Directory Structure

[davcefai]

I have browsed here before but only registered today.

I would like a new ereader with a 7" epaper screen. The "killer" feature will be the ability to create directories and store my books by directory. I could do this in my "old" MeBook but my Kobo, and it seems the majority (if not all) of the epaper devices only support "collections".

This means that even if a book is in a collection it will appear in the general pool. When I download new books I have to hunt through the ones already on board to find the new ones and add them to a collection.

The only solution I can see is to name the books <author>-<title>, which I do not want to do.

Help appreciated.

[JSWolf]

Use Calibre to manage your eBooks on your Kobo. You will see which eBooks are already loaded and you won't have to go looking for them on the device. I do this and it works very well.

[PeterT]

And actually many of us manage our Kobo collections via calibre, so there is never any need to mess on the device itself.

However, if you don't want to use calibre there are two alternative ePub (and I think pdf) readers for Kobo; CoolReader and KoReader, both of which allow you to browse directories to find your reads.

[eschwartz]

The collections view on a Kindle shows collections + the books that are not yet in a collection -- it doesn't show the books that are in one of the collections.

I don't have a Kobo, but I would assume they do the same, based on simple UI logic. Am I wrong?

[PeterT]

Nope; Kobo has no view that shows content not in a collection. Remember, books can belong to as many collections as you want.

You can sort the list of books on the device by "age", so the newest added books are at the top of the list.

[eschwartz]

I know books can belong in multiple collections -- most of my Kindle books are.
I don't see why that obviates the use for or need of a not-in-any-collection view. As I already said, I consider it a fairly intuitive need.

There are plenty of books that do not belong in any collection at all. I find it extraordinarily helpful to be able to see at a glance which those are. My Kindle can do it.

[PeterT]

So good for you. I'm happy for you.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by PeterT

So good for you. I'm happy for you.

Yes, and perhaps the OP would like to share my happiness.
I suppose it depends on whether the OP just needs to create collections quickly (metadata-based management through calibre wins, and that no longer works with the latest Kindles) or wants to have a usable not-in-collections view as well.

It is at least something which should be considered in the decision-making process.



I don't see why you need to get all passive-aggressive about it (although I cannot say I am surprised).

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't see why that obviates the use for or need of a not-in-any-collection view. As I already said, I consider it a fairly intuitive need.

Not trying to fan any flames here ... but it isn't intuitive to me. I'm interested to know what kind of books you consider to be unsuited to be in one of your Collections?

I understand that many books aren't part of a Series but they'd still be Crime or Sci-Fi or Biography or some other genre Collection for my books. I use calibre Tags to define my Collections and I don't have a single book without at least one Tag.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Not trying to fan any flames here ... but it isn't intuitive to me. I'm interested to know what kind of books you consider to be unsuited to be in one of your Collections?

I understand that many books aren't part of a Series but they'd still be Crime or Sci-Fi or Biography or some other genre Collection for my books. I use calibre Tags to define my Collections and I don't have a single book without at least one Tag.

To give an example, when I used to use collections I only used them for series, therefore all my books that were not in a series were not in a collection. I saw no necessity to classify every book.

These days I'm equally happy using Calibre plugboards for series name, so I no longer use collections at all.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Not trying to fan any flames here ... but it isn't intuitive to me. I'm interested to know what kind of books you consider to be unsuited to be in one of your Collections?

I understand that many books aren't part of a Series but they'd still be Crime or Sci-Fi or Biography or some other genre Collection for my books. I use calibre Tags to define my Collections and I don't have a single book without at least one Tag.

Like HarryT, I feel no need to compulsively overclassify my books.

As it happens, the vast majority of my books are either SciFi of Fantasy, and I don't consider the difference to be significant...
A collection that by necessity includes 90% or more of my books has failed to achieve the fundamental goal of a collection -- to logically divide my books, and thus make it easier to find things.

I don't put a tremendous amount of stock in genres, you can put a book in any genre you want (mostly) if you look for an excuse hard enough. My collections are designed to have meaning to me. (In fact, I don't use any calibre tags at all, except the ones I have chosen myself without outside input. I suppose I am one of the handful of people who are like that.)
My second- and third-largest collections are the almost-complete Discworld series, and the Forgotten Realms canon. My largest is my TBR list.

[jackie_w]

@HarryT,

FWIW for Series, I've also always preferred calibre plugboards to Collections.

My query to eschwartz was more about his active *need* for a 'not-in-Collection' set of books, whereas your scenario sounds like a more passive 'can't-really-be-bothered-to-categorise' some books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

@HarryT,

FWIW for Series, I've also always preferred calibre plugboards to Collections.

My query to eschwartz was more about his active *need* for a 'not-in-Collection' set of books, whereas your scenario sounds like a more passive 'can't-really-be-bothered-to-categorise' some books.

My need was also an "active" one. Given the fact that I did not put books that weren't in any series into a collection, I had a need to see such books.

[cocopuff]

This could be a stupid idea but couldn't you just make an extra collection and place all the books not otherwise in a collection in there? Or when placing on the device just automatically place them in this collection and then move them to the "right" collection as needed? I don't use collections so this might not work but might be worth looking into

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by cocopuff

This could be a stupid idea but couldn't you just make an extra collection and place all the books not otherwise in a collection in there? Or when placing on the device just automatically place them in this collection and then move them to the "right" collection as needed? I don't use collections so this might not work but might be worth looking into

Maintaining that by hand would be really awkward.

Unless you have a view that doesn't show books in collections (which renders the need obsolete), how do you know which books are in collections?

...

I suppose you *could* manage that with a collections manager on your computer (calibre?) but as I understand it you cannot even export collections from a Kobo. You can do a two-way collections sync with a (jailbroken) Kindle, but you don't need to, for this at least.