[GUI Plugin] Annotations

[davidfor]

As stated when you first reported this, the bug is in a routine run when a device is plugged in. The driver for the POCKETBOOK622 is missing the attribute "gui_name". Te annoying things is that the error is on a debug statement.

As the Annotations plugin does not support the Pocketbook devices, unless you have another device that it does, you should uninstall this. But, other than displaying an error each time you plugin the device, I don't think this will cause a problem.

I will be fixing this and the problem reported by Dfaure in the next week or so.

[LucyOne]

I use it with another device, so thanks in advance for fixing this.

[Dfaure]

Nice to see this fixed so fast.
Thanks

[davidfor]

Attached is a beta version of the plugin to fix two problems:

- The reported error when a Pocketbook device is connected
- Remembering the size of the Import Annotations dialog.

This will show as version 1.4.5. If everything is OK, I will release this as 1.4.6.

[LucyOne]

No error message anymore, thanks!

[IbnKhaldun]

Hi, very new to all this: can somebody just confirm for me that the following is true:

At present if I do the following:
1. Annotate a sideloaded item on Kindle
2. Import annotations to Calibre using the plugin
3. Delete the copy on the Kindle

I will not then be able to get the annotations back onto the Kindle?

Thanks!

[davidfor]

IbnKhaldun: This plugin only fetches annotation from the devices. It has now way to push them back. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to change.

[IbnKhaldun]

Well I guess I bought the wrong device!

Thanks for clarifying, though.

[davidfor]

If the purpose is to copy annotations back and for from devices, you haven't bought the wrong device. But that's because NO device supports it.

If you really wanted to, you could achieve it with a Kobo or Sony device. But, both would need someone to write the code to read and later update the database on the device.

[bopuc]

Hello,
Annotations plugin is at the very core of my calibre usage — my annotations are at the core of why I read — so thank you for the time and effort you put into this. Very much appreciated!

For the first time, without any change in my setup (calibre 2.44.1, annotation 1.4.3), I am suddenly getting this message when importing from my (same old) Kindle:
"Annotations from 5 books added to None"
Sure enough, they are not added to the Calibre database.

(They are however in the plugin's database… which I would love if you could confirm that that database is authoritative and persistent. Old versions of the plugin used it only as a temporary dump…)

I've checked the system logs and calibre isn't saying anything about it.

Any leads? Any more info I can provide to help figure it out?

many thanks in advance!
B.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by bopuc

Hello,
Annotations plugin is at the very core of my calibre usage — my annotations are at the core of why I read — so thank you for the time and effort you put into this. Very much appreciated!

For the first time, without any change in my setup (calibre 2.44.1, annotation 1.4.3), I am suddenly getting this message when importing from my (same old) Kindle:
"Annotations from 5 books added to None"
Sure enough, they are not added to the Calibre database.

(They are however in the plugin's database… which I would love if you could confirm that that database is authoritative and persistent. Old versions of the plugin used it only as a temporary dump…)

I've checked the system logs and calibre isn't saying anything about it.

Any leads? Any more info I can provide to help figure it out?

Have you changed libraries? The "None" in the message is because the column the annotations is to be stored in has not been set. If you open the configuration dialog and press OK, it will fix this but it will default to the "Comments" field.

The annotations are in the database and should be written to the books when you next do a fetch from the device. Or at least that's what I think will happen. It's been to long since I looked at that part of the code.

I'll post a fix for this shortly. Plus the changes I posted as a beta in August and completely forgot about.

[davidfor]

I have just updated the Annotations plugin to version 1.4.6. The change in this are:

• The reported error when a Pocketbook device is connected
• Remembering the size of the Import Annotations dialog.
• Default to using the Comments column if one hasn't been configured.

Apart from the last change, these have been in a beta version I released in August.

As usual, the update will be available through calibre in the next hour or so. Or you can download it from the first post. And if you see any problems, please report them here.

[bopuc]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Have you changed libraries? The "None" in the message is because the column the annotations is to be stored in has not been set. If you open the configuration dialog and press OK, it will fix this but it will default to the "Comments" field.

Aha! Yeah I did a bit of moving around… renamed my library for one. Didn't think for a second that would affect anything. Sure enough that fixed it (even with my custom Annotations table).

Many thanks! Back to normal.

Originally Posted by davidfor

The annotations are in the database and should be written to the books when you next do a fetch from the device. Or at least that's what I think will happen. It's been to long since I looked at that part of the code.

Can you confirm that that database is reliable? Last time I checked (maybe 2 years ago?) it was mainly used as a temporary transit point, or so I understood. I would much rather access it directly for my purposes than have to parse the HTML you are putting into the calibre database. (Oh if only you pushed in a JSON data dump as well…

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by bopuc

Can you confirm that that database is reliable? Last time I checked (maybe 2 years ago?) it was mainly used as a temporary transit point, or so I understood.

Yes, your right. I haven't looked at that code for ages. But, they should be there until the next time you fetch annotations.

I would much rather access it directly for my purposes than have to parse the HTML you are putting into the calibre database. (Oh if only you pushed in a JSON data dump as well…

There has been an occasional request for an export function, but I've never been happy with any of my ideas. A JSON dump is simple and might make for an easy import as well. I'll have a think about it.

[bopuc]

Thanks David,

(For context, I ask because I have built a system for myself* which pulls directly from calibre's SQL database.)

Originally Posted by davidfor

Yes, your right. I haven't looked at that code for ages. But, they should be there until the next time you fetch annotations.

"there until next time I fetch annotations" is not a reliable, permanent database. By the looks of it (I have opened the "annotations.db" database in a MySQL viewer), there is a table named "Kindle_Amazon_Kindle_annotations" and it appears to actually hold (mysteriously enough) most if not all of my Kindle annotations ever (I have been meticulous about keeping my My_Clippings.txt around.)

I want to know if the plugin is acting strangely or if the code, by design, keeps and maintains that full record (which would be great!).

Now, my limitation is that Python is not a programming language I know and so I do not know what your code is doing.

Originally Posted by davidfor

There has been an occasional request for an export function, but I've never been happy with any of my ideas. A JSON dump is simple and might make for an easy import as well. I'll have a think about it.

In my case I do not need an export function (because I already have one, one that needs to parse the HTML-encoded annotations through an XML parser), I would simply love it if the plugin took a copy of the data structure of what gets HTML-ified and stuck into the calibre database, JSON-ify it as well and stick that into an adjacent field (in the calibre database). No one needs to see it in the UI necessarily, but having access to it in the DB would be sweet. Well, for me anyways… cough… heh

If you pushed the current revision up to your GitHub repo for the project, I might clone it and try my hand at learning some Python (finally!).

Ideally, if your Annotations plugin can be *the* trusted Annotations importer, formatter and manager for calibre, I think that provides a huge amount of value if some better way of then re-consuming annotations, as I have built for myself*, also becomes available.

In any case, as it is it works for me, and I thank you again for the help with the hiccup the other day.

*http://boris.libra.re/library/book/6...5-178c23bb45a4