[GUI Plugin] Generate Cover

[carmenchu]

Tried it anew and it crashed Calibre -- only, this time a found the Fast Loseless Recovery Procedure: go to ..\calibre\plugins , edit (notepad) Generate Cover.json and change back "colorApplyStroke": true, to "colorApplyStroke": false, save and restart (dunno if the latter is needed, did just for security).
Running XP SP3.
Suspect an ImageMagick issue -- something to do with its font management versus programs using Windows native font implementation: but my experience with the software is dated by some 4 years or more.

By the way: the plugin is otherwise GREAT -- have used ALL the other features without a snag.

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Upgrade to support the centralised keyboard shortcut management in Calibre

Requires Calibre 0.8.18. You can now assign a shortcut to launch the Generate Cover plugin dialog using Preferences->Keyboard.

[Whistler36]

This plugin never works for me. No menu items or toolbar buttons ever appear. I attempted to add a toolbar button but it did not appear. I have calibre 0.8.21 on Win 7 64-bit. I install calibre under the admin user but run it a standard user. I installed generate cover (just today) with the standard user account and verified it was in the correct standard user\appdata\roaming\calibre\plugins\ directory. I even deleted and reinstalled the generate cover.zip and json files. Still nothing.

[kiwidude]

Run Calibre in debug mode and see if there are any error messages when it starts. Do you see the "Generate Cover" icon appear on either side of the Preferences->Toolbar screen? Also when you initially added it to a toolbar, did you make sure you picked it was the appropriate one based on whether a device is connected or not?

[Dsquared125]

Hi,
I'm really digging your Generate Cover plugin. But I notice in your thumbnails that you have different fonts than I have in my list. I really want to have more options. I tried to customize it but it will not allow customization. How can I add more fonts to the available fonts list? And please could you tell me what type of font it needs to be.

Thanks much. Cheers!

~Deborah

[kiwidude]

Hi Dsquared125, welcome to MobileRead.

As far as fonts are concerned, that list just comes from the list on your system. On Windows this could be from installing applications that include a bunch of fonts, or from just downloading and installing fonts manually via the Control Panel. There isn't anything specific to Calibre or the plugin that you use to "install" them, they will just appear in the list once they are on your system.

[Dsquared125]

Gotcha! Thanks!

[Dsquared125]

Okay, 'nother question. I do see where the fonts in my /System/Library/Fonts folder show up in the font list, and it seems only .ttf are allowed. That I understand. Rather than mess around with my system folder, though, is there a way for you to alter the plugin to take fonts from two sources i.e. /Library/Font folder as well as the /System/Library/Fonts folder. I have some fonts that are grouped as families, with the suffix .dfont, that include things like italics, and bold and I have much more variety in those fonts. Those will not show up even when I copied them to the system folder and restarted. I'm assuming Apple put them there so that they could be accessed and viewed with the Font Book app. I'm not well versed enough with programming to know how to access more fonts.
Thanks for listening.
In case you couldn't tell already I'm working with Mac OS X.5
~Deb

[kiwidude]

@DSquared125 - I don't believe so. This plugin uses calibre code to locate fonts on the system, which in turn uses a third party 'fontconfig' plugin if what I saw in the code is correct. Perhaps Kovid can chime in if he spots this. My code uses this:

self.font_family_model.families = fontconfig.find_font_families(allowed_extensions=['ttf'])

The only thing I could "possibly" do is change what extensions are searched for - as you found I currently only allow for .ttf fonts. This was code I copied from elsewhere in Calibre. I don't know anything about Mac OS fonts (or fonts in general) to know what the impact of trying to support a .dfont (or indeed whether that fontconfig plugin supports them), so it isn't a change I would rush into without someone confirming the impact.

[kovidgoyal]

fontconfig and by extension, calibre support only ttf/otf fonts. dfonts cannot be used.

[kiwidude]

Thx for confirming that Kovid.

[Dsquared125]

Understood, gentlemen. Thank you for looking into it. I'll just have to find and add .ttf fonts to my /System/Library/Font folder. I tried that and it does work. I don't need too many, but it means I can't scavenge the ones in FontBook, because one cannot open the contents of .dfonts to get the separate types- Bold/Italic etc. So I'll have to google for fonts. I was just hoping for a more expeditious solution, lazy girl that I am.

Thank you kindly again.
~Deborah

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Dsquared125

Understood, gentlemen. Thank you for looking into it. I'll just have to find and add .ttf fonts to my /System/Library/Font folder. I tried that and it does work. I don't need too many, but it means I can't scavenge the ones in FontBook, because one cannot open the contents of .dfonts to get the separate types- Bold/Italic etc. So I'll have to google for fonts. I was just hoping for a more expeditious solution, lazy girl that I am.

Thank you kindly again.
~Deborah

Try DfontSplitter

[Dsquared125]

Hey, Peter! Thank you so much! I'll look into that!

Cheers!
~Deb

[Dsquared125]

Hi, Kiwidude,

I'm having trouble with the Generate Cover plugin retaining settings, and also trouble renaming or deleting presets.

When I try to delete a preset I get this error message:

calibre, version 0.8.28
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>KeyError</b>:u'Voyager'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre_plugins.generate_cover.dialogs", line 393, in remove_setting
KeyError: u'Voyager'

I try to save settings after I create a preset, but there are occasions when the Save button is grayed out. I'll try to get you more precise details about that.

Also even when I do rename a setting, for example, if I change the above named 'Voyager' to 'Stargete, and later make changes, when I save the changes, it will ask if I want to save changes to *Voyager* preset even though it had been renamed 'Stargate', and when I say yes, assuming it will save it the way I want, it reverts to the previous changes. Clear as mud?

I don't want to discard the changes. Should I say no if the name is different?

My biggest problem is that I can't delete a setting and start fresh and I'm wondering if that is the problem. Also is it possible that the cover image is linked to the Preset names and is that confusing the app, and so it keeps it from deleting?

Thanks
~Deb