Can someone please help me understand cloud collections

[summerdown]

Hi, new to the forum. I hope it's ok posting a number of technical issues I have, in the hope someone can assist?

I have a number of kindles, and I've recently bought a paperwhite 2 for my wife (we share the same account). I'm trying to set up her paperwhite 2, but I'm struggling with cloud collections. In many ways they seem like a downgrade compared to my paperwhite 1 collections.

1. We use airplane mode most of the time, and every time I try to do anything with a collection, an error box pops up telling me it's unable to sync.

Q: Is there any way to stop this happening?

2. I downloaded about 40 books from the cloud out of the 200 I've bought over the years. So, now, I have 40 books local to my device and 200 in the cloud. I've managed to get my homepage to only show local books, but when I click on the collection and add/remove items, it shows me everything.

Q: Is there any way to limit the add/remove items view to just local books?

3. I have got a voyage coming soon, and we don't want a collection on one device to be shared with the other. We're both writers, for example, but my wife's collection called "writing" isn't the same as the one I have. Likewise, her "fantasy" folder is full of urban fantasy, while mine is full of swords and sorcery.

Q: Is there any way to have local collections only, and not share collections?

4. Finally, if all else can't work.

Q Is there any way to downgrade a kindle paperwhite 2 to not have cloud collections, like the paperwhite 1? (assuming it has already been jailbroken).

[Josieb1]

In answer the question 1 no you can't stop the pop up messages.

Question 2, I don't know. I manually move each book one at a time into a collection and use the Recent sort so I only see the books I've recently added to the account.

Question 3, yes you can have local collections. Local to the device.

You do this by showing collections on your home screen, then starring only the collections you actually want on each kindle. And yes one book can be in multiple collections. Then configure your home screen to only show the starred collections by moving the centre selection on your home screen to My Items (or All Items) and the far right selection to Collections. If the middle sort is set to Collections you see ALL collections available, starred and unstarred. To star a collection you long press on the collection box and select Show In All Views.

That way the only time you will see all the collections available is when you move books between collections using Add and Remove.

Both you and your wifes Kindle's can be configured to show only the collections each of you want to see. Its best if you have different names for your and her collections, mine and hubbys are prefixed with our names.

I don't know about downgrading as the PW2 came with Cloud Collection software.

[eschwartz]

To add to what Josieb1 said:

You have hit upon the reason why so many here hate Cloud Collections. It does not appear to have been well-thought-out.

You can downgrade any Kindle to any firmware that was released for that Kindle. The PW2 is last Kindle released without Cloud Collections, so you can downgrade to fw5.4.0 and get rid of them.

However, that was the first firmware version the PW2 shipped with, and no official update was released. You will hav to jailbreak, enable SSH in the diags partition, reboot in diags mode and overwrite the main partition with the new firmware.

This is complex and you do NOT want to mess it up. If you feel comfortable trying it (you can ask for step-by-step guidance), direction are here: http://ixtab.tk/kindle-touch-images/PW2/

There is a readme file, and folders containing the partition images.

[summerdown]

Thank you for the replies

I've had a go with the starred collections, and it seems to work - pity it takes twice the number of clicks to set them up due to the error messages.

I'll also take a look at the downgrade option, but I think that will have to be another weekend - it doesn't look like a small job!

I wish it were easier to downgrade, though. I've managed to get the jailbreak working and run the kindlet, but it isn't giving me alternative screensavers or fonts.

Still, my main issue is the collections, so thank you both for the help

[nynaevelan]

One more thing to keep in mind since you use airplane mode a lot. If/when you turn your wifi back on, it is going to try to update all the collection changes since the last time you had it on. So be prepared for that, unless you turn it on periodically for the updates. Personally, I have one device which I use for my collection updates and try not to make many changes with the others to avoid conflicts. And sadly I think this collections fiasco is going to get worse when the Family Library feature goes live. That will be one more set of collections that show up on all devices. I sure hope they add the feature of whether or not sharing collections will be enabled.

[summerdown]

I've already decided to only use it as a standalone device from now on, and never connect to the store. It's a pity, because I liked having the 3g option and buying books wherever I am, but as I don't want syncing it seems the only route

[nynaevelan]

Both the paperwhite and the voyage have the option to hide/show which collections are visible on the device. So you can always just hide the ones you do not want to see. Just make sure they all have unique names to avoid crossover.

[speedlever]

I received my PW2014 today and set it up. I noticed it did not get all the books in the collections I had set up on my K3. I'm not sure why, but perhaps it is related to the fact that I import all my books into Calibre and then email them to my Kindle?

One collection of 43 books on my K3 shows 30 books on my PW2014. I'm sure I can work around the issue, but am puzzled as to what is going on here.

I have much to learn about the current usage of Collections and also how it works with my PW2014.

[eschwartz]

Heh, we all have a lot to learn.

Personally, my preferred way of dealing with collections is to allow LibrarianSync to backup and restore all collections, across any devices that need them.

I assume any book that is in your Kindle Cloud should get synced, but with Cloud Collections, who knows?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I received my PW2014 today and set it up. I noticed it did not get all the books in the collections I had set up on my K3. I'm not sure why, but perhaps it is related to the fact that I import all my books into Calibre and then email them to my Kindle?

One collection of 43 books on my K3 shows 30 books on my PW2014. I'm sure I can work around the issue, but am puzzled as to what is going on here.

I have much to learn about the current usage of Collections and also how it works with my PW2014.

Your K3 has its own, independent, collections. It does not support Cloud Collections. The devices and Kindle apps that support Cloud Collections share a different set of collections.

When you authorize the first device or app that supports Cloud Collections, it imports the collection names you have created previously (in this case the K3), and I think those will be populated with all of the books that were in the collection when the K3 last synced, plus any that were in the collection when you removed them from your K3. But that is a one time import. From that point on the collections are the same in name only, and do not have any synchronization between them. They have to be maintained independently.

As for 'starring', think of it as 'favorite' collections that you want to see all of the time, regardless of which 'view' you are in (All Items, Books, Docs). It is a sort of 'compatibility mode' that makes them appear like they did prior to Cloud Collections. You see items and collections mixed together. But they aren't 'local', they are every bit as much Cloud Collections as non-starred collections, and other CC-supporting devices will see them and be unable to know that they are 'starred' on a particular Paperwhite. And if you go to Collections view, you will see them all listed there.

I played with 'stars' for awhile, but don't like the way it looks, and it seemed to serve no purpose as far as giving quick access to the things currently being read, since you have to open them to access what's in them, an extra step.

I do find them valuable in terms of tagging books I've already read, those I'm currently reading, and those I have yet to read, and one or two for 'reference' type books, but that's it. It makes it super easy to set up on a new Kindle or Kindle app and pick up reading what you were reading on some other Kindle or Kindle app. That's what they are really best for, and that fits with the way I like to organize (which is to say, with as little time and effort involved as possible). But others here find it very limiting and frustrating.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by nynaevelan

One more thing to keep in mind since you use airplane mode a lot. If/when you turn your wifi back on, it is going to try to update all the collection changes since the last time you had it on. So be prepared for that, unless you turn it on periodically for the updates. Personally, I have one device which I use for my collection updates and try not to make many changes with the others to avoid conflicts. And sadly I think this collections fiasco is going to get worse when the Family Library feature goes live. That will be one more set of collections that show up on all devices. I sure hope they add the feature of whether or not sharing collections will be enabled.

This is how I think it works based on having just played with it some, so far, by adding a 'child' profile, and reading through the user guide. Some of the details are going to be murky until I can add another adult profile.

The new Fires let you set up an additional 'adult' profile, and up to 4 'child' profiles (without accounts of their own). The two adult profiles comprise a 'Household'. Adult profiles cannot be part of more than one household at a time, and if you remove an adult profile, that account cannot be added to another household for 180 days.

The user guide states that 'Every member of the household gets their own carousel, personal preferences, content, and apps'. I can vouch that is true for the child profiles (strictly speaking it is a subset of the account holders content, not 'their own'), but it is unclear how that works for the two adult profiles.

The two 'adult' profiles need passcodes, that's optional for child profiles.

The 'child' profiles see only what is set up for them to use (I assume either Adult can modify that), no collections, just Books Videos and Apps, a carousel to see everything, or you select one of those categories to just see those items in a grid. I do not see a way to give access to Docs or Audiobooks or Periodicals. So there's no 'immersion' reading. And it is a metaphorical pain to scroll through the entire library to select stuff.

Mostly likely only the account holder can initiate purchases and create and destroy profiles.

I will try to add a second Adult profile this weekend and verify that it works something like the above.

What seems still still missing is the combining of the two separate account libraries into a single virtual one. In the mean time, I'm guessing that the 'additional' Adult would bring along any collections that might be associated with their account. Initially those would be empty unless they happened to have some of the same titles as their partner. They'd be able to organize the content on that device as they like, but on their other devices, they'd only be able to see the stuff purchased via their own account.

After they combine, then it seems each of the two 'household' account holders would be able to see (and organize) anything in the combined library.

And if there is a second Fire tablet, I assume the same 'household' can set up as adults on it (with either as the account holder) and different child profiles can be set up on it. So a large family needs to have at least 1 fire for every 4 children.

Now, the interesting thing is that 'child' account could be anybody that you want to share your Fire and some subset of your library with. The 'guest' tablet as it were. It seems entirely sandboxed, settings are protected with your passcode, and even then you can only access wireless and accessibility settings, and modify the current profile.

[cybmole]

Kindle Fires don't do collections. NO cloud collections, no local collections, nada.

All books go into books folder- that's it.

Profiles are something different & perhaps better discussed in a separate thread.
you may be able to stop a child from seeing some books but I doubt it. they will either get all books or none, probably.

[Josieb1]

Starred collections are local to the device for viewing on the home screen. For example DH and I have 35 collections between us. He sees 20 and I see 4 with the rest hidden away from view. The only time we see them is when we add new books into a collection or move existing books around during add/remove.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by cybmole

Kindle Fires don't do collections. NO cloud collections, no local collections, nada.

All books go into books folder- that's it.

Profiles are something different & perhaps better discussed in a separate thread.
you may be able to stop a child from seeing some books but I doubt it. they will either get all books or none, probably.

The new Fires do have collections. the HDs and the HDXs, not the others.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

The new Fires do have collections. the HDs and the HDXs, not the others.

so will Amazon add that to my ~8 month old KF 9.8 HDX anytime soon ? , cos it's not there as at now.

I can put my apps into collections, but not my books ?