Automatic Book Adding

[Turtle91]

Hello,
I've set up Calibre on my media server at home to automatically add books it finds in my dropbox folder to the library. I add books to my dropbox from anywhere around the world and it becomes available on the OPDS server within a few seconds. This works great. However, if the book is already located in the library it hangs up. When I get home Calibre is either waiting for me to tell it which file to keep, or Calibre has crashed.

I noticed there is an option to "Overwrite existing duplicate formats" during the "Add Process" tab in preferences...and the "Check for duplicates when auto-adding files" option in the "Auto add" tab... but that just asks a question when it encounters a duplicate.

Is there any option that allows me to combine the two options and tell Calibre to "Overwrite existing files of the same format when using the auto-add from folder" feature?

99.9% of the time I am trying to replace a particular book with a newer version and I am not at home to answer Calibre's query.

Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

Personally, I am not a fan of automatic adding being able to delete existing files, based on a simple title compare which is what the duplicate check on adding does. That said I wont refuse a patch adding an option for it.

[Turtle91]

Thanks Kovid!

Quick question: When you say "simple title compare" do you mean the title as listed in the opf, or the filename?

My filenames always include the author name and series/index.
eg: "Card, Orson Scott - Ender 04 - Ender's Game.epub" as opposed to "Ender's Game" as the title in the opf.

[Turtle91]

...just thinking...

If it is just the title as seen in the opf I can see where there may be occasion to find incorrect duplicates. I would think that an author would rarely release another book with the same title - but a different story.

The opf (if that is where you get the title) also has the rest of the information to help distinguish the book:

<dc:title>Ender's Game</dc:title>
<dc:creator opf:file-as="Card, Orson Scott" opf:role="aut">Orson Scott Card</dc:creator>
<meta content="4" name="calibre:series_index" />
<meta content="Ender" name="calibre:series" />

I hope there is someone out there who can create a patch...and who is interested in doing so... it will take a while for me to teach myself how to program

[Turtle91]

...thinking harder...brain starting to hurt....


Logic path of patch:

-import book
-if duplicate title found
 --compare author (if available)
 --if same author
   ---compare series (if available)
   ---if same series
      ----compare series index (if available)
      ----if same index
         ----- This is a duplicate.
         ----- If "replace duplicate with same format" checked
             ------then delete older version
-default: keep both files