Aura Calibre resets new Collections created with the Kobo

[MicheleBS]

Dear Forum,

I usually make use of Calibre to manage my Kobo Aura One. I setted Calibre for it to be able to also create/delete/manage new Collections, associating them to the tags field. This is with lots of satisfaction.

But some days ago I created a new Collection in the Kobo, and I moved some of my .epubs there, from other old Collections already present. This was directly with the Kobo, not with Calibre: so, when I connected Kobo to Calibre to manage my Library and addeed some books to Kobo, Calibre applied its own old Collection rules, and all went back to the previous state. The new Collection was deleted, and the books I added went back to the previous Collections.

How to make Calibre to accept new Collections created with Kobo, and not to force Kobo to the previous status?

Thanks.

[Ripplinger]

I think the only way to manage that is to make the changes in Calibre that you want on the Kobo. If it's a matter of wanting to add books to a special category, such as your next reads, you're not limited to just one tag in Calibre, you can add as many as you want and the books can be listed in multiple collections on the reader.

But there's no way to stop Calibre from making the changes to only specific books.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MicheleBS

Dear Forum,

I usually make use of Calibre to manage my Kobo Aura One. I setted Calibre for it to be able to also create/delete/manage new Collections, associating them to the tags field. This is with lots of satisfaction.

But some days ago I created a new Collection in the Kobo, and I moved some of my .epubs there, from other old Collections already present. This was directly with the Kobo, not with Calibre: so, when I opened Calibre to manage my Library and add some books to Kobo, Calibre applied its own old Collection rules, and all went back to the previous state. The new Collection was deleted, and the books I added went back to the previous Collections.

How to make Calibre to accept new Collections created with Kobo, and not to force Kobo to the previous status?

All this is working as designed. The collection management done by the driver is pretty much an all or nothing thing. It works out what collections books should be in based on the calibre library and makes those changes. And that means that manual changes on the device will usually be lost. This is simple because there is no way (at least. no easy way) for the driver to know if the extra collection it finds on the device was created manually, or because the driver created it before but there have been changes in the library that mean the collection is no longer needed.

The driver does have an option to specify the names of collections that are to be ignored. This is a comma separated list of collections on the device that the driver is not to touch. If you do want a few manually managed collections, you need to add the names to this option.

[MicheleBS]

Originally Posted by davidfor

All this is working as designed. The collection management done by the driver is pretty much an all or nothing thing. It works out what collections books should be in based on the calibre library and makes those changes. And that means that manual changes on the device will usually be lost. This is simple because there is no way (at least. no easy way) for the driver to know if the extra collection it finds on the device was created manually, or because the driver created it before but there have been changes in the library that mean the collection is no longer needed.

The driver does have an option to specify the names of collections that are to be ignored. This is a comma separated list of collections on the device that the driver is not to touch. If you do want a few manually managed collections, you need to add the names to this option.

Clearly explained.
I will try with such a white list of "ignored collections" feature.

[compurandom]

I didn't realize the direction of that option -- I thought it ignored the data in the calibre library. (Presumably it does that too.)

Would it be possible to make a similar list ("collections managed on device") that is added (tag style) to a custom column in calibre instead of being ignored or replaced with calibre data? I'm thinking if this is set, for each book, the list of collections in this list found on a book replaces the custom column value ...

This would give me a super easy way of flagging books while I'm reading them on the device.

[berthaknight]

Is there any possible way to stop Calibre from making the changes to only specific books? Please, answer my question properly!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by berthaknight

Is there any possible way to stop Calibre from making the changes to only specific books? Please, answer my question properly!

No. You can set a collection but not a book to be ignored.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

I didn't realize the direction of that option -- I thought it ignored the data in the calibre library. (Presumably it does that too.)

Would it be possible to make a similar list ("collections managed on device") that is added (tag style) to a custom column in calibre instead of being ignored or replaced with calibre data? I'm thinking if this is set, for each book, the list of collections in this list found on a book replaces the custom column value ...

This would give me a super easy way of flagging books while I'm reading them on the device.

No there isn't a way to do this, and I have no intention of adding it.

But, as you are interested in marking a book as being read, you can use the Kobo Utilities plugin to do get the reading status. The reading percent will show if the book has been started and when it is finished. After that you can do several things. I move them between several reading lists and have an icon displayed in the percent read column to show the status.

[MicheleBS]

The problem is that Kobo doesn't feel good with the idea of something that has been read by someone. If I finish a book, this doesn't mean that I don't want to flip it through again, in the future. And if I do, still that books is a book I have finished.

In fact, Kobo flags a book as "Read" when, the last page being shown, I turn page over again. This way, thoug, when I open a "Read" book again, only to examine specific excerpts or chapters, the book becomes "Reading" again (0%, 99%, or intermediate values: it depends on the page we lastly close the book at). Of course, I can manually flag it as "Read" through the extra options available for every book, but this is unquick and always un-permanenty, and needed every time for every book I want to flag: unfortunately, Kobo deosn't alloy multiple selection.

*

I make use of Kobo to store and read a huge number of (quite short) articles that I grab from the web and convert to .epubs (Firefox + GrabMyBooks, an invaluable duo), and in the end I need to flag them as "Read" in a more stable way than Kobo does, being sure that they will be somewhat "Read" even if I open them again. And I want to be able to do this directly with the Kobo, comfortably, wherever I find myself in that moment.

I find particularly comfortable with Collections: I add by default my unread articles to a specific Collection, called "Articles"; then, after the reading, I move them to another one: "Archive".

Calibre can manage the Collections (the Kobo driver also calls it Shelves); so, I created the custom column #collections and setted it as the Collections column through the driver options. I flag every new article I send from Calibre to Kobo with "Articles" in #collections, so that when it is added to Kobo, it already belongs to "Articles" collection.



The problem is that when I move a finished article from "Articles" to "Archive", and I do this with the Kobo disconnected from Calibre, Calibre doesn't recognise such an operation, and as soon as I connect the device, it tends to take back all to the previous state.

That's why this thread:

«How to make Calibre to accept new Collections created with Kobo, and not to force Kobo to the previous status?»

My solution:

1. Create the #collections column (comma separated text) and associate it to Kobo Collections
2. Ask Calibre to ignore "Archive" collection, so that the articles moved from "Articles" and so flagged as "Archive", still maintain this flag also after connecting the Kobo
3. Calibre won't remove the finished articles from "Archive", now, but still it will apply them the old "Articles" flag, in addition to "Archive"; this is annoying, because that way all the finished articles would also be "Articles", again, when the role of "Archive" is just to hide the finished articles, and to have a lightweight shelf containing only what I haven't read yet
4. So, I make use of: Get shelves from device. With this useful option, I select with Calibre the .epubs I moved to "Archive" with Kobo, and send their Collection status (the flag "Archive") to the column... #collection, so that Calibre will agree with me that a finished article is a finished article, and when I disconnect the Kobo, Calibre won't intervene wrongly.

When I turn Kobo on, my homepage is "Articles".
But I know apart there's also an archive, including the most remarkable articles I have read in the past.