iPad Calibre alternative for iPad

[crackhammer]

Hello folks,

So after a lot of deliberation, I ordered 64GB iPad 1 (refurbished) yesterday and it will arrive in about a week. My question here is, is there any app that can manage my whole Calibre library (about 2000 books + articles, most of them are pdfs). I love Calibre and though not as fast as I would like, it does the job exactly as I want, specifically with tagging books and articles, so I find it super easy to find the book or article I want in this rather big library.

I went through this forum and other members have suggested apps like GoodReader, Stanza or Kindle for reading and sometimes managing pdfs. (BTW, Stanza doesn't work on my Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit machine) What is not very clear to me is, which of these (or other apps) support tagging, as it is one of the 'most important' feature I will be looking for, otherwise it will take a lot of time for me to find the book or article that I want to read.

In nutshell, is there any iPad app that will mirror my Calibre library?

Many thanks for your input.

[Nexutix]

Let's request Kovid. He may release iPad version.

[susan_cassidy]

Calibre supports iPad. I know of nothing that actually runs on the iPad that does something similar.

[gwynevans]

There's nothing that runs on the iPad like Calibre, but you could have your local Calibre run as a server and access that over a local WiFi network (or even over the internet, if you open up your firewall) from Safari to browse then download books.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

There's nothing that runs on the iPad like Calibre, but you could have your local Calibre run as a server and access that over a local WiFi network (or even over the internet, if you open up your firewall) from Safari to browse then download books.

+1. You could also use Stanza to access Calibre's OPDS feeds.

As long as the ebooks are tagged properly in Calibre, the tags on downloaded ebooks show up as categories in Stanza. You might need to convert the ebooks to apply metadata changes, though. Personally, even if Stanza can group books by category, I find it easier to search for books using the Calibre OPDS feed. You get a lot more ways to view content that way (e.g. by series, publisher, or even with custom columns).

[Mickey330]

I use Calibre2OPDS, which puts a catalog of your Calibre books online for accessibility from the iPad. My Calibre library is also online - both the catalog and my books are in the public folder of Dropbox.

It works well, for me - I can access any book and have it "Open In..." any e-reader app.

The hardest part is the wait to upload all the catalog data info to Dropbox. If you've got a lot of books, it takes a while.

Still, worth it to me. YMMV.

Marilyn

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Mickey330

I use Calibre2OPDS, which puts a catalog of your Calibre books online for accessibility from the iPad. My Calibre library is also online - both the catalog and my books are in the public folder of Dropbox.

It works well, for me - I can access any book and have it "Open In..." any e-reader app.

The hardest part is the wait to upload all the catalog data info to Dropbox. If you've got a lot of books, it takes a while.

You don't need to use Calibre2OPDS. If you leave your PC on, you could just run the Calibre content server which creates OPDS feeds. Bonus with using Calibre server, search function works.

[ipadaltkc]

It sounds like this Calibre2OPDS option is a much better and cheaper option than going with something like the kindle tablet fire's amazon e-book downloading option from Amazon. Do the Calibre books cost anything or can you access these for free?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by ipadaltkc

It sounds like this Calibre2OPDS option is a much better and cheaper option than going with something like the kindle tablet fire's amazon e-book downloading option from Amazon. Do the Calibre books cost anything or can you access these for free?

Calibre is primarily a library management program.

There are plenty of free ebooks (mostly out of copyright classics) from Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks, Google Books, etc. However, if you're looking to get bestsellers, etc, the only legal way to get them is either to buy them or to borrow a copy from the library.

[ipadaltkc]

Very cool! I'm also curious before buying a device, have you heard if you can integrate the I-pad or Tablet Fire with your TV? Another words can you use it kind of like a TV controller so to speak…I know you can do some programming with these devices I just don't know what the limitations are and would like to know before buying one.

[pagansoul]

I use my iPad as a remote for my Sonos Sound system and my Macs and the same apps can be used on the iphone. There is also an app called REMOTE that people use but not myself so I don't know how good it is.

The Kindle Fire is pretty much an Amazon thing, the apps are not so ever-reaching.

[szweiner2]

Could someone explain the steps used to access my calibre books through wifi to download and read my iPad. I've read the posts pointing out that many of you do this but I have trouble following the intricacies of accomplishing this task.

Thanks

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Nexutix

Let's request Kovid. He may release iPad version.

First there would have to be Python programming language for iPad, then a lot of third-party utilities and components, such as QT gui library and imagemagick, would need to be available on iPad.
Chance of something like that happening is *extremely* low. Apple is fighting tooth and nail any possibility of ANY scripting/programming tool being available for iPad. Because if there was something like Python programming language plus whatever GUI widget library that Calibre uses available then people could avoid paying that 30% fee Apple collects for any program running on their iGadgets.
And rewriting from scratch Calibre using approved Apple programing toolkit for iDevices would be extremely labor intensive (if not impossible).

There is, however, as some previous posters mentioned, a web server built into Calibre, so as long as you are on local LAN (a WiFi network at home, for example) you can access your Calibre library on your PC.
Just start Calibre, go to Preferences, Sharing, Sharing over net, and click start server.
Now start browser at the same PC and type address localhost:8080 (or 127.0.0.1:8080) to the URL bar. You should see Calibre interface. Have a look it this is what you want.
If that doesn't work, you might have to set to firewall in your operating system to let out port 8080 or whatever port you have configured Calibre to operate on.
When that works, you can try url 192.168.1.30:8080 on the iPad. Please replace 192.168.1.30 with the actual IP address of your PC with Calibre running.

If you have static public IP address for your PC from your provider, this will work even over Internet. When you wish to enable that over Internet, do use some non-standard port address instead of 8080, and set up a strong password.

[kyteflyer]

I've begun to use calibre only as a management utility in the sense of getting all the meta-info into the epub and then saving it out again to a folder, the contents of which I then upload to Sugarsync and/or box.net. I still have no idea why I am unable to access the server with my idevices. It works fine to talk to itunes (and obviously thats how I get books into iBooks) and it works fine to talk to my Sony PRS650. But not the iDevices. So, I keep my books online where they are always accessible to me. I started playing with Calibre2OPDS but with sugarsync et al, its not really needed.

[mr_mahermahey]

Originally Posted by kacir

First there would have to be Python programming language for iPad, then a lot of third-party utilities and components, such as QT gui library and imagemagick, would need to be available on iPad.
Chance of something like that happening is *extremely* low.

It's not *extremely* low, they are all available on ios. There are qt based apps in the app store, and probably imagemagick ones. Python probably has the furthest to go before it's worth spending time on, but there is a python for ios ide and app.

http://pythonforios.com
http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/08/09/...house-platform
http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/projec...0000006Kxu2EAC
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php