Automatic conversions - news or otherwise?

[schizoiddonkey]

I am downloading news and I have a kindle. When the news is downloaded it is in mobi format. I have a couple of questions, and I've tried searching for answers.

1) Where is the default output format set? I see "kindle" in Common Options\Page Setup but changing this doesn't make any difference(to the news format). I also see EPUB as my preferred output format in Behaviour but I'm getting mobi.

2) I want epub as well as the mobi. I can convert manually, but this obviously doesn't suit. I want this so that I can use the content server to get the files onto an android device for reading. Is there any way to have all files added to the library (or even just news) converted into one or more formats? I wish all news sources to be in mobi and epub (or whatever other format).

I doubt that calibre defaults to mobi so I feel like I'm missing an option here. Any help appreciated.

[kovidgoyal]

default output format is Preferences->Behavior, that will control the format news is downloaded in.

And no, there's no way to auto convert, in fact you should not be converting news as the conversion loses various special news ebook features. Instead sue two calibre installs to download your news in two different formats.

[schizoiddonkey]

Okay, altering the output in Behaviour worked. However, it definitely said EPUB (I checked again when I was changing it just now) and I was getting mobi so there's a disconnect between what's displayed and the underlying value.

Interesting regarding the news conversion. For my own sake running two installations is fine, but going forward it seems wrong. Is converting news features realistically unworkable (between formats that support the features) or just unsupported? I don't know enough about the formats to answer that myself.

I don't actually know enough about the underlying formats to do anything with the conversion process so I may have a look at getting the news fetcher to optionally output more than one format.

Thanks for your help with this Kovid.

[kovidgoyal]

yes it is unworkable, and frankly I have no desire to spend time on this, since IMO MOBI will die sooner or later.

[schizoiddonkey]

That's understandable, I wasn't actually asking you to implement anything. However, what I'm suggesting isn't specific to mobi, which will probably be around much longer than wanted anyway.

I want to implement some of this myself, but to be honest dynamically typed languages make me feel ill.

[squawker]

Just wanted to pipe up and say I've got the same issue here... Would like to have news downloaded in two formats -- mobi for kindle and txt for another reader on my android.

Kovid, you know more than any of us about ebooks... Why do you believe mobi is going to die?