Aura H2O Organising Books - Directories

[TheBigKangaroo]

Hi all

Well after persevering with 3 Sony PRS readers which constantly froze, I just got a Kobo H20 edition 2. To early to appraise it but I have a question if I may. Why cant I/how can I organise books similar to that done on computer; directories. At a minimum, being able to group books as either fiction or non fiction. The readers is claimed to be able to hold 6,000 books but without a "cataloguing feature, this would be prohibitively cumbersome. Does anyone have any ideas.

Thanks in advance

Darren

[davidfor]

What you do with the directory structure on a Kobo device doesn't matter (as long as it doesn't start with a dot). When the device sees a book, it is processed and the details are added to an internal database. When using the UI to look at books, the details come from the database and do not include anything about the directory structure.

The book lists include filtering (all, unread, finished, reading and a few other things) and sorting (title, series, author, recent, date added, size, format). And you can search through your library. The search uses the title, author and series. Recent firmware has an Authors list. Selecting an author in the list shows all their books on the device. There are also collections. You can create the collection however you want. And book can be in as many collections as you like, or none.

The collections part is the only bit that isn't automatic. Putting a lot of books into collections on the device is slow an painful. If you use calibre, it can create the collections as the books are sent. And the collections can be made based on most columns. There is at least one other way to bulk create collections, one of which will use the directory structure.

So, to answer the question, "Why cant I/how can I organise books similar to that done on computer; directories.", you can't with the Kobo software. And personally, I don't want to. I haven't organised books on my computer like that for a long time.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by TheBigKangaroo

Hi all

Well after persevering with 3 Sony PRS readers which constantly froze, I just got a Kobo H20 edition 2. To early to appraise it but I have a question if I may. Why cant I/how can I organise books similar to that done on computer; directories. At a minimum, being able to group books as either fiction or non fiction. The readers is claimed to be able to hold 6,000 books but without a "cataloguing feature, this would be prohibitively cumbersome. Does anyone have any ideas.

Thanks in advance

Darren

What you can do is organize your books like you did on your Sony with collections. You just have to go into Calibre and edit the settings in the driver and go.

To do this...

Preferences -> Sending books to device and set metadata management to Automatic management. Then Calibre will automatically update the collections every time your Kobo is connected.

1. Click Preferences
3. Sending books to devices
4. Automatic management
5. Apply
6. Click Plugins
7. Search for kobo reader device interface
8. Click Customize
9. Click Extra customization
10. Put in the dialog box the columns you want to use for tags and series. I use tags, series And given that you have had Sony, those would be appropriate columns
11. Check Upload Black and White covers
12. Check Upload covers for book (newer readers)
13. Check show expire books
14. The others are up to you if you want checked or not. I have them unchecked.
15. Click OK
16. Click Apply
17. Clock Close

If a requester does pop up asking to restart, click to restart Calibre. If you don't get such a requester, go to step 14.
18. Restart Calibre

[TheBigKangaroo]

Hi Davidfor and JSWOLF. wow, what dont you 2 know?! That is awesome advice. I was a bit premature when I put my post up because I had learned a bit more after using it for a while. My thoughts so far, it is 100 times better than the Sony's I had. The sony's just seemed to struggle with EVERYTHING. It was so slow and unreliable. The Kobo seems very good and it has invigorated my interest in reading. Just if it interests anyone, there is a book called "The Happiness Trap" written by an Australian doctor which I highly recommend people read. I am 55 years old and clearly have had my head "up me bum" for far too long in life and this "self help" book as hit a raw nerve with me. I say "raw" because it was very confronting for me to "Accept" all the things I had done wrong in life but on a positive side, better late than never. I should add, i have NO interest, financial or otherwise by recommending it other than the profound it had on me. I do not know the author at all. If this post helps only ONE person them I am happy. Thanks again very much for your reply.
All the best

Darren (TheBigKangaroo)

[tigran]

Originally Posted by TheBigKangaroo

Well after persevering with 3 Sony PRS readers which constantly froze, I just got a Kobo H20 edition 2. To early to appraise it but I have a question if I may. Why cant I/how can I organise books similar to that done on computer; directories. At a minimum, being able to group books as either fiction or non fiction. The readers is claimed to be able to hold 6,000 books but without a "cataloguing feature, this would be prohibitively cumbersome. Does anyone have any ideas.

Yes, of course you can. You must install three absolutely essential pieces of software on the Kobo:

1. Kobo Start Menu
2. Koreader
3. CoolReader

I am not sure about "Edition 2" but on Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Aura H2O, Kobo Touch and Kobo Mini all these programs run absolutely fine.

So, you should organise your books under .Books directory ('.' to make sure that if you accidentally boot into the proprietary rubbish so-called "software" it won't try to "index" them into its own stupid so-called "database") and both Koreader and CoolReader will be able to see them.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tigran

Yes, of course you can. You must install three absolutely essential pieces of software on the Kobo:

1. Kobo Start Menu
2. Koreader
3. CoolReader

Forget CoolReader. It's shite.

But if you are using an H2O2, forget the lot. It won't work.

[boriar]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Forget CoolReader. It's shite.

But if you are using an H2O2, forget the lot. It won't work.

I think you should stop using those adjectives. If you don´t like coolreader, well is your opinion but don´t insult the work of other people.
And about the second point. Both CoolReader and KOReader work on H2O2 and tshering is working in the unique problem with KSM+H2O2 (rotation screen) and testing with more people is necessary.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by boriar

And about the second point. Both CoolReader and KOReader work on H2O2 and tshering is working in the unique problem with KSM+H2O2 (rotation screen) and testing with more people is necessary.

Does KOReader work properly once it's run even though KSM has rotated the screen?

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does KOReader work properly once it's run even though KSM has rotated the screen?

KSM does not normally have any effects on KOReader's functioning, with the exception of perhaps having the light still on or the WiFi when KOReader is started. I don't have an H2O2, and I don't know what would be causing an issue, but tshering has dealt with rotation issues, in the past, and hopefully he can find the time to fix this one. It would go faster if more H2O2 users get involved.

Luck;
Ken

[boriar]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

KSM does not normally have any effects on KOReader's functioning, with the exception of perhaps having the light still on or the WiFi when KOReader is started. I don't have an H2O2, and I don't know what would be causing an issue, but tshering has dealt with rotation issues, in the past, and hopefully he can find the time to fix this one. It would go faster if more H2O2 users get involved.

Luck;
Ken

Thanks, that's exactly what I want to say (you did it more complete) in my post before.

[ikkentobi]

I like the combination of Kobo Start Menue with Coolreader and a hierarchical directory structure (exported with calibre). I use this scheme exclusively (on a aura hd and a first edition h2o) without any problems.

[JSWolf]

Is KOReader or Coolreader better at handling ePub? I know KOReader is better at handling PDF.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is KOReader or Coolreader better at handling ePub? I know KOReader is better at handling PDF.

That is subjective, and is a moving target as both KOReader and the coolreader engine for KOReader is being improved all the time. (There are also other lib improvements/changes for handling things like images.) The main thing I find "better", (compared to Nickel, in my case) is the wider range of ebooks that KOReader can handle well enough to enjoy the story. This includes epubs that Nickel would reject. I find that well constructed commercial epubs, that I buy and convert from a store format, to be of varying quality but all good to read. The same for most of my old .pdb ebooks.

Is there something I may be missing by not reading kepubs? Perhaps, but I find I can live without finding out whatever it might be. As it is, I have a large library of mostly epub ebooks that are enjoyable reading.

Luck;
Ken

[tshering]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does KOReader work properly once it's run even though KSM has rotated the screen?

The main problem is that there is no mouse/touch driver for the H2O2 that KSM could use. I think the screen rotation could be easily solved. Last time I looked into the KOReader code, I did not see any adaption for H2O2.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tshering

The main problem is that there is no mouse/touch driver for the H2O2 that KSM could use. I think the screen rotation could be easily solved. Last time I looked into the KOReader code, I did not see any adaption for H2O2.

So why is boriar saying that KOReader works on the H2O2?