[GUI Plugin] EpubSplit

[JimmXinu]

Select the sections you want to make into new books first. Remember you can use Ctrl-A to select all and click-then-shift-click to select a range.

I'll put a user-input-check for that in the next version.

[bambamboo]

I naively thought this button exports all chapters/sections/whatever automatically. Either way the book I was trying to split is so huge I get out of memory errors while even trying to export a single chapter. No luck for me!

[JimmXinu]

If you're on Windows, the 64bit version of Calibre works better with really large epubs.

[sweth]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Turns out, there's already a feature in EpubSplit I forgot about for setting a custom 'Source' column when splitting.

Calibre Preferences->Plugins->EpubSplit->Custom Columns tab, bottom of the dialog.

While not exactly what maddz requested, it should serve just as well.

I just noticed this setting. What I can't figure out from the UI, though, is: for what is it the source? I have a "subseries" custom column that I manually set after splitting to be the name of the book from which the component was split; would I be able to use this setting to somehow populate that subseries column with the source book's title?

[sweth]

Would it be possible to have an option for the plugin to split either as New Book Per X Sections (where for every X selected sections, create a new book using the TOC entry of the first such section), or New Book Per TOC Entry (where the latter would include in the resulting book any selected sections after the given TOC entry that don't themselves have a TOC entry)? I prefer to always split anthologies so I can read and rate the individual stories/essays, but for ones where the creator didn't do one-section-per-story, it can often take a VERY long time to manually select the sections each story and split them out one at a time.

eg https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28503846 has 105 stories in it, but each one is two sections, so a "split every X" option set to 2 would make splitting that behemoth a breeze. Meanwhile, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8146 has 67 stories in it, some of which are 1 section but others of which range from 2-10 sections (only the first of which ever has a TOC entry), so splitting that easily would require assuming that all of the blank TOC entries belong to the preceding entry.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by sweth

I just noticed this setting. What I can't figure out from the UI, though, is: for what is it the source? I have a "subseries" custom column that I manually set after splitting to be the name of the book from which the component was split; would I be able to use this setting to somehow populate that subseries column with the source book's title?

Exactly.

BTW, I use tooltips a lot for further info:

Originally Posted by sweth

Would it be possible to have an option for the plugin to split either as New Book Per X Sections (where for every X selected sections, create a new book using the TOC entry of the first such section), or New Book Per TOC Entry (where the latter would include in the resulting book any selected sections after the given TOC entry that don't themselves have a TOC entry)? ...

I cannot think of a good user-interface way to do 'New Book per X Sections'. And it strikes me as a good way to shoot yourself in the foot when you miss seeing the one story that has 3 sections instead of 2.

I will look into whether 'New Book per TOC Entry' is feasible.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

I cannot think of a good user-interface way to do 'New Book per X Sections'. And it strikes me as a good way to shoot yourself in the foot when you miss seeing the one story that has 3 sections instead of 2.

I will look into whether 'New Book per TOC Entry' is feasible.

I have been trying to come up with something for this as well. My use-case is that when I split an omnibus of a series, I want to put all the chapter for each book in separate books, plus some of the frontmatter and backmatter. Exactly what goes into each book depends, but I usually keep the omnibus title page and cover in all of them. With the current interface, I have to do this once for each book, selecting the common sections then each of the chapters for that book. That's not to much work, but, being able to do it on hit would be good.

Your mention of the TOC does give me an idea. Most of the omnibuses I have split have a multi-level TOC. The frontmatter will be at one level, the title page for each book at the same level, and then the chapters in the book at the next level down. Being able to split the omnibus by the individual book title pages would get somewhere.

And thinking of that, you could allow selecting a range or set of files/chapters and specify which book to put them in. Select the common files and "Add to all books", then select the files for each book and set which book it goes into. For simplicity, you could just use "{title} - Book n" and let the user sort it out later. And I think I'd be tempted to not display the metadata editor for each book. Just add them with the default title and let the user fix the metadata later.

How's that? The hard work is all done, the implementation is easy!




And no, I couldn't keep a straight face while typing that last line

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by davidfor

...
How's that? The hard work is all done, the implementation is easy!

I'll get right on that!

More seriously, there's a bunch of new ideas, let's see if I caught them all:

New Book per Section vs per TOC

The existing 'per Section' feature requires you to have something in the TOC for each section, even if you have to add it in EpubSplit.

It seems reasonable to me to change that to a 'per TOC' feature that includes sections without TOC entries in the same book until the next TOC entry is reached, as per sweth. Anyone want to keep the existing 'per Section'?

Always Include Sections

Marking sections to 'always' include is a possibility. The difficult bit is figuring out the GUI for it.

Define Several Books, then Split

IMO, the difference in implementation complexity just isn't worth the added convenience in use.

Multilevel TOC

Currently, EpubSplit ignores multilevel TOC entirely and just flattens it. Because it's a complex PITA to deal with.

But I agree that it would be nice to be able to include a TOC entry and get all its subs. I'll look at how Edit Book handles it and I might pick up some ideas.

Output TOC will almost certainly still be flattened, though.

Edit Metadata

I'll consider making Edit Metadata optional, especially since 'per Section' already works that way.

Edit Metadata is used so that changes made are pushed into the epub right away as well as the Calibre DB. If it's left for the user to do later, they have to either explicitly use Polish or Modify Epub or trust Calibre to insert metadata as needed.

Trusting Calibre is not a bad thing, but one of the cases where it doesn't update the metadata is when you View the epub you just created. OTOH, that's the case any time you modifying metadata in Calibre...

Edit Book Plugin?

Instead of a User Interface plugin, would it be better if EpubSplit was an Edit Book plugin?

My first impulse is 'no'. Apart from the GUI parts, EpubSplit is standalone and can be used as a CLI script outside Calibre. To really take advantage of being in the Editor it would have to use more Calibre specific code.

Plus, it doesn't look like Edit Book has access to the running library GUI DB to create new books, since it's a separate process.


The funny thing about EpubSplit is I made it primarily to fulfill my sense of symmetry after making EpubMerge. I very rarely use it myself. Calibre's Edit Book feature didn't exist at the time I created EpubSplit. If it had, I doubt I would have made EpubSplit.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by davidfor

\
How's that? The hard work is all done, the implementation is easy!

And no, I couldn't keep a straight face while typing that last line

[Terisa de morgan]

I subscribe the idea of "Edit Metadata"optional, because when you are splitting an omnibus with a lot of ebooks inside, it's a small PIA to have the edit metadata window between each book.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version

This is a new test version that changes the 'New Book per Section' feature to be more of a 'per TOC' feature. It includes sections without TOC text with the previous sections until there is a section with TOC text.

There is a confirmation dialog similar to the error message before for those who liked the previous behavior, but it has a 'show this again' checkbox for those who like the new behavior.

UPDATE: Newer version already.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version

Contains changes from last post, plus adds a Preferences option for 'Edit Metadata'.

It defaults to off, but I also added confirmation dialogs (with 'show this again' checkboxes) to explain it.

It also means you will 'Edit Metadata' for 'Per Section' books if it's checked.

FYI, I've looked into multi-level TOC -- I don't think that's going to be happening in EpubSplit.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

I'll get right on that!

I think we'll just call you "Bob".

More seriously, there's a bunch of new ideas, let's see if I caught them all:

New Book per Section vs per TOC

The existing 'per Section' feature requires you to have something in the TOC for each section, even if you have to add it in EpubSplit.

It seems reasonable to me to change that to a 'per TOC' feature that includes sections without TOC entries in the same book until the next TOC entry is reached, as per sweth. Anyone want to keep the existing 'per Section'?

Always Include Sections

Marking sections to 'always' include is a possibility. The difficult bit is figuring out the GUI for it.

Define Several Books, then Split

IMO, the difference in implementation complexity just isn't worth the added convenience in use.

The "always include" would go a long way to solve this for me. Part of the problem is creating multiple books in one session. I seem to spend all my time selecting the different parts and then messing up when I click in the wrong place. Selecting the common files and then just click and shift-click for each book would be good.

Multilevel TOC

Currently, EpubSplit ignores multilevel TOC entirely and just flattens it. Because it's a complex PITA to deal with.

But I agree that it would be nice to be able to include a TOC entry and get all its subs. I'll look at how Edit Book handles it and I might pick up some ideas.

Output TOC will almost certainly still be flattened, though.

You could rebuild the TOC. That will work for a lot of books. And it is one of the thing I do in my FFF post-processing plugin.

Edit Metadata

I'll consider making Edit Metadata optional, especially since 'per Section' already works that way.

Edit Metadata is used so that changes made are pushed into the epub right away as well as the Calibre DB. If it's left for the user to do later, they have to either explicitly use Polish or Modify Epub or trust Calibre to insert metadata as needed.

Trusting Calibre is not a bad thing, but one of the cases where it doesn't update the metadata is when you View the epub you just created. OTOH, that's the case any time you modifying metadata in Calibre...

As long as I've been using calibre I keep falling for that when I open a new book in the viewer to check it

Edit Book Plugin?

Instead of a User Interface plugin, would it be better if EpubSplit was an Edit Book plugin?

My first impulse is 'no'. Apart from the GUI parts, EpubSplit is standalone and can be used as a CLI script outside Calibre. To really take advantage of being in the Editor it would have to use more Calibre specific code.

I have been doing a few splits this way recently. Mainly because they have come as epub3 from Kobo and I want to maintain that. Epubsplit reduces them to epub2 which is fine for most books, but, I have a few that look better as epub3 and I can't be bothered working out the code to get the epub2 version working.

Plus, it doesn't look like Edit Book has access to the running library GUI DB to create new books, since it's a separate process.

True. The way around it would be saving outside calibre and calling the command-line to add it. But, I think just saving it and opening the directory to allow adding the book manually would be enough.

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

New Test Version

Contains changes from last post, plus adds a Preferences option for 'Edit Metadata'.

It defaults to off, but I also added confirmation dialogs (with 'show this again' checkboxes) to explain it.

It also means you will 'Edit Metadata' for 'Per Section' books if it's checked.

FYI, I've looked into multi-level TOC -- I don't think that's going to be happening in EpubSplit.

These look good. Pity I spent time last night splitting my latest omnibus. But, I'll find one to play with.

[Terisa de morgan]

Thank you, JimmXinu, I've checked it and it's much faster (for me) to do it in that way.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version

Here's a first cut version with 'always include' checkboxes.

Functionally, I think it works:

• 'Always include' checkboxes on each section are, when checked, added to new book(s) in addition to selected sections.
• Default title for new book(s) is still take from first selected section, even if earlier sections are checked for 'always include'.

Issues:

• UI is kinda crap.
  • How's a novice user supposed to know when to check boxes and when to select?
  • Should 'always include' checkboxes be configurably hidden until option is enabled?
  • Needs tooltips if nothing else.
• I don't think I'm de-duping if a section is both checked and selected.