[Metadata Source Plugin] Skoob Books

[thiago.eec]

Plugin to download metadata and covers from www.skoob.com.br. Skoob is a brazilian website similar to Goodreads, so almost all of its contents is in pt_BR. For that reason this plugin will be of most use for books in Portuguese.

This plugin was originally based on B&N plugin. It was first developed by @rodrigoccurvo. From 2019, it has been maintained by @thiago.eec.

Main Features

• Can retrieve title, authors, series, tags, comments, rating, languages, ISBN, publication date, publisher and cover. Skoob unique id also retrieved as identifier.
• Uses a simple similarity algorithm to sort the result for best matches first
• Option to customize the number of search result pages to analyse. If the search is too broad the best match may not be in the first page. Default is 1, more means slower.
• Option to customize the number of matches to download/evaluate. Since the results are sorted by similarity, more downloads means less quality but higher chance of hit (also slower). Default is 1, more means slower.
• Experimental option to define a threshold on similarity for discarding results. Not quite precise, 20-30 seems to be a good value. Default is 0, which means no discarding. (Doesn't mean much if number of matches to download is 1)

Requirements:

• calibre 2.50 or later

Installation Notes:

• Download the attached zip file and install the plugin as described in the Introduction to plugins thread.
• Note that this is not a GUI plugin so it is not intended/cannot be added to context menus/toolbars etc.

Latest calibre version tested: 7.5.1

Version History

Spoiler:

Version 1.5.5 - 21 Feb 2024
- Enhanced matching: first, filter the results based on similarity score, leaving only the higher score candidates, then filter the list again based on the number of Skoob readers.

Version 1.5.4 - 06 Jan 2022
- PyQt6 support added

Version 1.5.3 - 10 Nov 2021
- Fix bug that caused malformed series info on Skoob Website preventing calibre from getting the rest of the metadata

Version 1.5.2 - 08 Nov 2021
- Fix bug that caused the plugin not to find a match when no Author was defined on Skoob website

Version 1.5.1 - 04 Jan 2021
- Fix bug parsing Skoob ID, when uppercase letters are present

Version 1.5.0 - 01 Dec 2020
- Match using Skoob ID first, if it is present
- Bug fixes

Version 1.4.0 - 19 Dec 2019
- Update code to support python 2/3.

Version 1.3.1 - 13 Jun 2019
- Change plugin name to 'Skoob Books' to avoid conflicts.

Version 1.3.0 - 13 Jun 2019
- Initial release.

[thiago.eec]

Version 1.3.0 - 13 Jun 2019

- Initial release.

[alexantao]

Excelente plug-in, meu sonho é conseguir atualizar meus livros do Skoob a partir da minha biblioteca do Calibre... será que é possível ?

[thiago.eec]

Hi, @alexantao.

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, this is a one way street. This is a metadata plugin. With it, calibre can fetch info from Skoob, but Skoob can't access calibre library.

To sync with Skoob, it would be necessary another kind of plugin, like 'Goodread Sync', for example.

[alexantao]

Hi Thiago,

I understand that the plugin takes only the information about the book, but is there a way for it to retrieve information about the user's details about the books ?

All information about the books I read are stored on Skoob.
I'd like to get, for example, the day I finished the book, or the review I wrote for it too.

Is it possible ?

[thiago.eec]

Not with this plugin. Actually, all metadata plugins can only write to calibre standard fields. To retrieve such information, you would need to store it on custom columns, which can't be done using a metadata plugin.

When I have some time, I'll try to take a look on Goodread Sync plugin and see if I could adapt it to use Skoob. No promises, though.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Not with this plugin. Actually, all metadata plugins can only write to calibre standard fields. To retrieve such information, you would need to store it on custom columns, which can't be done using a metadata plugin.

A tactic someone has taken for getting extra information from Goodreads is to extend the Goodreads metadata source plugin to write extra information in, I think, the comments field. Then they have another plugin that splits this to different columns.

Someone else has just written another that gets more tags from the Goodreads shelf than the main Goodreads metadata source plugin.

When I have some time, I'll try to take a look on Goodread Sync plugin and see if I could adapt it to use Skoob. No promises, though.

If Skoob works like Goodreads to store your book details, then Goodreads Sync is probably the right model. But, it isn't a simple plugin. It does abstract the access to the site a bit, so maybe that can be replaced. If you have questions about it, I'm happy to answer. And if you can see some refactoring that would help you, I'm willing to look at them.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If Skoob works like Goodreads to store your book details, then Goodreads Sync is probably the right model. But, it isn't a simple plugin. It does abstract the access to the site a bit, so maybe that can be replaced. If you have questions about it, I'm happy to answer. And if you can see some refactoring that would help you, I'm willing to look at them.

Thanks, @davidfor. Your help will be much appreciated!
I will give it a try on the weekend.

Skoob does not have an API (not one documented, anyway), so this could restrict some desired features.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by alexantao

Excelente plug-in, meu sonho é conseguir atualizar meus livros do Skoob a partir da minha biblioteca do Calibre... será que é possível ?

About that dream of yours...

Please take a look at the plugin attached. I've been using it for a week now and have tested it to exhaustion, but you never know... there might be something buggy yet. Also, see if it has everything you wished for. I based it on my day-to-day use of Skoob.

[alexantao]

Hummm,,, thank you !

I Will test and let you know !

[alexantao]

Could not test too much. My calibre crashes averytime I click on Skoob Plugin Icon...

Also, is there a way to get all Skoob ID books for those I selected ? A lot of them does not have, but I know it has it's ID on Skoob. Some of them could not be found, even if they are there....

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by alexantao

Could not test too much. My calibre crashes averytime I click on Skoob Plugin Icon....

Hi, @alexantao.

I've made various corrections and additions to that first version I sent here. Check out the latest version on the Skoob Sync plugin thread. Maybe the problem is already fixed.

About it crashing... How many books did you select? I set the limit to 50 books, which works nicely on my system, but maybe that's a little high for some machines. That's because every book is handled on a separate thread, making it a lot faster to update, since it is processed in parallel. But, it also requires more of your CPU, RAM and Network Bandwidth.

Originally Posted by alexantao

Also, is there a way to get all Skoob ID books for those I selected ? A lot of them does not have, but I know it has it's ID on Skoob. Some of them could not be found, even if they are there....

With the latest version of Skoob Sync, you can import your whole Skoob library (50 books at a time) to calibre. It will create new entries on you library (empty books, with no format), with basic metadata, including the Skoob ID and a Cover.

Also, using Skoob Books, you can select multiples books and download metadata for it. If you are interested on getting just the Skoob ID, you could just clear all the checkboxes (fields to download) on the Metadata Download configuration dialog. That way, it will get only the Skoob ID (and the ISBN).

[thiago.eec]

Version 1.4.0 - 19 Dec 2019

- Update code to support python 2/3.

[thiago.eec]

Version 1.5.0 - 01 Dec 2020

- Match using Skoob ID first, if it is present
- Bug fixes

[thiago.eec]

Version 1.5.1 - 04 Jan 2021

- Fix bug parsing Skoob ID, when uppercase letters are present