X-Ray Builder - Windows Application - Page 34

Ephemerality · 01-03-2020, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkJacq

Thanks for your time...really appreciate your attention. Sorry anyway but I dont fully understand what link should I use. And if I choose Goodreads and not File, how will I be able use muy character file?

Best regards...

Your character file is only used for the X-Ray. It's not obvious from the UI, but the start/end actions process requires a data source for pulling notable clips, series information, page counts, etc. That stuff can't come from a file yet, but I have it on the to-do list.
It's not actually supposed to let you build the start actions without a Goodreads link in the box but I messed that bit up apparently.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13262017 is the first one that comes up in the search (from doing goodreads as source, hitting search).

Edit - I forgot to mention that the Goodreads link stays in place even when switching the source to File, so if you're doing the "all in one" button you'd want to make sure the Goodreads link is there, then switch to File and use your file as the source. I'll make this better in the future...

HawkJacq · 01-03-2020, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

Your character file is only used for the X-Ray. It's not obvious from the UI, but the start/end actions process requires a data source for pulling notable clips, series information, page counts, etc. That stuff can't come from a file yet, but I have it on the to-do list.
It's not actually supposed to let you build the start actions without a Goodreads link in the box but I messed that bit up apparently.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13262017 is the first one that comes up in the search (from doing goodreads as source, hitting search).

Edit - I forgot to mention that the Goodreads link stays in place even when switching the source to File, so if you're doing the "all in one" button you'd want to make sure the Goodreads link is there, then switch to File and use your file as the source. I'll make this better in the future...

Good Day,

Thanks for all the info...I am beginning, very slowly, to understand the structure of the program. I did it as you said and created the Start and End Action... But the Goodread URL was different than the one you mentioned. And also, as you can see below, there was an error due to the fact that no info of others book of the Saga. But I think the error is no important right?

Spoiler:

Thanks for all the support. Really thanks...

Ephemerality · 01-03-2020, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkJacq

Good Day,

Thanks for all the info...I am beginning, very slowly, to understand the structure of the program. I did it as you said and created the Start and End Action... But the Goodread URL was different than the one you mentioned. And also, as you can see below, there was an error due to the fact that no info of others book of the Saga. But I think the error is no important right?

Thanks for all the support. Really thanks...

Oh yeah, that Goodreads link is for the English version, the one I posted was for the Spanish one. I'm not sure it matters, you could try with either one (just copy/pasting instead of using the search).
The error you saw now was just saying that it couldn't find the next in the series (because it's the latest in the series already). I should fix that to make it clearer.
Thanks for using my program

HawkJacq · 01-03-2020, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

Oh yeah, that Goodreads link is for the English version, the one I posted was for the Spanish one. I'm not sure it matters, you could try with either one (just copy/pasting instead of using the search).
The error you saw now was just saying that it couldn't find the next in the series (because it's the latest in the series already). I should fix that to make it clearer.
Thanks for using my program

I tried both Links an the results are the same. Both give the Error of the Saga, which I asumed was what you explained, and both ended OK Start and End Actions.

Thanks for all your patiente and support....

Best Regards...

NoSmint · 01-05-2020, 05:20 PM

First of all thank you for your great work.

I have a very confusing problem when trying to build the x-ray files. AuthorProfile and Start/EndActions work fine most of the time. But for every single kfx-file I try to create an x-ray the programme always throws an error message:

Code:

Running X-Ray Builder GUI v2.1.1.0. Log started on 05.01.2020 at 23:07:56.
Extracting metadata...
Got metadata!
Database Name: CR!51XPXFRH7TCFLBQZWLIMYXOQLHKP
UniqueID: 
ASIN: B00ELCM7LI
Extracting metadata...
Got metadata!
Database Name: CR!51XPXFRH7TCFLBQZWLIMYXOQLHKP
UniqueID: 
ASIN: B00ELCM7LI
Book found on Goodreads!
Sphere - Die Gedanken des Bösen by Crichton, Michael
Goodreads URL: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1163752
You may want to visit the URL to ensure it is correct.
Extracting metadata...
Got metadata!
Database Name: CR!51XPXFRH7TCFLBQZWLIMYXOQLHKP
UniqueID: 
ASIN: B00ELCM7LI
Book's Goodreads URL: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1163752
Attempting to build X-Ray...
Downloading Goodreads page...
Gathering term information from Goodreads... (4)
Downloading notable clips...
4 Terms found on Goodreads:
Ted Fielding, Norman Johnson, Beth Halpern, Harry Adams, 
Character aliases read from C:\Test\ext\B00ELCM7LI.aliases.
Initial X-Ray built, adding locations and chapters...
No chapters detected.
You can create a file at C:\Test\ext\B00ELCM7LI.chapters if you want to define chapters manually.
Scanning book content...
Warning: Could not locate paragraphs normally (p elements or divs of class 'paragraph').
Searching all book contents (all divs), which may produce odd results.
An error occurred while building the X-Ray:
Could not locate any paragraphs in this book.
Report this error along with a copy of the book to improve parsing.
   bei XRayBuilder.Core.XRay.Logic.XRayService.ExpandFromRawMl(XRay xray, IMetadata metadata, Stream rawMlStream, Boolean enableEdit, Boolean useNewVersion, Boolean skipNoLikes, Int32 minClipLen, Boolean overwriteChapters, SafeShowDelegate safeShow, IProgressBar progress, CancellationToken token, Boolean ignoreSoftHypen, Boolean shortEx)
   bei XRayBuilderGUI.UI.frmMain.<>c__DisplayClass31_0.<btnBuild_Run>b__0()
   bei System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()
--- Ende der Stapelüberwachung vom vorhergehenden Ort, an dem die Ausnahme ausgelöst wurde ---
   bei System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
   bei System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   bei System.Runtime.CompilerServices.ConfiguredTaskAwaitable.ConfiguredTaskAwaiter.GetResult()
   bei XRayBuilderGUI.UI.frmMain.<btnBuild_Run>d__31.MoveNext()

It works for azw3 files but it doesn't for kfx. It seems to me the kfx cannot be decoded properly? I'm using most recent Calibre and KFX Output plugin. I don't have any ideas left if it's me doing something wrong. I tried countless combinations and a ton of different books, every single time it's the same result. KFX doesn't work for me somehow.

I did by the way try to use the english version of the book along with the amazon.com ASIN. I even tried manually inputting other goodreads link to different versions of the book instead of suggested one - just out of curiosity if that worked. But every single time with the same results.

Any suggestion would be extraordinarily welcome.

HawkJacq · 01-22-2020, 07:25 PM

Good Day,

After at last been able to make my X-Ray Files correctly, a question appeared due to an unexpected event which hasnt happened before. After began reading the Book, with WIFI turned on, suddenly the cover of it was changed automatically...but also the X-Ray File showing a different information instead the one I prepared, and even in English instead of Spanish, making, in summary, my work useless. I asume Kindle search the Book information in Amazon Database, guided by the ASIN Code. But it has never happened to me in any of the previous Books prepared. Do you know how to avoid that change, aside, of course, of turning off WIFI?

Thanks for your time and support...

NoSmint · 01-24-2020, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkJacq

After at last been able to make my X-Ray Files correctly, a question appeared due to an unexpected event which hasnt happened before. After began reading the Book, with WIFI turned on, suddenly the cover of it was changed automatically...but also the X-Ray File showing a different information instead the one I prepared, and even in English instead of Spanish, making, in summary, my work useless. I asume Kindle search the Book information in Amazon Database, guided by the ASIN Code. But it has never happened to me in any of the previous Books prepared. Do you know how to avoid that change, aside, of course, of turning off WIFI?

I can help you out there. I had the same issues. The Kindle seems to fetch newer information directly off the amazon servers as long as it regards your local copies obsolete. I found that behaviour quite useful when it comes to Author Profiles or Start/End-Actions since it's filled with the most recent informaton. But the x-rays are rendered pretty much useless - although for now they are useless to me all the same, see my post above.

For me it helped to plug the Kindle into the USB Port of your PC and manually navigate to the correcponding sidecar folder "bookname.sdr" and make the x-ray file readonly (right click -> properties -> read only). As for now the Kindle respects the file attribute and doesn't overwrite existing files anymore. But of course that might change anytime.

HawkJacq · 01-27-2020, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSmint

I can help you out there. I had the same issues. The Kindle seems to fetch newer information directly off the amazon servers as long as it regards your local copies obsolete. I found that behaviour quite useful when it comes to Author Profiles or Start/End-Actions since it's filled with the most recent informaton. But the x-rays are rendered pretty much useless - although for now they are useless to me all the same, see my post above.

For me it helped to plug the Kindle into the USB Port of your PC and manually navigate to the correcponding sidecar folder "bookname.sdr" and make the x-ray file readonly (right click -> properties -> read only). As for now the Kindle respects the file attribute and doesn't overwrite existing files anymore. But of course that might change anytime.

Good Day,

Wow!! Of course you are right...Why didnt I thought about a solution like this. Thanks you very much... I will test it when come home.

Sorry not being able to help with your problem. By the way is there any noticeable difference between KFX and AZW3 Formats aside de fact that KFX is newer?

Thanks again...

j.p.s · 01-28-2020, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkJacq

Sorry not being able to help with your problem. By the way is there any noticeable difference between KFX and AZW3 Formats aside de fact that KFX is newer?

The FONT_RAMP hack does not work with KFX and it is not currently possible to extract highlighted text from KFX.

NoSmint · 01-29-2020, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkJacq

Sorry not being able to help with your problem. By the way is there any noticeable difference between KFX and AZW3 Formats aside de fact that KFX is newer?

Quote:

Originally Posted by j.p.s

The FONT_RAMP hack does not work with KFX and it is not currently possible to extract highlighted text from KFX.

While the FONT_RAMP settings will be ignored for KFX files - which means you cannot fiddle with font sizes - the advanced typesetting features will be available when using KFX.

The main advantage I see is page flip (preview of surrounding pages without losing the reading position), plus intelligent font-size improvements and enhanced text-align features. Which pretty much makes the FONT_RAMP adjustment obsolete unless you prefer really tiny or extraordinarily huge font sizes.

The downside is that x-ray is - for now - unusable. Even if you manage to pull a working x-ray file, the positioning is off and the highlighted aliases are not in sync with the acutal text. While still being correct in general, x-ray simply points to the wrong position. But since goodreads is the only decent source right now, x-rays nowadays do not contain so much useful information anyway although it's still nice to have.

Ephemerality · 04-04-2020, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSmint

While the FONT_RAMP settings will be ignored for KFX files - which means you cannot fiddle with font sizes - the advanced typesetting features will be available when using KFX.

The main advantage I see is page flip (preview of surrounding pages without losing the reading position), plus intelligent font-size improvements and enhanced text-align features. Which pretty much makes the FONT_RAMP adjustment obsolete unless you prefer really tiny or extraordinarily huge font sizes.

The downside is that x-ray is - for now - unusable. Even if you manage to pull a working x-ray file, the positioning is off and the highlighted aliases are not in sync with the acutal text. While still being correct in general, x-ray simply points to the wrong position. But since goodreads is the only decent source right now, x-rays nowadays do not contain so much useful information anyway although it's still nice to have.

Sorry for the delay. For whatever reason, I stopped getting email notifications for replies to the thread

You're right that the builder doesn't support KFX, there was supposed to be a more descriptive error but I must've forgotten to finish adding it. I can pull the metadata required to build the start/end actions and author profile from a KFX, but I had a hard time extracting the actual markup of the book properly.
I was using the KFX Input/Output plugins as a guide for implementing support, but it and my understanding of KFX in general are flimsy at best. Someone made a C# library for reading the Amazon Ion format, which saved me a lot of time trying to get that working, but it's still not really feature-complete (maybe someone else has done a better one, I haven't checked in a while).

On top of that, I was never able to figure out how the locations in the X-Ray file match up to what's present in the KFX, so I just gave up on it. From what I could tell, not many people are even using it these days.

Interesting that the Kindle is now auto-downloading newer X-Rays automatically, I haven't had mine out of airplane mode in a long long time so I haven't experienced that. I wonder what they're doing to determine that a "better" version is available or if it just blindly downloads it?

Edit: Apparently Amazon's ion repo on github has adopted the C# version of the library and continued work on it, so I'll have to check into that.

Edit 2: Surprisingly making progress on KFX support. Update soon with something to test

Ephemerality · 04-17-2020, 01:10 PM

A new version has been uploaded to the first post, marked "BETA KFX" if anyone wants to give it a shot! The KFX X-Ray support is experimental so far, so it'll probably take several iterations to get it working perfectly.
It seemed to work for the few books I tried personally, but there will no doubt be cases that others run into where I'd need the actual book as an example.

I still need to work on fixing how the UI acts with enabling/disabling buttons, so sorry that that part still sucks.
For example, if I pick a KFX book then close the app and re-open it, all the fields are filled in as expected but the X-Ray button stays disabled until I hit the "search goodreads" button...

NoSmint · 04-19-2020, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

A new version has been uploaded to the first post, marked "BETA KFX"

Well a huge and mighty thank you for coming back to me on that issue. To be honest I haven't been expecting a reply anymore :-). So it's even more fantastic that you manages to come up with a working beta this quickly.

The great news is, it generally works really well. The allocation of the Characters to the position within the text seems to be on the spot now. I tested with a couple of books and there wasn't a single position mismatch.

There is however a little Issue with manually edited aliases. Since Goodreads usually provides - if anything - the caracter names without any aliases or description I tried to pull an XML off an existing Original Amazon X-Ray. But the "X-Ray Terms Creator" seems to be omitting all the aliases. They won't get saved into the XML nor into the .aliases File. They are however shown in the list before saving. Most of the times however, when trying to save the file, the programm throws an exception alltogehter

Code:

the object reference was not set to an object instance.

at XRAYBuilderGUI.UI.frmCreateXR.CreateTerms()
at XRAYBuilderGUI.UI.ftmCreateXR.btnSaveXML_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e

It happens more frequently the more complex the List gets. It mostly works when I compile a handmade list with only a couple of Entrys and no Description. My first thought was it might be an issue with special characters since I used a german X-RAY File. But it's all the same with the English one.

So what I could do is pull the XML off an existing X-Ray and manually compile the aliases-File. It's a buttload of work so I did it just once for testing purposes. It worked however like a charm and a huge amount of occurenced were found. I freqently encounter errors like this while compiling the X-Ray:

Code:

An error occurred while searching for start of highlight.
Was looking for (or one of the aliases of): <name>
[rather long text excerpt]

But it doesn't affect the other occurences and the XRay still renders properly. So it might just be an occasional flaw with no functional impact.

I really hope it requires only a minor fix to the Terms Editor. I will be happy to provide you with my samples if you tell me how.

But the good news is, since the positioning issue seems to be solved, XRAYs for KFX might just be a few steps away from beeing perfect. GREAT WORK!!!

Ephemerality · 04-21-2020, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSmint

Well a huge and mighty thank you for coming back to me on that issue. To be honest I haven't been expecting a reply anymore :-). So it's even more fantastic that you manages to come up with a working beta this quickly.

No worries, it's mostly due to JHowell's work on the KFX Input plugin. If it weren't for his method of extracting positions from the book content, we'd still be stuck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSmint

There is however a little Issue with manually edited aliases. Since Goodreads usually provides - if anything - the character names without any aliases or description I tried to pull an XML off an existing Original Amazon X-Ray. But the "X-Ray Terms Creator" seems to be omitting all the aliases. They won't get saved into the XML nor into the .aliases File. They are however shown in the list before saving. Most of the times however, when trying to save the file, the program throws an exception altogether

I've uploaded a new version (2.1.108) that should fix a bunch of the issues, the "create terms" UI is still kind of bad though, sorry about that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSmint

I frequently encounter errors like this while compiling the X-Ray:

Code:

An error occurred while searching for start of highlight.
Was looking for (or one of the aliases of): <name>
[rather long text excerpt]

This one happens when it thinks a paragraph contains the term (or its aliases) but it's not able to find where it is within the text. If you send me a copy of the book & the error log, I can have a look (in a PM via any upload site, Google Drive, or I can PM you my email if necessary, whatever works for you).
If it was in the German content you mentioned, it might be a UTF8/encoding issue, which has always been a pain for this stuff, but definitely fixable.

NoSmint · 04-21-2020, 12:06 PM

I did some extensive testing today and although there were a bunch of errors at frist, I was able to figure most of it out. Assuming I already have working AuthorProfile, Start/End-Profiles, my workflow for X-RAYs only was as follows:

Take an existing Original Amazon XRAY.entities.ASIN.asc (Jurassic Park in my case) and extract it into an XML File (5th Button to the right)
Edit the XML File to my liking, set aliases, rename, add or delete stuff
Use File as Source and locate the saved XML file
Build the X-Ray File, no aliases edited when prompted

Following these steps I ended up with a huge amount of "An error occurred while searching for start of highlight."-errors

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

This one happens when it thinks a paragraph contains the term (or its aliases) but it's not able to find where it is within the text. If you send me a copy of the book & the error log, I can have a look (in a PM via any upload site, Google Drive, or I can PM you my email if necessary, whatever works for you).
If it was in the German content you mentioned, it might be a UTF8/encoding issue, which has always been a pain for this stuff, but definitely fixable.

After some testing I was able to figure it out. It's all about Case matching. Jurassic Park contains the character "Tim Murphy", where I put "Tim" as an alias. Without the "Match Case" option checked, your script will find any words that contain the letters "tim" in that order, and believe me there are a lot in German

. It does however not recognize the highlight since it's not the begenning of the word as it is not encapsulated in spaces. Hence the error as it finds the occurence but not the starting point. My solution was, to turn Case Sensitivity on for every Entry in the List. As a result all corresponding errors were gone instantly. Your searching script now ignored - as intended - all the occurences within other words. So my suggestion would be to make case sensitivity the standard option.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ephemerality

I've uploaded a new version (2.1.108) that should fix a bunch of the issues, the "create terms" UI is still kind of bad though, sorry about that.

Secondly - and this is a very special error that is very unlikely to ever occur because there's probably nobody using this, but - there's a problem with aliases for Settings (not Persons). I came across this because I have the German Version of the Book but there only is an Englisch Version of the X-Ray File. So I needed to rename all the places or give them aliases.

And now the bug, aliases for Settings won't get saved. A Person's alias is saved in the .aliases file oder "ext", a Setting's is not. Neither in that file nor in the XML. So it's basically ignored alltogether. I had to rename the Places instead of using aliases.

Once I figured those two things out I was able to create a flawless X-Ray with the positioning on the spot, every occurence found and no errors. Even in my special case where I used an English source for a German book.

Bottom Line: You might wanna look into saving aliases for Settings and Match Case vs Match Only. It was no encoding or UTF8 Issue after all. Also, if you could make the Terms Creator window and the terms lsit just beeing rezisable it would already make things a lot easier.

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01-22-2020, 07:25 PM	#501
HawkJacq Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2016 Device: Kindle Oasis 2019	Good Day, After at last been able to make my X-Ray Files correctly, a question appeared due to an unexpected event which hasnt happened before. After began reading the Book, with WIFI turned on, suddenly the cover of it was changed automatically...but also the X-Ray File showing a different information instead the one I prepared, and even in English instead of Spanish, making, in summary, my work useless. I asume Kindle search the Book information in Amazon Database, guided by the ASIN Code. But it has never happened to me in any of the previous Books prepared. Do you know how to avoid that change, aside, of course, of turning off WIFI? Thanks for your time and support...

04-17-2020, 01:10 PM	#507
Ephemerality Addict Posts: 328 Karma: 800105 Join Date: Feb 2013 Device: PW1	A new version has been uploaded to the first post, marked "BETA KFX" if anyone wants to give it a shot! The KFX X-Ray support is experimental so far, so it'll probably take several iterations to get it working perfectly. It seemed to work for the few books I tried personally, but there will no doubt be cases that others run into where I'd need the actual book as an example. I still need to work on fixing how the UI acts with enabling/disabling buttons, so sorry that that part still sucks. For example, if I pick a KFX book then close the app and re-open it, all the fields are filled in as expected but the X-Ray button stays disabled until I hit the "search goodreads" button...