Just verifying lack of options... And other questions

[Naloomi]

Amazon was kind enough to replace my Kindle Keyboard that had a damaged screen with a Paperwhite 2 (awesome customer service Amazon!!!) but it came with 5.6.2.1 firmware.

This means, from all my research, that I can not jailbreak/root the PW2, correct?

This also means I have no way of managing the books I have in Calibre on my paperwhite other than through the basic Collections software that Amazon provides, correct?

If I am incorrect, can someone please tell me how I can better manage my collections? I have thousands of books, hundreds of various series, all properly organized in calibre. I'd rather not have to create new collections on the kindle if I can avoid it. (Side note: what is best practice for keeping books in a series in order on a kindle? My Brian Lumley folder has them all by book title. Should I have the sorting name set to something like SERIES - ## - BOOK TITLE?)

Also, is there a way to give collection sets a better icon? Like different icons for Dresden Files, Valdemar, Xanth, Star Wars, etc?

Thank you for your time.
Naloomi
aka Chris

[AnemicOak]

The only way to root the newer firmware PW2 is to physically open it up and access the serial port. There are instructions in the Kindle Dev section.

What a lot of people do instead of bothering with collections is use the Calibre plugboards to save things like series info to the book's "title" when transferring it to the device, that combined with search and sorting make a pretty browse friendly library.

No way to change the collections icons AFAIK.

[eschwartz]

to AnemicOak

Just to add -- per word of NiLuJe, it might be possible to change the icon for collections, but it would be the kind of joyless, non-trivial thing to implement that no one actually cares quite that much about.

[HarryT]

I use a Plugboard to prefix the book title with the series name and number. It works extremely well. I have almost 2000 books on my Voyage using this organisational method.

[Naloomi]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

The only way to root the newer firmware PW2 is to physically open it up and access the serial port. There are instructions in the Kindle Dev section.

What a lot of people do instead of bothering with collections is use the Calibre plugboards to save things like series info to the book's "title" when transferring it to the device, that combined with search and sorting make a pretty browse friendly library.

No way to change the collections icons AFAIK.

I know about the opening and soldering hack. Not happening. :-) my soldering skills are less than adequate for a job like that.

Plugboards - I am not familiar with this feature. It looks like some research is in store today!

Hank you everyone for confirming my suspicions.

Naloomi
aka Chris

[Ripplinger]

I also use plugboards to organize my books on all my readers, especially on the Kindle where you can't organize by Collections without doing it all manually (and that definitely just ain't gonna happen, not ever).

In Calibre Preferences, under the Import/Export section, go to Metadata plugboards, and add new plugboard. Enter azw3 for format, and Kindle2 for device. Under Source template enter the following with Destination field set to "title":
{series} {series_index:0>2s|[|]} {title}

Then when books are transferred to your PW2 they will appear as Series Name [##] Book Title, such as:
Jack Howard [03] The Lost Tomb.

You can of course change the order between the series, # and title to anything you prefer, but I find sorting by series name to be the easiest for me to find the next book in a series.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

In Calibre Preferences, under the Import/Export section, go to Metadata plugboards, and add new plugboard. Enter azw3 for format, and Kindle2 for device....

Personally I use "All Formats" and "All Devices", because I have no reason to wish to restrict the series information to one particular format or device.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Personally I use "All Formats" and "All Devices", because I have no reason to wish to restrict the series information to one particular format or device.

Yes, that will work perfectly, but I use a different sequence for different readers though. I usually have the book title first, then series number, and then series name. But that's only for readers where I have collections automatically sorted by Calibre, which Kindles can't do. If I'm able to navigate to a collection of "Jack Howard" books, I don't need to repeat Jack Howard again at the beginning.

But it's all individual preference however each person wants to list their books, which is just another reason why I love Calibre, and mentioned they could change the order around to whatever they prefer.

[Barbara1955]

I number my series. #01 #02 #03 etc. Then I don't need to lookup what comes next!

I surprised they gave you a PW to Replace a K3... Since the K3 been out of warrenty for so long! Yes Excellent service

[badgoodDeb]

I'm still to lazy to figure out plugboards (& I mostly use Calibre only to convert, when needed). I keep a text file with my series orders in it. Very old school and cumbersome. But it functions. I can either download the text file onto the kindle too, or just print it. Just let me read my darn books, please!

I know; I'm supposed to be a techie and a geek. So sue me. I just can't be bothered about some things!

[Naloomi]

Originally Posted by Katie1

I surprised they gave you a PW to Replace a K3... Since the K3 been out of warrenty for so long! Yes Excellent service

I was surprised too. They know I use it because of all the books I purchase. I was surprised but very happy and tell everyone about it.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I'm still to lazy to figure out plugboards (& I mostly use Calibre only to convert, when needed). I keep a text file with my series orders in it. Very old school and cumbersome. But it functions. I can either download the text file onto the kindle too, or just print it. Just let me read my darn books, please!

I know; I'm supposed to be a techie and a geek. So sue me. I just can't be bothered about some things!

But once you set up the plugboard, and it won't take more than a couple of minutes, you'll never again have to bother with creating text files to keep track of book series. So in the long run, it'll save you much more time which will let you read more instead of managing lists in text files.

[HarryT]

I totally agree. It's the ideal solution for the lazy person. Set it up once and then forget about it.

[Fbone]

It's the initial setup in Calibre that's time consuming.

[HarryT]

It's a reasonable assumption, though, that anyone who cares about series will already have series information set up in their Calibre metadata.