Guide to Collections Management with calibre (Touch / Glo / Mini /Aura)

[compurandom]

I think there's an option in the driver to tell it to delete empty shelves.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

I think there's an option in the driver to tell it to delete empty shelves.

Yes there is. But, these shelves are not empty. They have books in them from Kobo. Hence the driver won't delete them.

[sjfan]

I added a new tag for books I want to read in the near future and it was refusing to sync; it turns out that the tag "Wishlist" is explicitly ignored in the kobo driver (along with "Shortlist"), so I switched to "Favorites" and everything's working fine now.

It might be worth documenting that fact ("Wishlist" and "Shortlist" tags will never be synced) in the OP here to save others time.

EDIT: I added a quick note to that effect to the wiki, feel free to edit it for clarity or better placement.

[davidfor]

I'd forgotten about those. "Wishlist" and "Shortlist" are treated differently. Neither will appear in the collections list. But, I'm not sure if Shortlist still does anythig. It was used in older firmware, but I don't think it is used now.

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I'd forgotten about those. "Wishlist" and "Shortlist" are treated differently. Neither will appear in the collections list.

Yeah, I spent a while trying to figure out if I'd messed up my auto-sync settings or something before I started suspecting something else was afoot. Switching from Wishlist to another name fixed it, at which point a quick code dive confirmed the name was being treated specially (and turned up Shortlist as well).

[Snodgrass]

If some kind soul could help a computer illiterate person, I'd be most grateful. Really stuck with getting books from an iMac to a Kobo Glo with column information intact. I get as far as 'Expand Divice Interface (etc)'; I've installed 'Kobo Touch Extended, then when I click on 'Customise plugin', I can't find any reference to 'shelf info'.
I've tried various combinations, but nothing seems to work.
If it's relevant, I can't seem to connect the two devices by USB; the Kobo says it's connected, but calibre seems ignorant of the fact. I'm using the 'Content Server' thing to move books. (And that's another convoluted tangle of events; the Kobo insists on connecting to Rakusen and forgets all about my settings!
Many thanks in advance for any useful information.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Snodgrass

If some kind soul could help a computer illiterate person, I'd be most grateful. Really stuck with getting books from an iMac to a Kobo Glo with column information intact. I get as far as 'Expand Divice Interface (etc)'; I've installed 'Kobo Touch Extended, then when I click on 'Customise plugin', I can't find any reference to 'shelf info'.

Kobo renamed "Shelves" to "Collections" two or three years after they released this feature. This thread was started when they were still called "Shelves". But there is a link in the first post to a Wiki page that is a little more up to date.

I've tried various combinations, but nothing seems to work.
If it's relevant, I can't seem to connect the two devices by USB; the Kobo says it's connected, but calibre seems ignorant of the fact. I'm using the 'Content Server' thing to move books. (And that's another convoluted tangle of events; the Kobo insists on connecting to Rakusen and forgets all about my settings!

The Kobo firmware does not support talking to any other server than the Kobo servers. You can use the browser to connect to a calibre server and download books that way. But, this makes no use of the KoboTouch driver and hence does nothing with collections. If you want to use calibre for collection management, you must connect the device to a PC running calibre using the USB connection.

[shoelesshunter]

Is there a way to have my Calibre news downloads sent to a custom shelf on my kobo?

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by shoelesshunter

Is there a way to have my Calibre news downloads sent to a custom shelf on my kobo?

What I've done is the following:

1. Add a new column of type Column built from other columns" with lookup name newsshelf and column heading News Shelf
2. Set it's template to {:'strcmp(list_intersection(field('tags'), 'News', ','),'News','','News','')'}
3. Add #newsshelf to the list of collection columns

[LivresInOz]

I put a super-short, only-the-essentials version of how to get Calibre to manage your 'Collections'/shelves , here.

It includes:
- a link to a video, which may be easier to follow for some.
- a link to a wiki that also explains it

It's rough but it worked for me.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by zenji

I put a super-short, only-the-essentials version of how to get Calibre to manage your 'Collections'/shelves , here.

It includes:
- a link to a video, which may be easier to follow for some.
- a link to a wiki that also explains it

It's rough but it worked for me.

Honestly, why? Your instructions are much worse than in the Wiki. And the link to the Wiki is in the first post in this thread. You know, in that big red text say where to look for the instructions.

[LivresInOz]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Honestly, why? Your instructions are much worse than in the Wiki. And the link to the Wiki is in the first post in this thread. You know, in that big red text say where to look for the instructions.

Hey David,

1. It contains a video, which is alot easier to follow than text


2. When I followed the sticky, I missed an important part and the result was a fail:
The sticky said
"In the area for shelf info, type #myshelves, series."
Nothing personal, but I prefer this, which is clearer:
"Collection columns field: enter the names of the columns you wish to use for collection."
I also think its more reliable to access that dialogue box from the device menu rather than plugins, because then you're sure you're configuring the plugin your device is actually using. (Because there are two different plugins. I think one must be disabled).

3. I wanted to point out that (AFAIK), adding the bit about 'series' is not necessary if you dont care about having series listed in your collections - and some like me don't actually want series to be listed in collections (AFAIK)

4. Also because I wanted to prove that no good deed goes unpunished. 🤣5.
Even if someone has a good intention simply to help others, there will always be some who will chime in with a criticism.
Even if that criticism comes after the person has posted and therefore will have zero effect on the future (and therefore clearly has the intention of attack, not helping others).
Though doing such does have one effect: a chilling effect making kind people hesitate before they try to help - for fear of being criticsied/attacked.

Of course, I'm sure your post has nothing to do with the fact that I criticised another member of the club on another thread
I'm sure you're entirely objective and would only criticise my posts on the merit of the actual post 🤣

I myself find that judging people based on only one or two things they've said or done,
or only because they've been in some conflict with a 'friend' of yours on an unrelated matter,
or holding grudges,
is unhealthy for the individual and the society,
so I just want to say thankyou David for the amazing Kobo utilities plugin!

[PeterT]

Fyi. Its a WIKI.
You can edit it if you think it's lacking

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by zenji

Hey David,

1. It contains a video, which is alot easier to follow than text

That is a personal thing. Personally, I find them painful as I have to stop and start them to see the steps properly. But, specifically, did you watch that video? It is from 2014. It is for a driver configuration that hasn't been used for at least four years. How the hell is that useful to anyone?

And, it follows the steps at the start of this thread. Without any suggestion that it could be done with different columns. But you criticise those steps as not very good. So why would you suggest following such a bad set of instructions.

2. When I followed the sticky, I missed an important part and the result was a fail:
The sticky said
"In the area for shelf info, type #myshelves, series."
Nothing personal, but I prefer this, which is clearer:
"Collection columns field: enter the names of the columns you wish to use for collection."
I also think its more reliable to access that dialogue box from the device menu rather than plugins, because then you're sure you're configuring the plugin your device is actually using. (Because there are two different plugins. I think one must be disabled).

3. I wanted to point out that (AFAIK), adding the bit about 'series' is not necessary if you dont care about having series listed in your collections - and some like me don't actually want series to be listed in collections (AFAIK)

4. Also because I wanted to prove that no good deed goes unpunished. 🤣5.
Even if someone has a good intention simply to help others, there will always be some who will chime in with a criticism.
Even if that criticism comes after the person has posted and therefore will have zero effect on the future (and therefore clearly has the intention of attack, not helping others).
Though doing such does have one effect: a chilling effect making kind people hesitate before they try to help - for fear of being criticsied/attacked.

Of course, I'm sure your post has nothing to do with the fact that I criticised another member of the club on another thread
I'm sure you're entirely objective and would only criticise my posts on the merit of the actual post 🤣

I myself find that judging people based on only one or two things they've said or done,
or only because they've been in some conflict with a 'friend' of yours on an unrelated matter,
or holding grudges,
is unhealthy for the individual and the society,
so I just want to say thankyou David for the amazing Kobo utilities plugin!

I started responding to your post before reading the full post. Then I found the above bit of trash. My response above was an honest reaction to your post here and your original post of instructions. I didn't bother to comment on them there because I did not think there was a point. When you posted the reference to them here, I commented as I did not want other people to use your bad instructions. And I hadn't watched the video at that point or I would have made the above criticism.

As @PeterT said, the instructions are in a Wiki. This is editable by anyone. If you think you can improve them, do so. The bit about "series" you are critical about are a relatively new addition by someone who wanted to explain it better. It is better, but, it is a little to specific. The instructions in the first post have been clearly marked as not those that should be followed. Yet, you are criticising them.

[spacepope]

Hate to be the idiot here, but I followed the Wiki instructions and basically Calibre ate my collections since series information is stored in my "series" column. I should have seen this coming, but it's whatever.


Should I create a custom column to house my Collections info? Also, can I populate that column with collections info from Kobo first... and then start editing it?

Thanks!