Quick Guide to Shelf Management with calibre 0.9.1 & above (Touch / Glo / Mini /Aura)

[catsknit]

Using most recent version of Calibre, current plugins and Kobo firmware 4.33.19759

I had previously set up collections more than a year ago but recently had a big problem with many titles in Calibre no longer having book files attached to them, and had to re-import and convert a lot of books. Following the directions in the wiki, I had originally set up a new column called My Shelves with about 10 genre that I wanted to use for collections. (my tags have these plus some subgenre or extra info so I don't use tags for collections). I thought that listing (in the Collections, Covers and Uploads section of the Kobo Touch Extended plugin) MyShelves, Series would put things in the right collection, organized by series if available. instead, it made a collection for every series, which I did not want. Further, it made a series for EVERY single title, thus a collection for each title.

Needless to say, this was quite worthless. I changed the line to say "MyShelves" only but it still made a collection for every title. I tried deleting all the extraneous collections but am left with only a few of the ones I actually set up, and only a few books sorted into them. I have put every single book into one collection or another based on genre so I don't see why they are not remaining that way once synced to the Kobo. I have it set as Automatic Metadata Management.

I really don't have a deep understanding of a lot of this, have just tried to follow the steps in order. Thanks for any help.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by catsknit

Using most recent version of Calibre, current plugins and Kobo firmware 4.33.19759

I had previously set up collections more than a year ago but recently had a big problem with many titles in Calibre no longer having book files attached to them, and had to re-import and convert a lot of books. Following the directions in the wiki, I had originally set up a new column called My Shelves with about 10 genre that I wanted to use for collections. (my tags have these plus some subgenre or extra info so I don't use tags for collections). I thought that listing (in the Collections, Covers and Uploads section of the Kobo Touch Extended plugin) MyShelves, Series would put things in the right collection, organized by series if available. instead, it made a collection for every series, which I did not want. Further, it made a series for EVERY single title, thus a collection for each title.

Needless to say, this was quite worthless. I changed the line to say "MyShelves" only but it still made a collection for every title. I tried deleting all the extraneous collections but am left with only a few of the ones I actually set up, and only a few books sorted into them. I have put every single book into one collection or another based on genre so I don't see why they are not remaining that way once synced to the Kobo. I have it set as Automatic Metadata Management.

I really don't have a deep understanding of a lot of this, have just tried to follow the steps in order. Thanks for any help.

What is the lookup name of the column? Do you use the KoboTouchExtended driver or do you use the KoboTouch driver?

[catsknit]

It's "MyShelves" yes, very original ha ha. And I'm using the koboextendedtouch driver.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by catsknit

It's "MyShelves" yes, very original ha ha. And I'm using the koboextendedtouch driver.

Is the lookup name #myshelves?

[catsknit]

I'm sorry, what exactly is the lookup name referring to? The new column I made is called MyShelves, and in the Kobotouchextended plugin under Collections, Covers and Uploads, under Collections it says Collection Columns and I have put #MyShelves. Is there another place I need to fix that?

Also, after I verified that I'm using the Extended plugin, I realized I also had the regular Kobo plugin active. I disabled it but still have the same issues with collections.

Thank you for trying to help me.

Ah, OK, now i see on the lefthand side it says the lookup/search name is #shelves. So do I fix the Koboextendedtouch driver to say #shelves even though the column name is MyShelves?

[Quoth]

Yes!
I know it's seems odd. My visible collection column is Collections (Was Hazel) on the main GUI but #koboshelves in the driver and "Add your own Columns". I had different columns for different devices.

My Sony PRS-350 driver was using Tags column to create its "collections", by default, but I figured how to use Collections/#koboshelves for it too.

Connect the Ereader
Click the V arrow on Device and then Configure Driver
2nd tab is Collections. covers & Uploads.


No need to disable Kobo Drivers.

[catsknit]

Yes! It worked! Thank you for being patient and understanding with me; I know enough to be dangerous but so much of what is said on these forums is way over my head.

[turnroot]

I have a question that has plagued me for one year, ever since I got my Kobo Libra 2 and Calibre.

Finding typos and errors while reading is a total nightmare because it means that you have to delete the book you're reading. I haven't found any way to fix those without losing all annotations and bookmarks every time i "fix" a book in Calibre. Whether it be colored text issues that makes it impossible to read in dark mode, or conversion from epub to kepub that messes up the paragraph breaks, images, and so on. As far as I understand, this is because every conversion after a fix creates a new version of the book.

Two issues that I have recently discovered that really makes me feel that Calibre is lacking in certain departments:

* Dark mode did not work for my current book. I had to go and make a new conversion with KoboTouch Extended to remove color information. A new version was created. I had no way to transfer my old annotations to the new fixed epub file.
* I discovered that kepub is a much faster and responsive format and now I want this for every book, including the ones I've read. I reread books and reference them due to work. Problem is, I'll lose all my bookmarks and annotations if I convert my whole library of epubs to kepubs.

Can someone please explain to me like I'm five how to navigate around this? I have all the recommended plugins installed but the don't really solve this issue. Or I just don't understand how to do it.

[JSWolf]

This thread should be closed and the topic updated so everyone knows what it's abount givent hat Shelves is an obsolete term and it should read collections instead.