ebook reader app that sorts by series (calibre)

[xfinalheavenx]

I have been attempting to use Stanza with my iPad 3 but I figured it was time to move on. Is there an ebook reader that sorts by series as provided by calibre or tags at the very least? Sorting by author seems too limited.

All I want is the ability to download from calibre content server, some font options, brightness, and night/black background reading. Basic margin options would be nice as well as a dictionary but they are not necessary for me.

I have read multiple threads in this forum and it seems that megareader, shubook, and i2reader might be the most popular ones. Can these sort by series?

I find it very ironic that a free ebook app such as Stanza had so much more features and was overall a better app than all the pay ones out there...

[pwalker8]

Not that I've found. Several readers allow you to put books in collections, and arrange books manually within collections, but I haven't seen anything that simply sucks in the calibre tags. I've been looking for something like that every since the iPad 1 first came out.

There are a couple of book collection apps out there, ibookshelf for one, that will do what you want, but they don't let you read the book. ibookshelf is suppose to interact with megareader, but I haven't been able to get it to work reliably.

[FlorenceArt]

I don't need that feature myself, but from the many discussions here it seems that the only viable solution, if you want to keep your books sorted and organized, is to keep them in a file management app such as dropbox or goodreader. When you want to read a book, you go to the file management app and open it in your reader app using "open in". When you're no longer reading it you can delete it from the reader app to keep it lean and clean. It will still be in the file management app if you need it again.

Not really an ideal solution, but I don't think there is a better one available right now.

[dwig]

As a fall-back, you might consider using a Plugboard in calibre to insert the Series text at the beginning of the Title when sending a book to your device.

[kyteflyer]

I've just taken another look at ShubookSE. It won't pull the info from anywhere else, but it does give you the capacity to create Labels, which it then saves. You could creat a label for the series (eg.. Inspector Wexford) and apply that to every book in the series. Its not ideal and its not automatic, but it doesnt actually take very long, once the labels are defined.

[HarryT]

I find that Calibre plugboards provide an entirely satisfactory method of sorting by series. The plugboard prefixes the series name and number to the start of the title, and sorting by author then displays the series' in the correct order for that author. Works very well.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I find that Calibre plugboards provide an entirely satisfactory method of sorting by series. The plugboard prefixes the series name and number to the start of the title, and sorting by author then displays the series' in the correct order for that author. Works very well.

I really must learn how to define and use plugboards.

[HarryT]

Very easy.

In Calibre, select "Preferences", then "Metadata Plugboards". In the "Add new plugboard" line, fill it in as follows:

Format: Mobi
Device: Any device
Source: {series:|| }{series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}
Destination field: Title

then add a second plugboard which is the same, but has a format of "AZW3".

Now, every time you send a book to your Kindle, the book's title, if it's in a series, will be prefixed by the series name and number.

Eg, "Miss Marple 01 - The Body in the Library"

If the book doesn't have a series name specified in its Calibre metadata, the title won't be affected.

[kyteflyer]

Fantastic! Thanks, Harry

[HarryT]

You're very welcome.

[douowe]

Brilliant! Just the information I needed.

[anesthezea]

Have you tried Marvin for iOS?

[Turtle91]

Yes....Marvin sorts on calibre's series data, as well as other metadata (they are called subjects in Marvin)... You really can't beat Marvin for DRM free ePub reading on an iPad...and soon iPhone!