CalibreBox - New Cloud-Based App

[Hofferic]

Hey all,

I have been growig frustrated with using Calibre Cloud Pro to access my Calibre library on the go. I used it because my primary computer is most often not in the same wireless network as my devices are (which is neccesary for Calibre Companion to work AFAIK). Calibre Cloud Pro did not support searching in book descriptions, filtering by attributes or sorting in any but the 4 preset modes. It also has a nasty habit of auto-updating its copy of my (big) library on my shitty mobile connection, which renders it unusable for minutes at a time if I change as much as a single Tag. It also only supports a single Library at a time, which I found restrictive.

So, as a part of my bachelors thesis I wrote a new Android App that can open any number of Calibre libraries from a users Dropbox account. It supports search in Titles, Tags, Series names and book descriptions (all optional), has (optional) search suggestions for Titles, Tags and Series names and supports a wide variety of sorting and filtering options. Additionally you can sort or filter based on a custom column. The tags, author and series title shown in the detail view for a book link back to the search window for ease of use and there are tow download options to either open a book directly when a download is finished or leave the notification around for you to open at a later data. It will also warn you if the library is out of date but will not force the Update

I also made sure it looks nice

The App is available for free (though limited to 2 libraries at the same time and without support for the custom column features) in the Google Play Store, with the full version available as an in-app purchase.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ric.calibrebox

Please check it out and leave any comments or suggestions (or, if you find any, bugs) so I can continue to improve it!

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Hofferic

I used it because my primary computer is most often not in the same wireless network as my devices are (which is neccesary for Calibre Companion to work AFAIK).

Regarding CC: This is not the case. CC can connect over the internet both as a wireless device and to the content server as long as the ports configured in calibre are visible on the 'net and the appropriate IP address/DNS name is entered into CC. CC also supports auto-fallback to the local net.

Good luck with your app! I know that there is demand for such a thing.

[Hofferic]

Originally Posted by chaley

CC can connect over the internet both as a wireless device and to the content server as long as the ports configured in calibre are visible on the 'net and the appropriate IP address/DNS name is entered into CC. [...]

Good luck with your app! I know that there is demand for such a thing.

Huh, I did not know that. Still, while I'm away from home for uni my Laptop isn't conected to the internet, so still tough luck for me. But so as long as a Calibre instance IS online CC will be far more feature complete, just a matter of picking the right tool for the job I suppose

Thanks for the well wishes

[Lori Reeser]

I'll give it a shot. I'm a great user, but not a programmer, so I'll let you know how it works for non-techie people.
Lori

[eschwartz]

Good luck with your app, and I would give it a field test except I read exclusively on my E-Ink Kindle.

[Thomas_AR]

Gave it a test as I am also not satisfied with the search option in Calibre cloud pro.
Just noticed, when searching, that the search suggestions which pop up are not readable. White letters on white background. Would it be possible to search in Series - Numbers?

[Tanjamuse]

Would it be possible to add support for other cloud-services?

[Hofferic]

Originally Posted by Thomas_AR

Just noticed, when searching, that the search suggestions which pop up are not readable. White letters on white background. Would it be possible to search in Series - Numbers?

That is definitely a bug, the background should be black. But theoretically this should be an easy fix (dangerous words ). Can you tell me what device you are using?

If by searching for series number you mean something like "Harry Potter 5" I would have to look into the way the query is processed, but it should be doable...

[EDIT]
I just published version 1.5 which should fix the background color issue.
For some reason I could not figure out how to only affect the suggestion window and not ALL dropdowns, so for now the suggestion window has been switched to dark text on a light background :/

Also you can now search for Series + index by adding the number AFTER the series, seperated by a space. this will only work if the number is not followed by anything (except for spaces, those are tolerated).
So, in effect, searching for "Harry Potter 2" will now find "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"!

The update should be available to install in a couple of hours (as soon as google is done copying it around the globe )
[/EDIT]

Originally Posted by Tanjamuse

Would it be possible to add support for other cloud-services?

currently this is not planned as it would add a lot of overhead to my backend because of the way I use the Dropbox API to find libraries and show covers. But I may change my mind later if a lot of people dislike dropbox

[Thomas_AR]

@Hofferic
- The white on white bug is gone on both of my devices. Sony Xperia Z1 4.4.4 and Galaxy Note 10.1 - 4.4.2
- Searching is Series numbers works flawless.

Thanks a lot

[Thomas_AR]

Suggestion: Show series (if there is one) in the book details of main list view/gui (not book details GUI).

[Hofferic]

It took some shuffling and resizing to fit everything without overlaps and I think it still looks kind of lopsided (which is the reason i didn't implement it originally) but the update is on it's way

The only way to avoid the lopsidedness would be to display some fallback (not very useful) or make the cards for books with series information larger than others (also not much better ). Chime in if you have any ideas to avoid the list looking lopsided for books without series info or think that differing card sizes ar a-okay

[Thomas_AR]

New update looks good regarding the series entries. But I think you should make the cards of each book bigger, 50 % higher would be ideal. So you can also enlarge the letters inside. For now the cards and letters are very small, nearly not readable even I use a tablet. Don't you think?

[Hofferic]

Okay, I changed the layout again (less work this time, the backend code stayed the same ), the text is now the same size as before or slightly larger and instead the cards as a whole are larger.

The added/published text is now the same size it was before the first change, but I dont think it is necessary to make it larger still as most of the time this can be considered background information. I think the slight benefit in visibility would be outweighed by the increased book card size, as this would mean fewer books would be visible at one time.

[Thomas_AR]

I like it as it is for now!
Great job.

[nomistakes]

Hi

does this app download a new copy of each file choosen (creating a duplicate) or does it open the original version of the files?

Thanks in advance