COPS : Calibre OPDS PHP Server

[micster]

I'm interested in this script for many of the same reasons that you created it, but there is one feature I would like to achieve... Is it possible to also make a web browsable catalog?

Calibre2opds achieves this by generating HTML files for the website and XML files for the OPDS catalog. I like the way that the two match and would very much like to use a regular web browser and my opds capable ereader for navigating my collection.

I would appreciate any information you might have that could help me out with this.

[gaspine]

@blackmailer : php si a bit confusing with sqlite.
Thé calibre database si sqlite 3 version.
I ve succesfully installés cops in an Apache environnement maybe it's easier to do in that way.


For the last post, opds si à better protocol to browse à catalog, in i remembre calibre 2opds build static html ADN you néed to rebuild them. In you ré reader si opds compatible keep cops

[micster]

I'm getting this error message

Fatal error: Call to a member function fetchColumn() on a non-object in /var/www/author.php on line 33

From the research I've done through Google it appears that it is having trouble connecting to the database. One of the suggestions I got was to make sure "php_pdo_sqlite extension is enabled in PHP". I think this is true but I am not sure.

I'm running Apache2.

[micster]

Doh! I fixed my problem and it was pretty stupid...

In the config_local.php file I had the variable:

PHP Code:

$config['calibre_directory'] = '/var/www/books'; 


When it should have been:

PHP Code:

$config['calibre_directory'] = '/var/www/books/'; 


Notice the '/' at the end? Such a small thing that took me several hours to find.

[vlad59]

@b1ackmai1er

I agree with Gaspine thought, you have a to use a Sqlite3 driver to open Calibre's database.

What OS are you using ? from the directory you typed it doesn't appear to be any variant of Debian or Arch.

Have you restarted your php fastcgi after installing sqlite package ?

@micster

Sorry for the lost hours

I'll add a warning in next release (should be later today).

About your other question about a web browsable catalog, I'm currently coding it, I'll post a link to my work in progress later.

[vlad59]

COPS 0.0.3 is out with the following changes (First post to download) :

* Fixed many things blocking opensearch from working
* There was a bug introduced in 0.0.2
* The URL can't be relative for Mantano reader, so I added a configuration item.
* I continued the refactoring to bring HTML to COPS
* Thumbnails have bigger size (I'll add a configuration item later)
* Added HTTP headers to help caching image and thumbnail to the browser

Thanks to gaspine for testing it with Apache2 and fixing some bugs.

The download link is in the first post.

I have also started an HTML catalog with the following constraint : it has to be usable on my Kobo eReader Touch / my Phone / my Tablet / any normal browser. So it won't probably have all the bells and whistles you'll expect : it will be simple !

Warning : that's a work in progress, but you can see for yourself here :

http://cops-demo.slucas.fr/kobo.php

The TODO list is quite huge but it's a start :

• No search
• There's no way to have some details about a book
• No ways to use tags / author / serie as link to navigate easily
• Many other bugs

I'll work on that later.

Happy testing.

[micster]

Hey Vlad59,
Thanks for the update! I have been currently trying to run your script in conjunction with THIS OTHER ONE written by Chaley. His only does the website without an opds catalog, while yours had the catalog but nothing for browsers.... with your powers combined!

I'm happy you are working on a solution for browsers. The other script I mentioned had similar requirements to yours with the addition of the Smarty Template Engine. It also supports search which is a big plus to me. I was able to install both scripts, but yours has refused to cooperate with me!

I use the MegaReader app for iOS devices for navigating my opds catalog. When I use your demo feed, everything works fine. But when I use your version 0.2 script on my catalog I get two main errors...
When I try and perform a search I get this message:

Catalog Error. Communication problem. Try again later.

And when I select a book to download I get:

Catalog Error. Download error. Could not complete book download.

Another oddity with my catalog is if I enter the URL for the search directly like this www.mysite.com/feed.php?page=8&query=Alice I get an error page that says:

Fatal error: Undefined class constant 'PAGE_OPENSEARCH_QUERY' in /var/www/OPDS_renderer.php on line 54

But on your demo website it will perform the search as expected. I'm not sure if this is because I'm running Apache and you are on Nginx, or because I'm running version 0.2 and you might not be, or maybe because I have that other script running as well?

The first thing I will try is to upgrade to version 0.3 and see if my problems magically go away. Wish me luck!

[vlad59]

Hi mcister,

Don't try search with 0.0.2 it's totally screwed. I totally forgot to test the search before releasing it.

It should work correctly with 0.0.3 (hopefully).

Edit : I also use Chaley script on the same server so it shouldn't be the cause of your problem.

[micster]

WooWhoo! Success! The version 0.3 fixed my search which started working right away. My book downloads however, still did not work. But I have discovered why and once again it was my own stupid fault...

The section that was causing my problems was the Calibre Directory at the top:

PHP Code:

/*
     * The directory containing calibre's metadata.db file, with sub-directories
     * containing all the formats.
     * If this directory starts with a / EPUB download will only work with Nginx
     * and the calibre_internal_directory has to be set properly
     * BEWARE : it has to end with a /
     */
    $config['calibre_directory'] = './'; 


I was reading too much into this and thought the variable wanted the full path. On my server I have all of my books including the Calibre database in a subfolder called "books" within my web root which looks like this:

PHP Code:

/var/www/books/ 


when you clearly say to use the "directory" which would look like this:

PHP Code:

books/ 


Now it works! Not only can I search my collection for a specific e-book, but I can also download it straight to my e-reader. Hooray! Thanks for your help

Oh, by the way this is running on Apache2 and I use MegaReader as my e-reader and everything is working.

[b1ackmai1er]

@vlad59
@gaspine

Thanks guys, Yes the PHP5 package that I use only has the sqlite 2.8 version. I am using Tinycore Linux. I have requested that the package be updated but I don't hold out much hope of it being updated.

I may try to find a version 3 php sqlite pdo and see if I can substitute the newer file.

Thanks Phil.

[vlad59]

@b1ackmai1er

Hope you'll find a newer package.

@mcister

Sorry again for wasting your time with 0.0.2
Happy to hear it's working correctly.

That makes 3 people correctly using it.

[micster]

Hey vlad59,
Everything has been working out pretty good but I noticed that your opds catalog does not display images alongside the navigational links. This is a feature that was available in my old catalog, Calibre2opds.

I'm trying to decipher how this was achieved and I'm also trying to figure out how your script constructs the opds catalog. Is this something you could shine some light on? Any plans to add icons into the catalog?

Thanks!

[vlad59]

Hi,

I'm a minimalist kind of guy So I don't add things that seems unnecessary to me.

Anyway it's fairly easy to add, I'll add that in the next release (sunday if everything goes as planned).

I'll also add tags.

[micster]

Woot! I really appreciate the work you have done. Adding icons was the last thing on my list

Now that I'm thinking about it... is there a way to add custom navigational sections? Like what if I wanted a category for all of my comics? I think I could achieve something close to that with a custom column in Calibre, but I'm not sure how that might work when creating an OPDS.

I think I read about someone achieving something like this by creating multiple Calibre databases (one for comics, magazines, books) and then creating separate OPDS catalogs for each. It would be nice to just have the single OPDS catalog and be able to add whatever sections you want though.

This might be too ambitious and I'm really just brainstorming to try and see how I could accomplish this. Anyways, thanks for all the great work you have done already!

-Mic

[jillmess]

Wow! - it has taken most of the day but I finally have this up and running on my NAS (using apache). Now I can turn off the old laptop I have had running to serve my library.

Jill