[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[Vaesse]

At long last, we're feeling better enough.

My brother says this should give you series, and when there's no series, author.

{series:'ifempty($,field("author_sort"))'}

[Casseres]

Originally Posted by Vaesse

At long last, we're feeling better enough.

My brother says this should give you series, and when there's no series, author.

{series:'ifempty($,field("author_sort"))'}

Glad to hear!

I did get that part of the code. I am just trying to find if there is a simpler way of appending "- series" and "- author" to the collection names, because some series are titled after the main character's name and I want to make sure there is no confusion.

The long code I have in my previous post works and does that, but it's not very elagent.

However More importantly, I'm having a problem with the plugin not actually putting the books in collections on my Kindle. The report from the plugin looks good, but on the Kindle itself, none of the books are put in any collections (and I did restart it per the instructions and my Kindle (Keyboard) is registered).

[tumchiemac]

I'm having that same problem since I updated Calibre and Kindle Collections.

[Vaesse]

What I do for that is use author sort (last, first) for authors, and series name (if based on character) would be "first last". But I'll ask my brother tomorrow to look at the code and tell me how to append that for you.

[Kharr]

Hi,

I have collections and inside each of them I have authors who wrote more than one book, and even series, and I would like to have it displayed better than how it is today, as if I open the fantasy collection, I get the list of all books having the same tag.
What I would like, if possible, is to have the possibility, inside a collection, to regroup series so I would see only one row and then by clicking on it I would display all the books from the serie.

Could anyone help me please ?

[meme]

Not possible with the Kindle's implementation of collections. At best you can create multiple collections at the top level that include a subset of your main collection (e.g. fantasy_all, fantasy_author1, fantasy_author2).

[Kharr]

Too bad ...

Thanks a lot for your answer

[gers1978]

Originally Posted by meme

Based on the debug output it looks like you ran Preview successfully and then ran Customization at which point it crashed. Customization actually completed and saved your updates ('Customization saved data') but the plugin crashed when returning back to calibre.

You said it crashed the other way as well - restart in debug mode, run/save customizations, then run preview - if it crashes can you post the relevant debug output. It may be I need to modify the code to print more debugging information for this issue.

The Kindle Collections menu item doesn't appear anymore in Debub mode??

[edwdecarlo]

Originally Posted by Kharr

Hi,

I have collections and inside each of them I have authors who wrote more than one book, and even series, and I would like to have it displayed better than how it is today, as if I open the fantasy collection, I get the list of all books having the same tag.
What I would like, if possible, is to have the possibility, inside a collection, to regroup series so I would see only one row and then by clicking on it I would display all the books from the serie.

Could anyone help me please ?

I also have a Kindle and have struggled with its limited series/collection/list support. Here is what I have done to handle cases where I have Sub-series, as well as keeping track of the series order of my books.

Create 2 new Calibre columns (for both fields, you can set the Column Heading value to what whatever is meaningful, but the Lookup Name value must be what is specified below):

sub_series - Column Type: Text column for keeping series-like information
title_series - Column Type: Column built from other columns

Here is the template for title_series (copy-paste everything in the Code box below into the column's Template field):

program:
t_prefix='S';
s_index=test(field('series'), contains(field('series_index'), '[.]', template('{series_index:3.2f}'), template('{series_index:3.0f}')), '');
s_mult=contains(t_prefix, '^[S]$', 1, contains(s_index, '[.]', contains(s_index, '^0[.]', 100, 1), 1));
s_index=test(s_index, re(multiply(s_index, s_mult), '[.][0]$', ''), '');
ss_index=test(field('#sub_series'), contains(field('#sub_series_index'), '[.]', template('{#sub_series_index:3.2f}'), template('{#sub_series_index:3.0f}')), '');
ss_mult=contains(t_prefix, '^[S]$', 1, contains(ss_index, '[.]', contains(ss_index, '^0[.]', 100, 1), 1));
ss_index=test(ss_index, re(multiply(ss_index, ss_mult), '[.][0]$', ''), '');
strcat(field('title'), test(s_index, strcat(' [', t_prefix, ':', s_index, ']'), ''),  test(ss_index, strcat(' [S', t_prefix, ':', ss_index, ']'), ''))

With the code above, the #title_series value will be as follows:

Book with no series/sub-series:

'Book Title'

Book with series and no sub-series (assuming first book in series):

'Book Title [S:1]'

Book with series and sub-series (assuming first book in series and sub-series):

'Book Title [S:1] [SS:1]'

Set up a Calibre Metadata Plugboard as follows (this will use the #title_series value to set the Kindle title value):

Format: any format
Device: I picked KINDLE2 since I have a Kindle Gen 2 Keyboard, but pick the appropriate one for your device
Source Template (first row): {#title_series}
Destination Field (first row): title

Under the Kindle Collections config, I have set it up so that collections are created for both the standard Kindle Series column and the new Sub-series column (I prefix the Series with ':S:' and the Sub-series with ':SS:', but you can use whatever works best for you). Note: Any book within a sub-series will appear in both the Series list and the Sub-series list.

Granted, this is not the prettiest, but it does overcome the Kindles inability to handle sub-series and orders.

Hope this helps.

[edwdecarlo]

Opp, just as I hit post I realized that the title may have been misleading. The limitations this is meant to help overcome is with the Kindle device, not the Kindle Collections plug-in. The plug-in rocks.

[BeccaPrice]

Can I manage kindle collections for books that are already on my Kindle (k3) or do I need to take them off the kindle, modify the collection tags on my computer, and then reload the book on my kindle?

[kiwidude]

@Becca - there are no "tags" as such on books for collections for Kindles. There is just a json index file stored in the Kindle which keeps track of what books are in each collection. You can manually edit collections that you are maintaining on your Kindle using the "Edit Collections" feature of this plugin on the dropdown menu. Alternatively you can generate your collections on the Kindle from calibre using metadata from your library (like by author or tags). And some users use a feature allowing the collections to come from a custom column they setup, so changiing a collection for a book is a matter of changing the value in that column and then running the plugin's "Create collections" feature again.

[ninki]

Hi,
Any idea how do I get my collections to authors sort but if they have a tag, then only appear in that tag folder?
thanks

[Vaesse]

For tag, and if no tags author sort, use a custom column with this:

{tags:'ifempty($,field("author_sort"))'}

[fxtrtr]

Will this be updated to work with the Kindle touch at some point?