What is your Kindle Koreader Calibre strategy?

[b00kwyrm]

Mods: please feel free to move to KDC subforum if appropriate.

TL;DR Struggling to organize, find, and read 1300 books on PW5 without working Kindle "Create a Collection" and crashing KOreader Calibre metadata search.

I'm at a point now where book hoarding has slowed down and want to get to reading, which requires scrubbing/tuning metadata for 1300 books so far, uploading to readers, and then categorizing/searching for device reading.

Calibre

• Not much to say here as everybody knows about the Swiss Army Knife of ebook libraries.
• I am using /mnt/us/Directory without subfolders which is a bit of a browsing mess in KOreader, see below. What file folder structure and home directory are you using for uploading to the Kindle?
• Still learning more about how metadata gets uploaded and used by the various devices.

Kindle
Although I have the JB KT3 for perusing Kindle Unlimited and purchased Kindle books, I am doing all of my sideloaded reading on the PW5 as the hardware is much nicer and can hold all of the books I have in Calibre.

• I really like the simplicity of the Kindle app and the ability to search easily for title and author.
• The automatic most recently read, percent read, and cover display is elegant but replicated in KOreader.
• I miss using tags. The PW5 has never phoned home to the Mothership in a meaningful way (OTA and log blocks are installed in Kual) and so "Create a Collection" is not available to me. I am guessing that this is similar to the Nook bookshelf function which allows adding a tag to a book. I have the Collection option on the KT3 but haven't used it as the content is limited due to hardware and source-restriction.
• I will need to research this a bit more to see how to enable this functionality on a "virgin" PW5. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on "fake registering"?

KOreader

• In many ways, so much better than the Kindle app.
• Customizable touch gestures, sophisticated frontlight management, expanded filetype support (though less essential with Calibre format conversion), and of course PDF reflow.
• The developers have fully embraced the philosophy of presenting documents in directory structure for presentation of files rather than displaying by tags/collections/shelves
• So many ways to sort and present the documents in file manager, history, and the one tag, "Favorites"
• Tags/collections/shelves are limited in KOreader however as there is only one tag "Favorites" though it seems this may be changing soon.
• Unfortunately, my current strategy for uploading documents is to use just one folder and not subfolders, so I can see everything in file manager without digging into author subfolders (I rarely read sequentially by authors as I am usually reading multiple books at a time rather than bindereading a fiction series).
• KOreader has a sophisticated search function for Calibre metadata, but it seems to choke my PW5 though it works on my Android tablet. I wonder if this is a hardware limitation, document folder/metadata location configuration, or Calibre metadata sync to device issue. I will attempt to sort this on the KOreader board. Has anyone here faced a similar problem with KOreader Calibre metadata search crashing?
• KOreader is pretty difficult to navigate if metadata search isn't working.

[shamanNS]

Your "dump everything into root level of KOReader home folder" + known limitations of FAT32 file system = no way you can dump 1300 book files ( + later also have that number of ".sdr" folders generated) and expect it to work.

If you insist on having that unreasonable amount of books on your Kindle reader you should at minimum seriously considered at least grouping them into "genre" type of subfolders when sending book to KOReader home folder to have better chances of not running into those aforementioned number of files in single level of file system hierarchy limitations of FAT32.

I'm also doing the "dump every book to root level" ( since I really really hate KOReader's archaic folder-centric approach to reader content presentation) but I don't expect to have more then 100 books on my device at any time as I delete stuff I've read and also I don't need and don't like having all my books all on the reader device (that's what Calibre library is for) to needlessly slow down on-device search and rarely transfer more then 15-20 books in advance.


As for the Calibre metadata search issues those are probably mix of hardware limitations an software issue of parsing that large JSON file using the code library KOReader uses to do that job.

[DNSB]

One friend of mine uses the author sort as a directory to store ebooks in since it makes finding books by an author easier when using an old-fashioned directory structure search. They have about 1,300 books on their PW5. They also use the calibre db file for metadata search but is stuck in the 1980s with his love for directory structures and does not like having to open a book before being able to use the calibre metadata search. There seems to be no way to make it the default search rather than the file manager search.

[Sirtel]

1300 is an unreasonable amount? I have about 3000 on both of my Kobos and no issues whatsoever. But then I don't use KOReader, as I can't stand its filemanager-centric approach. I want a decent library manager, capable of author and series grouping, collections and so on. Which the native Kobo UI has.

[DNSB]

I have to agree that 1,300 books is not an unreasonable amount. I have about 2900 books currently on my Sage and search works well for me to locate a read.

[Quoth]

About 7,000 ebooks on Sage and native search works well with native ereading and also metadata library works very well.

My KOReader strategy is to re-install it when it has metadata interface instead of (or as well as) a file brower and Search that's easier to use. Apparently it's being worked on.

My Kindle DXG, K3 and PW3 are easier to find ebooks on than KOreader. I still have it on an Android eink.

35 years ago I had CP/M library software that used metadata and had quick search on a floppy. 27 years ago DOS library software and 21 years ago Windows Document management system. None of those had user browsing of the file system.

The snag with KOReader is that it's a full featured customisable document reader with no Library interface. So I fix ebooks or PDFs before copying them to Kindle, Kobo, phone or tablet.

[shamanNS]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Apparently it's being worked on.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those changes. Because if one is to judge but stuff that can be read on various GitHub issue comments there are people in core KOReader dev & project management team that are very very opposed to that idea of "flat library view" and that have an attitude that stuff they personally dislike (or just don't have the need for) matters more than what 80% of all other KOReader users have been wanting for years.

So it's not rare occasion that generally useful stuff instead of being added to KOReader codebase gets limited to being a "user patch" for eternity.

Or instead of doing the full metadata based library view as thing totally separate from the "much beloved' File Manager some devs try to at least test the ideas such as that awkward "grafting" of "virtual directory" entries into the file manager view. Even that approach is probably never getting accepted and merged into the codebase.

[rantanplan]

There's always the option to fork KOreader and just ignore the core maintainer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can even merge back changes from the main branch back into a fork, so you aren't even fully cut off from official development.

[Quoth]

A library view is certainly not "flat".
A filesystem view can only have one fixed organisation and fails with multiple authors per title, collections.
Adding subtitles and series ends up with too long paths.

I do use a hierarchical filesystem view for things like service manuals, service info, datasheets etc, most of which are only usuable on a larger screen and many need a bigger screen than 10.3″. I use a 4K screen or QHD screen on Linux with Okular for those or the 10.9″ TCL Nxtpaper 11 with Xodo. No sensible eink has the storage, screen resolution/quality/size. The 10.3″ Elipsa isn't good enough screen. So I did have KOReader on the Elipsa for a while.

I considered the Scribe but how the PDFs work put me off. No assurance of installing KOReader on Kindle anyway. I'll get the Nxtpaper 14 or Nxtpaper 14 pro when I can.

[rabe3ab]

i use calibre to to sort my books into subdirectories: language>author>book
and use this structure on kindle using koreader and it works like charm