[GUI Plugin] Generate Cover

[CuttingEdge]

Thank you,thank you, thank you! It worked like a charm. I'm up and running again. Pure genius!

[ThePage]

Possible cover designs were discussed here and/or nearby, but no one (including me), appears to have considered photographs for the purpose, until I reached a Cat story in a grouping I was adjusting covers on.

I used a favorite cat photograph (in lower resoloution) for the cover of that particular short-story. This allows for greater personalization without a great deal of work.

[ThePage]

Originally Posted by CuttingEdge

Thank you,thank you, thank you! It worked like a charm. I'm up and running again. Pure genius!

You might offer your Lattice? for others to use, now that you have it sorted out?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by ThePage

Possible cover designs were discussed here and/or nearby, but no one (including me), appears to have considered photographs for the purpose until I reached a Cat story in a grouping I was adjusting covers on.

I used a favorite cat photograph (in lower resoloution) for the cover of that particular short-story. This allows for greater personalization without a great deal of work.

Thanks for sharing your idea.

I can understand being excited by your success with the cat photograph, great job!

However, assuming that "no one appears to have considered photographs" for use as covers is incredibly short sighted. Why else would the options to use a image as cover or stretch an image to use as a background even exist if not to use any image as the cover.

None-the-less karma to you for sharing your idea so everyone will consider this great idea as an option.

[ThePage]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Thanks for sharing your idea.

I can understand being excited by your success with the cat photograph, great job!

None-the-less karma to you for sharing your idea so everyone will consider this great idea as an option.

I just meant that no one had mentioned it as yet, leading to the assumption that it hadn't occurred to them either.
(or that they considered so ho-hum as not to be worth mentioning)

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by ThePage

I just meant that no one had mentioned it as yet

Except for the fact that using images is integral to the design of this plugin. I'm unsure how many folks fail to equate jpg with photo but just in case example 4 in the first post shows a photo in use and I attached a photo in post 22 as an example of a image I was going to use as a cover.

Still I thanked you and awarded you karma because if one person didn't make the connection then I'm sure there are at least 100 more folks out there who will directly benefit from your observation. Nice Input!

[ThePage]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Except for the fact that using images is integral to the design of this plugin. I'm unsure how many folks fail to equate jpg with photo but just in case example 4 in the first post shows a photo in use and I attached a photo in post 22 as an example of a image I was going to use as a cover.

Still I thanked you and awarded you karma because if one person didn't make the connection then I'm sure there are at least 100 more folks out there who will directly benefit from your observation. Nice Input!

That's why I made a point of mentioning it - since it had taken me so long to connect those particular dots.

[CuttingEdge]

Since you asked, here is a picture of my red lattice cover frame. It is a jpg file that is 590x750 pixels. In generate cover I use the stretch image to use as cover background option. Since the frame is wide I set top and bottom margins at 150 and left margin at 160. You can use any kind of frame. If you have no good image for the book it makes the cover a little less plain.

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Ensure that margins are set to zero if set to too high a value to prevent a nasty repeating crash

[CuttingEdge]

LOL. Thanks Kiwidude. You have to be extra smart to protect us from ourselves. Thanks for a bullet proof plugin

[TheD0ct0r]

Awesome plugin! You rock!

Enhancement request - Would it be possible to add the other Calibre fields as options for the cover, like Tags and Ratings?

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by TheD0ct0r

Awesome plugin! You rock!

Enhancement request - Would it be possible to add the other Calibre fields as options for the cover, like Tags and Ratings?

Prefixing feature requests with some sucking up is an excellent way to attract my attention, well done.

Tags and ratings. Hmmm. The flag that comes up for me with this is when you say "like". What that little voice tells me is that next someone will ask will ask for their #xyz custom column...

There are two ways I can think of approaching this. The first would be on the content tab to add a couple of buttons to allow you to add/remove fields, be they built-in ones like tags, or custom columns. Visually the column would be drawn on its' own line on the cover, sharing the same font/size/colour as the custom text. This might make the cover rather overwhelmed (unless you did text only which would look a bit boring!)

The alternative which I am favouring would be to allow you in the custom text field to specify a pattern using Calibre's template engine. So you could combine multiple values on a single line using something like:
Rating: {rating} Genre: {tags}

So you can use any custom column or calibre column you want, formatted however you like - publication date, isbn...

What do people think - does the second option (which is by far the easiest to implement) sound useful?

[drMerry]

second is best.
Easy implementation and most flexible

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Allow custom text field to be formatted using Calibre template engine
• Change custom text field so it is a multiline field for more space and complex content

[drMerry]

superb!