[GUI Plugin] Kindle Collections (old)

[NiLuJe]

@SASSBS: Do you happen to run your K4 in another language than English? If so, which one?

[SASSBS]

@NiLuJe no English Uk is selected

[Raederle]

Meme, you've likely had a lot of feature requests you had to ignore. Here is one more.

As you've created a GUI for some facets of managing the Kindle, would it be possible to add a checkbox for "Keep this item"? I often load some of my backlog of calibre site downloads onto the kindle, but unless I laboriously set each item to "Keep this item" on the kindle, they're gone the next day.

With a gui, or some other way to set the flag from calibre, my playing bulk catchup on sites would be made much easier.

Thanks for considering this. Actual implementation of course depends on how tough it is.

Regards, Raederle

[NiLuJe]

@SASSBS: Huh. If you can reproduce this with another collection, a backup of the collections.json db *before* the interaction with the plugin might shed some light on this... (If you haven't used the plugin since, the last backup it did might be enough, I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly how/when the backups are done).

@Raederle: If I understood you correctly, you're speaking of periodicals/news feed? If so, the Kindle *should* keep at least a small amount of back-issues (~10, maybe less). No idea how well it handles things if you feed it only 'old' backlogged items.
Regardless, I don't think we have a way to get our fingers in the Kindle's cataloging system (at least from here), so, the point is moot anyway .

[bonzi]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@konzi: And kindlean actually does jailbreak your device (wondering what those '7 easy steps' were? It's a jailbreak.). And then does god knows what inside your device, since it's closed source, and I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole to get more details about what it's actually trying to do...

Ah! Thanks for the warning. As I said, I never reached that step, since I don't have Touch. BTW, Kindlean has a bug handling some Topaz files, dully reported six months ago, with the only answer annoyed "we are looking into it".

I don't think that was the best spent $19.95 in my life...

[booklover001]

I'm so excited about Kindle Collections! But I can't seem to get it working right. I am a complete newbie to Kindle Collections.

I have a Kindle Touch. I did the jailbreak, then the Kindlet jailbreak, then the JP Patcher, all to get Kindle Collections for the Touch working. Downloaded the newest version on the first post. It shows up in my toolbar on Calibre.

What I want to do is edit the collections I already have on my Kindle that I created directly on the Kindle--so I guess import the collections into Calibre, and then be able to add or remove multiiple items from the collection. But when I choose (in Calibre) Kindle Collections, edit Kindle collections manually, and I get the pop-up window, it doesn't show up any collections at all. Nothing in the drop-down menu.

Er--what do I do? What am I doing wrong?

[NiLuJe]

@booklover001: For what you're trying to do, you'll have to do an export from Collections Manager before. (And every time you make changes on the Kindle you want to be able to edit in Calibre).

That's not a terribly practical workflow on the Touch/PW, I'm afraid.

[booklover001]

Update: so that's what I've done...create "folders" each with their own name, which makes sense to me, and then I imported it into my Kindle, and now I've got those folders, and I can easily update it through Calibre. Love it! I think once I'm done, I'll delete the folders I had on my Kindle, just so I can always easily update them through Calibre.

But...if I add a book through my Kindle into a folder I created on Calibre in the regular way on my Kindle, will the info be transferred to Calibre?

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@booklover001: For what you're trying to do, you'll have to do an export from Collections Manager before. (And every time you make changes on the Kindle you want to be able to edit in Calibre).

That's not a terribly practical workflow on the Touch/PW, I'm afraid.

Thanks so much for your response, NiLuJe! Er--could you please explain the steps more?

I was thinking I could make collections through tags. But there are 889 tags that other people have used for the ebooks I have, and most don't fit the kind of categories I want to use. I'd probably have to delete them all and then retag them all, right? Or make another...category?

And...so...is it easier if I just recreate all the collections on Calibre and then import them into my Kindle? I made a a custom column called "folders" because it's what made sense to me. And I'll start putting the ebooks I want into named "folders". Is that the way I should do it? Then I do "custom collections to create from Calibre", select the "folders" and "create", and then generate it for the Kindle?

Thank you.

[booklover001]

I don't know why, but now it won't update/add the rest of my new folders onto my Kindle. And it won't add the rest of the books into the folders (on my Kindle) that I've updated into the folders/categories through Calibre and then Collections Manager.

It keeps saying, once I've gone through the process, that 9 collections etc have been updated, but I have 15. It hasn't put the rest of my books into folders or collections on my Kindle.

And I have to turn off my Kindle, then turn it back on again fro my computer to recognize it through the USB cable. (I don't mind that as long as it works every time).

But...why aren't my new collections transferring over to my Kindle? I still have "customize collections" set to folders....

[NiLuJe]

@booklover001: Gah, you're on Windows. Check the 'Assume the device connected is a Kindle Touch' checkmark in the plugin settings first. That way you'll at least end up with much less confusing output as to what to do to take the changes into account.

But, to answer a bit of everything:

Calibre can't touch the collections database directly on the Touch/PW. You have to go through the Collections Manager Kindle app. If you want to keep *full* sync between calibre and your Touch, you'll have to do an export from Collections manager everytime, before plugging your Kindle in. That's tedious (and what I was referring to in my first post).

That doesn't change the fact that to keep stuff in 'sync' the other way around (Calibre => Kindle), you'll also always have to run an import in Collections Manager after running the plugin & unplugging your Kindle. (And know that Collections Manager will never delete a collection. It will rebuild it from scratch if stuff in it changed, but it won't delete one during an import).

Only handling the Calibre => Kindle side is way more manageable, and you get to keep the stuff you do on your Kindle, as long as it doesn't touch a collection handled by Calibre.

My usual setup is letting Calibre do all the heavy lifting (genres/series/authors), and handle the small stuff (TBR, Reading) on the Kindle. YMMV, though, but complex setups are much more time consuming/annoying to maintain than on older devices.

I'm working on changes to make that workflow even faster (by only feeding Collections Manager the collections that were modified/created, that way it doesn't have to iterate over & recreate everything that didn't change).

[redryder]

Hi, I only used Calibre to convert books but now I want to give the Kindle Collections plugin a try. I used to organize my collections manually on the K3 and it was a huge pain.

So is this the best approach for me to take?

I was planning to use Tags to create Collections as I like to use book genres for my collection headings. I have about 500 books in my Calibre library, and yesterday I used bulk metadata download on them to get tags. It resulted in 300+ tags. It looks like I have a substantial effort ahead of me to edit this list down to a manageable size before I can use it for creating collections. Is there a more efficient way to use the Plugin?

[bonzi]

Originally Posted by redryder

I was planning to use Tags to create Collections as I like to use book genres for my collection headings. I have about 500 books in my Calibre library, and yesterday I used bulk metadata download on them to get tags. It resulted in 300+ tags. It looks like I have a substantial effort ahead of me to edit this list down to a manageable size before I can use it for creating collections. Is there a more efficient way to use the Plugin?

In my experience bulk metadata upload results in tags that are in good part nonsense. There is no good substitute for manual tagging - after all, only you know your preferences in that respect. Also, book description, series data if any etc often vary considerably among metadata import sources.

Calibre can delete and rename/consolidate tags from left pane. First delete nonsense and other tags you are not interested in, then choose one among many versions of same tags (e.g. "SciFi", "Sci-Fi", "Science Fiction"...) and rename others - Calibre will "consolidate" them as expected - you will not end up with duplicates. Finally, do a manual "cleanup".

After that, Collection plug-in can do its magic

[booklover001]

@NiLuJe Thank you so much for your response! I'm still in the dark, though. Yeah, I'm on Windows 7.

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

If you want to keep *full* sync between calibre and your Touch, you'll have to do an export from Collections manager everytime, before plugging your Kindle in.

I feel stupid, but I can't find any "export" option. I only see an import option. When I try to do the import (you mentioned that, too) it won't allow me without my Kindle plugged in (it says the Kindle must be plugged in). So I plug it in, and it says it's going to replace all my data, which I don't think I want it to do?

But I still can't find an export option....

Sorry for all the questions. I'd love some more help if you don't mind.

And I like the idea of it being faster!

[NiLuJe]

@booklover001: I was talking about the Collections Manager Kindle app, not the plugin. (well, for the import/export, anyway).

You *cannot* handle collections on the Touch/PW with Calibre+Plugin alone, you need to go through Collections Manager, it's the only one that knows/can talk to the collections backend.

[booklover001]

Ohhhh! I didn't even know the Collection Managers kindle app existed! Thank you!! It looks like it doesn't support Kindle Touch, but I'm going to try it out any way, just in case. Thanks so much! I'll keep an eye on it. Maybe between the two I'll be better able to manage my collections.