books from device" job.

Two, on a related point, I would love to have a column that indicates the presence of annotations and bookmarks, so that I would know which books I would need to back up. I would like to just be able to back up ALL the annotations on books that have them, but the only way I found to do this is to select ALL the books on the device (even though the vast majority of the books don't have annotations), and then select "copy annotation for selected book".

Third, while there is the option to backup the annotation file, there is no option to restore annotation files, correct? Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything?

[auspex]

Yes, there's a button - but where that button is depends on how exactly you installed it. Mine's on the main toolbar. Select the books you want the reading status data for, then click on the menu arrow from the "Kobo" logo, and then the option "Store/Restore Current Bookmark". It's not going to automagically get bookmarks for everything — it can't really tell which books you may have been reading since the last update (or can it, David? What if you save the last sync time, and then get everything with a read date later than that?).

I'd rather like to be able to get the annotations for all books that have them, too, but it's the same situation as the bookmarks (not surprisingly, since bookmarks are considered a type of annotation). And you probably wouldn't want to get the annotations for all books more than once.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

I forget and can't get to my main computer right now…can your plugin store the bookmarks and notes as well, or does it need a whole DB backup for those?

And you were right, I was referring to side-loaded books.

Firstly, it's nice to know I'm right sometime. But, I won't tell my wife.

As to storing the bookmarks, yes and no. If it an epub or PDF on the main memory, there is an option to save the annotations file. This contains a copy of the annotations and bookmarks.

For kepubs and any books on the SD card, the bookmarks are only in the database. I don't have anything to store these except a full database backup. I had a look at adding this to the Annotations plugin, but haven't had a chance to go back to it.

[davidfor]

@jbennion: auspex is correct, you need to use the "Store/restore Current Bookmark" to get the reading status for the books. On the dialog that is displayed, choose "Store" to get them. I started work on automating this when the device is connected, but I have been distracted by a couple of other things.

I hadn't thought about indicating the existence of bookmarks on the device. I don't really like the idea of adding a column in the library to indicate it. It is something that can only be known when the device is connected and doesn't really mean much when it isn't. Showing it in the device list would be more sensible but, I'm not sure how.

Restoring the annotation files is manual at the moment. Simply copy the directories from where you saved them to "Digital Editions\Annotations" on the device. If you are only restoring one file, you need to recreate the directory structure for the files. I will add this to the ToDo list, but it will be fairly low in priority.

The whole area of annotations is one I am not happy with. What is in the plugin are basically quick and dirty things I could think of doing. I would like to do it better, but I haven't come up with a good way yet. And while I use lots of annotations, they are normally temporary to mark an error in a book that I then fix and remove the annotation.

The calibre and the driver includes a way to fetch them and add them to the comments in the library. It works but is fairly ugly. The Annotations plugin is interesting as it can fetch them to a different column and the formatting is better. But someone needs to write some code. I have part of it but haven't had a chance to return to it. I remember that I ran into a problem with it which is the reason I stopped at the time. But, both of these are read only: read from the device and put in the library. They can't go back.

Backing up and restoring the annotations file is only a partial solution as there are books that these don't exist for. To do it properly, the data in the database needs to be extracted and stored in a way that can be restored later. That probably isn't that hard. The question is the format and where to store it.

I'm open to any suggestions on how to do this.

[GeoffR]

I use this plugin to fix up the metadata on kepub books downloaded from Kobo. What I do is download the plain epub version and add it to Calibre, then connect my Glo so that the epub in Calibre is matched to the kepub on the device, then edit the epub's metadata and use the plugin to update the device. It has been working great, saves a lot of time compared to editing the database manually.

I also have a metadata plugboard in Calibre which transforms the authors names, so that the Calibre {authors} "Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter" appears as "Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter" on the device. This is important because the Kobo firmware sorts the name incorrectly if this is not done (it sorts the book under Baxter instead of Clarke).

However I have just noticed that the metadata plugboard is not being applied when I update metadata in the device library with the current plugin. It seems to be just sending the original untransformed {authors} string. I don't know which was the last working version, but I could test them if that would help.

I am using Calibre 0.9.41 with Kobo Utilities plugin 1.2.2.

(Edit: It appears to be the plugin rather than a problem with Calibre or the Kobo driver itself, as books sent using "send to device" have the metadata plugboard applied correctly.)