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

[D..]

Unfortunately it doesnt or should I say hasnt with my updates, not since the new firmware - I have updated Calibre including the latest today, including plugboards but still getting it wrong. I have today tried altering the plugboard in various ways, experimenting with everything. I now have the - epub-Kobotouch - which lists as - epub:KOBOTOUCH = ([{author_sort}/{title}] -> author_sort)
I cannot amend that, it sseems to be automatic as soon as you input Kobotouch. On destination I have amended it to just - {author_sort}/{title})
and I am now thankfully getting them on the Kobo library in alphabetical order - hurrah!! Only small problem is that they are all appearing with extras - ([Armentrout, J/Covenant] - >authors) with all of the punctuation, brackets, dashes etc. What am I doing wrong now and how can I delete these brackets and the extra >authors? Is there a Dummies Guide to Plugboards please? I need a drink!!!!

[speakingtohe]

I think the plugboard destination field should be authors

My plugboard is
epub:
Kobotouch
{author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s}
authors

Works for me.

Helen

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by D..

Unfortunately it doesnt or should I say hasnt with my updates, not since the new firmware -

As I asked before, what firmware version? Sayng "new firmware" doesn't actually help. Kobo release firmware to different markets at different times. In Japan, 2.2.1 is the current version. Elsewhere, 2.1.5 is current.

But, I don't think the author sorting algorithm has changed in any firmware. The author sort sequence is always "Lastname, Firstname" But, how the displayed author name is interpreted depends on the structure of the name. The ones I can see are:

- "Name1 Name2" - will get Firstname=Name1 and Lastname=Name2
- "Name1, Name2" - will get Firstname=Name2 and Lastname=Name1
- "Name1" - Lastname=Name1 and no Firstname

From what you have posted for the authors, the sorting working correctly and most of the names are interpreted as the first one. But, it sounds like you intend the second.

I have updated Calibre including the latest today, including plugboards but still getting it wrong. I have today tried altering the plugboard in various ways, experimenting with everything. I now have the - epub-Kobotouch - which lists as - epub:KOBOTOUCH = ([{author_sort}/{title}] -> author_sort)
I cannot amend that, it sseems to be automatic as soon as you input Kobotouch. On destination I have amended it to just - {author_sort}/{title})
and I am now thankfully getting them on the Kobo library in alphabetical order - hurrah!! Only small problem is that they are all appearing with extras - ([Armentrout, J/Covenant] - >authors) with all of the punctuation, brackets, dashes etc. What am I doing wrong now and how can I delete these brackets and the extra >authors? Is there a Dummies Guide to Plugboards please? I need a drink!!!!

I think your problem is the plugboard. Firstly, this must have been defined sometime before. There are no defaults for plugboards.

To fix it, select the plugboard from the list. Under "Source template" will be the changes that are made when the plugboard is applied. From what you have said, I think you want the author displayed on the device as "Lastname, Firstname". To do that, I would create the source template with:

{author_sort} -> authors

After changing the source template, press the "Save plugboard" button.

Setting the author_sort in the plugboard won't help as the Kobo devices do not read this part of the metadata.

[D..]

Thank you Helen I used that in destination and it worked with the author setting [but not author sort??]. Thank you everyone for you help - I do feel that it now makes a bit more sense to me, I dont pretend to be an experienced computer expert but usually after reading instructions manage to experiment and get there in the end. No instructions though! I think a couple of things seemed to go against the rules here, firstly the Kobo firmware upgrade [upgraded to 2.1.5. - sorry didnt realise they were different according to country] took out the previous Calibre settings working and despite upgrading Calibre, evidently didnt realise you have to go into preferences and manually upgrade it. Secondly & this is guesswork, I need author & not author sort , which as you said it didnt recognise & that final amend to author perfected it. What was hard to understand was that choosing KoboTouch which brought up the automatic sequence was going to be completely difference to the template. Obviously Kobo do not issue instructions for using Calibre so we novices have to ask on this forum. All of your help is much appreciated. From now on I wont need to title my books with the series & no at the front, which was time consuming! I even have shelves worked out. Thank you all again and apologies for taking so long to get it right.

[antisense]

Apologies if this has already been addressed, but I don't any posts describing the issue I'm seeing:
I've set up "My Shelves" per the instructions, and shelves are syncing with my Kobo Touch, except I'm getting multiple copies of the same shelf on the KT.

I have 4 shelves set up in Calibre: Classics, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Reference. Three of them behave properly, but after a sync I end up with about 30 shelves named "Fiction", all containing the same number of titles. Deleting one "Fiction" shelf deletes all of them, and removing a book from one shelf removes it from all of them as well. The books are all located on the SD card, in case that's important.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by antisense

Apologies if this has already been addressed, but I don't any posts describing the issue I'm seeing:
I've set up "My Shelves" per the instructions, and shelves are syncing with my Kobo Touch, except I'm getting multiple copies of the same shelf on the KT.

I have 4 shelves set up in Calibre: Classics, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Reference. Three of them behave properly, but after a sync I end up with about 30 shelves named "Fiction", all containing the same number of titles. Deleting one "Fiction" shelf deletes all of them, and removing a book from one shelf removes it from all of them as well. The books are all located on the SD card, in case that's important.

I have seen that once. The problem is on the device. I think I fixed it by powering off and back on. That forces the device to reread the database the library details are stored in.

But, there is something poking at the back of my brain about this. What firmware version and calibre version are you using?

[PeterT]

Would there be anypoint trying a Kobo Desktop and/or WiFi sync?

This has in my experience made some changes to shelves on the unit.

[davidfor]

Actually a Kobo sync would be a good idea. Especially if they are using the 2.2.x firmware and not the latest calibre.

[antisense]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Actually a Kobo sync would be a good idea. Especially if they are using the 2.2.x firmware and not the latest calibre.

I'm on 2.1.5 - I just got the KT last week, shouldn't the firmware have upgraded when I set it up?
I'll try a sync when I get home tonight, and let you know how it turns out. Thanks!

[PeterT]

The 2.2.x is not released outside of Japan.

[antisense]

Nope, the Kobo Desktop sync didn't help, but I did get it solved by renaming the Shelf in Calibre and then letting Calibre sync the metadata again.

When I originally tagged the books in the Fiction category, I selected a batch at a time, and at least sometimes I retyped "Fiction" rather than picking the existing value from the dropdown. Is it possible that in doing so I created several different shelf tags, all with the same text value? And then Calibre grouped them correctly by text value, but the Touch treated them as separate shelves (but obviously got confused and included all the books on every shelf)?

That would explain why renaming the shelf fixed it - it regrouped all the books under a single tag.

[daveman]

Hi there,

I am a newby with all this so please excuse my ignorance.

I have been putting together a fairly extensive library of books. I would like to use Calibre to automatically create bookshelves by AUTHOR rather than by Series (I like to have books organized by author, using bookshelves, almost like directories)

and then to rename books by

Series SeriesNumber - Title
For example,
Martin, George R. R. / A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE 05 - A Dance With Dragons
Or
Collins, Suzanne / The Hunger Games 03 – Mockinjay

I have no idea how to do this and would like some help.
Thanks
Dave

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by antisense

Apologies if this has already been addressed, but I don't any posts describing the issue I'm seeing:
I've set up "My Shelves" per the instructions, and shelves are syncing with my Kobo Touch, except I'm getting multiple copies of the same shelf on the KT.

I have the same/similar problem.

Glo, firmware 2.1.5
Calibre 0.9.7

Initially I created a "My Shelves" custom column as per the instructions, and had "#myshelves, series" for the shelf info. In Calibre I had some books in Series, so they had a value in the Series column, but I never filled in the value for "My Shelves" for any of my books.

I only had 3 series in Calibre, but this gave me 6 shelves on the Glo, i.e.., each series had two duplicated shelves.

So I got rid of the "My Shelves" custom column as I am not using it, and changed the shelf info to "series" in the plug-in. I deleted all the shelves on the Glo, and then resync with Calibre. Same result as before - 6 shelves (3 series, two duplicate shelves each).

I have tried powering off and on - no difference.

Also, if I delete one of the duplicate shelves, the other one disappears too - so they are obviously linked.

Any help much appreciated! Thanks

[ShellShock]

I have fixed the duplicate shelves problem. After deleting the shelves on the Glo using the user interface, I connected it to my computer via the USB, and I used SQLiteSpy to open the .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite database. This showed that the Shelf table still had 3 records in it which matched the shelves I had deleted. So I deleted these records, disconnected, reconnected, ran Calibre to resync the shelves, and I now have the correct number of shelves (3).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I have fixed the duplicate shelves problem. After deleting the shelves on the Glo using the user interface, I connected it to my computer via the USB, and I used SQLiteSpy to open the .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite database. This showed that the Shelf table still had 3 records in it which matched the shelves I had deleted. So I deleted these records, disconnected, reconnected, ran Calibre to resync the shelves, and I now have the correct number of shelves (3).

Do you remember what was in the Id, _IsDeleted and _IsSynced columns for these rows? The driver shouldn't only leave the records behind if _IsSynced is true. If it is, it changes _IsDeleted to true. A Kobo sync to will then delete them from the database and from the Kobo server. If _IsSynced is true and the records are deleted, the Kobo sync will recreate the shelves.