New Kobo KA1 - few questions

[pugsley]

Hello all. I have a new Kobo Aura One - just purchased from Walmart. Still have a week to return, but love it so far.
Using latest firmware and latest Calibre. Have the Kobo touch extended plugin that automatically converts to kepub and places books in collections. The kobo touch plugin disabled. Also have both the kepub metadata reader/writer plugins as well.

1 - is there a way to view information from Calibre standard columns - tags in my case - on the Kobo? In the Kobo library I can see title, author, series, and to the right - read/unread and file size. I want to be able to see tag info that I have added in Calibre and publication date would be nice as well.
I have tried adding {tags} to a metadata plugin, to the send books to device section, and to the kobo touch extended plugin (not all at once) without any luck. I am not really literate when it comes to such programming.

2 - I do not see a way to change the appearance of the library view, My Books or in a collection, to see more books on a page for instance.

3 - when deleting books from the reader (all side loaded from Calibre), I touch/hold the book, select remove, then remove. But the files still stay on the kobo when checked as a drive on the computer. Is the only way to remove them to do so directly from the computer with the kobo as a drive?

4 - the only other thing is that while reading on the 4th day I had the kobo the battery suddenly said it was at 1% - had been at 92% a few minutes before. I charged - and was at 100% within 20 min. So was probably software - I restarted and will see what happens.

Thanks so much.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by pugsley

1 - is there a way to view information from Calibre standard columns - tags in my case - on the Kobo? In the Kobo library I can see title, author, series, and to the right - read/unread and file size. I want to be able to see tag info that I have added in Calibre and publication date would be nice as well.

I have tried adding {tags} to a metadata plugin, to the send books to device section, and to the kobo touch extended plugin (not all at once) without any luck. I am not really literate when it comes to such programming.

Yes. There are a couple of ways you could try. Both of them will need you to also install the Kobo Utilites calibre plugin. Then use its option labelled 'Update metadata in device library'.

Which one you use would depend on whether you prefer to see the tags info in the main book list or whether you want to see it appended/prepended to the book synopsis when you look at book details via the Kobo View Details menu option.

The former (in booklist) is the simpler option if you're not comfortable with calibre's metadata plugboards. See the 2 red circles in the attached screencap. The tags info will appear in the book list, under the book title. As a bonus it will also automatically appear under the book title shown on the View Details page.

See the blue circle in the attached screencap for a very simple way to show calibre's publication date in the Kobo book details (DETAILS tab in the Publisher field).

Originally Posted by pugsley

2 - I do not see a way to change the appearance of the library view, My Books or in a collection, to see more books on a page for instance.

I don't know of a way to do that.

[pugsley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Yes. There are a couple of ways you could try. Both of them will need you to also install the Kobo Utilites calibre plugin. Then use its option labelled 'Update metadata in device library'.

Which one you use would depend on whether you prefer to see the tags info in the main book list or whether you want to see it appended/prepended to the book synopsis when you look at book details via the Kobo View Details menu option.

The former (in booklist) is the simpler option if you're not comfortable with calibre's metadata plugboards. See the 2 red circles in the attached screencap. The tags info will appear in the book list, under the book title. As a bonus it will also automatically appear under the book title shown on the View Details page.

See the blue circle in the attached screencap for a very simple way to show calibre's publication date in the Kobo book details (DETAILS tab in the Publisher field).

Exactly what I was looking for. I had read through the forums and searched quite a bit, but just could not find it. Thanks so much!

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by pugsley

Exactly what I was looking for. I had read through the forums and searched quite a bit, but just could not find it. Thanks so much!

You're welcome. Enjoy your new gadget

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by pugsley

2 - I do not see a way to change the appearance of the library view, My Books or in a collection, to see more books on a page for instance.

There is a cover only view that does show more books, but not as many details.

3 - when deleting books from the reader (all side loaded from Calibre), I touch/hold the book, select remove, then remove. But the files still stay on the kobo when checked as a drive on the computer. Is the only way to remove them to do so directly from the computer with the kobo as a drive?

That shouldn't be happening and it isn't something I've seen. But, someone else has reported it recently on an Aura ONE. I haven't been able to work out a cause.

If it happens again, after disconnecting from the PC, can you check and see if the book is imported again and shown in the library? If should, but there might be something else happening.

As to removing the file when connected to the PC, that is safe. Using calibre, deleting a book will also remove the book from the internal database. But, simply deleting the book from the file system works as well. In this case, the device see the book is missing when disconnected and does the cleanup itself.

[pugsley]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is a cover only view that does show more books, but not as many details.

Ok - thanks.

That shouldn't be happening and it isn't something I've seen. But, someone else has reported it recently on an Aura ONE. I haven't been able to work out a cause.

If it happens again, after disconnecting from the PC, can you check and see if the book is imported again and shown in the library? If should, but there might be something else happening.

As to removing the file when connected to the PC, that is safe. Using calibre, deleting a book will also remove the book from the internal database. But, simply deleting the book from the file system works as well. In this case, the device see the book is missing when disconnected and does the cleanup itself.

I took a closer look, and after I remove the books on the reader, the books are no longer in the library in any view (author, collections, etc...). But on the reader when seen as a drive on the computer, the folders are still there for each author of a removed book, but the books themselves are gone. So it is only the author named folders still on the reader. I had not checked each folder before now.
The book and author folder are both removed when using Calibre.
Thank you.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by pugsley

I took a closer look, and after I remove the books on the reader, the books are no longer in the library in any view (author, collections, etc...). But on the reader when seen as a drive on the computer, the folders are still there for each author of a removed book, but the books themselves are gone. So it is only the author named folders still on the reader. I had not checked each folder before now.
The book and author folder are both removed when using Calibre.

Both of those are expected. The device doesn't remove empty directories, but the KoboTouch driver does.