Calibre 0.7 + Apple iDevices (Archived)

[GRiker]

@DevilChild_LA: Good find, I've added that functionality.

I'm also tweaking the title to add the series info as requested by earlier posters in this thread, so it now looks like this in the Category view (using the example Asimov titles from that posting):

Lije Baley
The Caves of Steel - Lije Baley 1
The Naked Sun - Lije Baley 2
The Robots of Dawn - Lije Baley 3

If a book is part of a series, the title will sort in all the lists (Titles, Authors, Categories) by series - number.

I'll do some more testing, if it makes the cut it will be available in 0.7.3.

Thanks for the lead.

G

[JeFurry]

Originally Posted by GRiker

that seems like a workable solution. The series number -> disc number is easy, since that metadata isn't currently used for any other purpose. And thanks for letting me know the driver's working well for you.

@JeFurry?

Sorry for the slow reply — real life getting in the way as usual.

My take on this is that whatever the iPad lets you sort by is preferable, since the ultimate goal is to be able to peruse a series in order. iBooks offers "Bookshelf/Titles/Authors/Categories". Authors definitely shouldn't be changed, Categories can (but since I doubt we want one category per book, can only be changed to the series title, and that doesn't necessarily offer a sequence). Titles *could* be changed, but it's probably a last resort.

Do we know how the Bookshelf order is defined? Is it simply the order of uploading, or does it respect other metadata such as track/disc numbers?

Many thanks for considering this, GRiker & Kovid.

-Jef.

[JeFurry]

That'll teach me to read all the changes to a thread before I reply!

Originally Posted by DevilChild_LA

It would be most helpful in iBooks if they could at least sort properly. In addition to the changes GRiker had just mentioned, if the series and series number could be populated to the sort name, and sort artist fields, etc...they could at least be displayed in the correct order.

Now that's a fine idea.

Originally Posted by GRiker

@DevilChild_LA: Good find, I've added that functionality.
[…]
If a book is part of a series, the title will sort in all the lists (Titles, Authors, Categories) by series — number.

That sounds pretty much perfect — great work, all of you!

[JeFurry]

Originally Posted by setherd

A friend has an iPad and she wants to try reading some ebooks. we work together and I have many on my laptop.....but how the heck can I use my laptop (running ubuntu linux) to get some ebooks to her? I tried emailing some to her but of course apple couldn't let you simply import a file

A partial workaround is that if you have Stanza installed on your iPad (which is actually a good reader — not quite as pretty as iBooks, but in some ways a better reading experience) you can then receive DRM-free ePubs via email on the iPad itself. Just tap the attachment icon in the message, and the iPad offers to open the file in Stanza. Doing so will copy it into Stanza's Library.

On the other hand, if you have Stanza installed, you can connect directly to Calibre's content server over the Web, and select individual items or series to install. This works beautifully and, because ePubs are usually not large files, is even usable over a low bandwidth connection such as 3G, or talking to a machine at home over a poor ADSL connection like mine. I was recently chuffed to bits when I found I didn't have a book handy, and I was able to SSH to my Mac at home, launch Calibre, and then grab the book from the server straight to the Pad.

The downside of all this in your particular case is that it's not going through iTunes or doing things the "normal" way, so it may add complexity to your friend's setup rather than reduce it. Still, hope it helps.

-Jef.

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by GRiker

@DevilChild_LA:
I'm also tweaking the title to add the series info as requested by earlier posters in this thread, so it now looks like this in the Category view (using the example Asimov titles from that posting):

Lije Baley
The Caves of Steel - Lije Baley 1
The Naked Sun - Lije Baley 2
The Robots of Dawn - Lije Baley 3

If a book is part of a series, the title will sort in all the lists (Titles, Authors, Categories) by series - number.

I'll do some more testing, if it makes the cut it will be available in 0.7.3.
G

After testing, I realized that I can't rename the book with the series info, or it breaks calibre's ability to detect that a book on the device matches a book in the database. In other words, if the titles are different between the device and the database, the 'On Device' checkmark will not be displayed.

However, the sorting feature works very nicely, as does using the Series name as the Category for the book.

G

[blysik]

What's the best way to update a book on my ipad, after I do something like put a new cover image, or change it in some other way?

[GRiker]

After you've made revisions to the metadata in calibre (changed title/author/tags/cover), with the book highlighted in the main library window, click Send to device.

If that doesn't work, select the book in the Reader window, click Remove books, or delete the book in iBooks while disconnected, then reconnect and download it again from calibre.

There have been many bug fixes and code improvements in 0.7.3, scheduled for release this weekend. Simply sending the book again should do the right thing.

There is a known caching bug in iBooks 1.0.1 that causes it to continue displaying the initial cover downloaded with a book. Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of the old cover is to uninstall iBooks. Hopefully that will be fixed in iBooks 1.1 which should be released 6/21.

G

EDIT: 0.7.3 is now available.

[GRiker]

Calibre 0.7.3 is now available. If you're an iPad user, please upgrade for important bug fixes and improvements.

Also, please review the overview contained in the first post in this thread. It has been updated to reflect the latest details about the iPad driver.

G

[tlrowley]

Just downloaded 7.3 and sent some books to my iPad. The album name seems to be getting set incorrectly. In iTunes, I looked at a file I sent yesterday, and it was fine, but a file I sent today got the less-than-descriptive album name of "0c25cba3-c6e2-426e-8711-be5678dee523" The "name" and "author" fields are correct, this is the "album name" field. The genre is set to the series name, but I didn't see the series number set anywhere - did you change your mind on this?

Thanks for the continuing support - it really is appreciated.

Tracey

ETA - okay, I found the sorting info - great idea to "hide" it in the sorting artist field - seems to work great. I still haven't figured out if there's a method to the album field yet.

[GRiker]

@tlrowley: The change to the album name was a necessary tweak in 0.7.3. The 'Name' field is the real title of the book. The album field is only visible in iTunes.

The string of characters you see in the album field is the uuid for the book, a unique string for each book. In a nutshell, I need a way to positively identify a book on the device. Suppose that you send 'The War of the Wurlds' to the device (typo intended), then later correct the title to 'The War of the Worlds'. Calibre's metadata title is now different than the title on the device. I have to find and delete the obsolete copy before sending the updated one, and the only way I can do that is with a guaranteed-to-match characteristic, the uuid.

iTunes offers three search fields - name, artist and album. I had to shoehorn the uuid into one of those fields, and since name and artist are used in the iBooks UI, it had to be album, which is fairly meaningless in the context of a book.

Probably more than you wanted to know, but that's the reasoning behind the change.

And, as you discovered, I couldn't append the series name and number to Series titles, because then the 'On Device' checkmark wouldn't recognize the renamed book on the device.

G

[tlrowley]

I can understand the reasoning, but, like the Calibre directory structure that causes so much distress, some of us use the iTunes directory structure directly, too, and this makes that unreadable.

I hope I'm not making you feel like you simply can't win, 'cos I don't mean to do that. I appreciate all the work you do, but the OCD in me can't live with the album names that show up like below. Now that the "open folder" problem is fixed in 7.3, I can just go back to dragging my books into iTunes manually, and stealing that excellent "sort name" solution. It would be a lot more work if I were sending the entire contents of my Calibre library, but I'm only sending a handful of books at a time.

Thanks for explaining.

[GRiker]

I don't use cover flow in iTunes, so I wasn't aware of the impact.

I need to think about this.

G

[tlrowley]

Oh, dear - I certainly didn't mean to make you have to think

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by tlrowley

Oh, dear - I certainly didn't mean to make you have to think

It hurts.

I have an idea of how to put the uuid in another less obvious place, but it will have a minor performance impact, hopefully not noticeable. I'll start testing that approach for 0.7.4.

G

[tlrowley]

Originally Posted by GRiker

It hurts.

Originally Posted by GRiker

I have an idea of how to put the uuid in another less obvious place, but it will have a minor performance impact, hopefully not noticeable. I'll start testing that approach for 0.7.4.

G

Sounds promising. I'll look forward to it.

Tracey