[sbaylor]

Originally Posted by glenm125

I've just started using MapleRead on an iPad. Very nice overall. Look and feel while reading is as good as it needs ot be, for the things I read. I like the visual reading progress icon thing in the list view. I was able to setup connection to my Calibre library easily, and download some books, though I would be pleased if there were a little more power in finding and selecting the books to download (since there are several hundred overall).

Thank you. And we have the same wish too.

A challenge I'm having is updating books I've already downloaded to the device from Calibre.

By way of background: I've been reading my Android phone for a long time. I use Calibre to maintain my library on the PC, including fanficfare plugin to keep fanfiction epubs up to date as authors publish more. On my phone, Calibre Companion checks for metadata updates, comparing the metadata on the phone already for books it has downloaded, to latest metadata on the PC. It updates the metadata on phone, and automatically re-downloads the book as needed.

I'm hoping for some way to accomplish the same net effect on MapleRead. I have connected to Calibre Server, have downloaded books within the MapleRead UI. All good. But downloading updates is hard, or perhaps I don't understand the easy way.

Ideally it would be automatic - as soon as the device reconnects to the library, it finds the updates for already-downloaded stuff, and downloads it again. Or perhaps one big friendly button, "Update downloaded books" or similar.

Understood. We've looked under the hood again. The problem is that the OPDS Content Server of Calibre does not provide sufficient data, including the modified date of each book, in its generated XML files, which is what MapleRead sees. Thus, MapleRead can't tell if a given book is updated or not (compared against what's in MapleRead's library). I am not familiar with the inner workings of Calibre Companion, but I don't think it relies on (OPDS) Content Server at all.

It should be pretty straightforward for a competent Calibre developer to make the minor changes to include the modified date information. However we don't have the expertise in-house. Perhaps you may post a request in some calibre forum on mobileread with a link to this thread? Other users with similar needs are encouraged to help out to express your interest there too. The proposed change will potentially benefit not only MapleRead users, but also all OPDS client apps.

If that isn't possible, then at least I would like it to be easy to see what is updated - when viewing the server, put a flag beside things I'm out of date on. Give me a way to select those items easily.

Right now, I can see the list By Newest, but the UI doesn't show when it was updated, just the sorted list of titles/authors. Hence even if I remember I last downloaded on Tuesday, I can't easily see what has changed since Tuesday. So I going to the PC to do that, then come back to MapleRead to scroll down the list to the same point. But even so, I can't then select the range of books, I have to click each one to tag it to put in the download queue.

For the same reason as listed above, MapleRead or any other OPDS client can't do that.

Right now, I have a book that I know is updated in my Calibre library, but when I try to download again it says Skipped - I can't figure out why. 36 chapters on server. 35 chapters in MapleRead. No reason given why it is skipped, or at least, I don't see how to access any reason if it is there.

Check the menu items under Prefer. By default, Skip Book is checked. To do the update you want, select Download Book instead. See here for a screenshot, which is part of Exchange Books & Metadata.

Of course, maybe I just don't understand the easy way to do all this, or perhaps I've missed some confirmation that will make it easier.

In any event, this is one area in a product that seems very good overall. I hope my comments help. And suggestions would be eagerly appreciated.

Yes, your comments indeed help. Thanks.

Please think about expressing your wish to Calibre.