Messages

Welcome to the KPW Community forum.

Please feel free to post issues, suggestions and comments for the eLibrary Manager set of applications.

Hi Michele,

From your first post, you mention that you are using the full version of eLibrary Manager. The full version will load book metadata and cover from external files, but it expects the file naming convention that you get when you use the Calibre's "Save to disc" feature (or one of the variations of that). That action will produce three files by default (I think), which consist of the book file (.epub), the cover (.jpg) and the OPF (.opf). The file name for each is the same as the book file name with the specific file extension. So for example, in my library, I have a book called The Loch by Steve Alten. The 3 files I get when I use "Save to disc" are "Lock, The - Steve Alten.epub", "Lock, The - Steve Alten.jpg" and "Lock, The - Steve Alten.opf".

In the directory where Calibre manages its library however, it uses a different file naming convention. For each book, there is the .epub book file and 2 additional files called "cover.jpg" and "metadata.opf". If you simply copy those files to your SD card, then my tool won't load the cover and metadata information since the additional files don't have the same file name as the book file itself. And the book file won't necessarily contain the latest metadata if you've updated anything in Calibre after you loaded the book.

So what you should do is to use the "Save to disc" function to have Calibre copy book files from its library to your SD card. When you use that feature, I believe Calibre will actually inject the latest metadata and cover into the book file as well, so you shouldn't actually need the external files. So that approach should work for both Basic and Full. If "Save to disc" does not produce the 3 files as I mention above, or if it does not update the ePub file with the cover and metadata info that you see in Calibre, then you may need to check your Calibre settings for "Saving books to disc" to ensure that the right options are enabled.

Let me know if you have any issues getting that to work.

Karl

Hi Michele,

Depending on how you copy books from calibre to your device, any metadata (including covers) that have been updated in your calibre library may not be incorporated into the book files themselves. In calibre, updates to metadata and covers are maintained outside of the actual book files. If you are just copying books files from the file system to your device, then they may not have all details that you see in the calibre interface.

Calibre does not update book files with updates to metadata/covers by default. The "Polish Books" action can update book files to ensure updates to metadata and covers be written to the book files, so if you copy those files to a reading device after "polishing", they should contain up-to-date book information.

Alternatively, if you use the "Send to device" or "Save to disk" functions of calibre, that should also create book files that are updated with current book information. So that is another way to get book files on your reading device with up-to-date book information included in the book files.

Perhaps if you describe the approach you use to copy book files to your device, I can tell if my comments above are relevant or not.

Karl

Hi again Mathius,

I forgot to mention... The App Store listings (both on the Amazon App Store and Google Play) have a "[Full]" or "[Full Version]" qualifier in front of those features that are available in the Full version. You can also see the same in the online documentations at https://kpwsite.com/home/content/eLibrary/about.html, https://kpwsite.com/home/content/eReader/about.html and https://kpwsite.com/home/content/eLibrary/download.html.

Karl

Hi Mathius,

The 500 book limit is just the limit I put on the Book Lists that you have available by default. As you mention, you can create your own Book Lists that have a larger (or no) limit, but there is a standard Book List called "All Books" that will use the eLibrary Setting "Limit" as the upper limit for the list. To enable this Book List, do the following:

• Open eLibrary Settings in the "Settings" tab and edit the "Book Lists" setting. Add list "All Books" to the selected list. You can move it to the first position if you like and remove the "My Books" list if you don't want that to appear any longer.
• Update the "Limit" setting to a larger value (say 1000) or just clear the setting out to apply no limit.
• Save the changes. Now you'll be able to select the "All Books" Book List and see all of your books.

There are also many other ways you can navigate your library to find books. You can use the "Search" feature to find books easily. Just enter keywords you want to search against. If the keyword (or keywords) match against any of the author, title, or description metadata/book info, the search result will list those matching books. The "Search" feature uses the same search expressions that you can use when you define your own custom Book Lists. If you find yourself doing the same "Searches" over and over again, you can create a custom Book List to do that search a little easier.

You can use fairly complex search expression, but the easiest way to search is by simply entering keywords. But if you are interested in exploring more complicated search expressions, you can find information about the query language in the online documentation at https://kpwsite.com/home/content/eLibrary/guide_search.html with examples.

If you have the Full version of the app, there is a Book Info Browser as well that allows you to navigate your library based on author, category, ratings (and more).

If a book file path changes as a result of the folder restructure (which I assume it would), then the progress will be lost. The book progress is associated with a specific book and changing a book file path effectively results in a new book.

I understand that you are using eLibrary Manager Basic, but just so you know, in the full version, book position for the last 20 books opened (configurable, so it can be set higher) is saved based on book title and author(s). In that case, if a book file path changes, then as long as the title and authors remain the same, the first time the new book is opened in the reader, it would open at the last reading position (and therefore restore the progress).

So I guess the bottom line is that, in the basic version, there is no way to easily carry over book position and progress if the book file is moved to a new folder in the device file system. In the full version, you could carry over the last 20 opened book positions (and progress) as long as each of those books is opened in the reader which would restore the last position.

On re-reading the original post, I wanted to mention a couple of extra things.

By "onboard file explorer", you might have meant an external file explorer from which you can launch the reader of your choice, as opposed to a "file explorer" view in the eLibrary Manager app itself. You're correct that an external file explorer will likely allow you to launch my reader. I don't know what file explorers are available in the Amazon App Store, but I would suspect there should be a number to choose from.

One more thing to mention is that, by removing a book entry from your eLibaray Manager library does not delete the underlying book file. It simply removes the app record for it. Performing a scan again will add the record back. So if you don't want a book to reappear on every scan, you would need to delete the underlying book file so a subsequent scan won't find it. You can do that with a file explorer on the device, if you have one installed, or if not, you should be able to do the same by connecting your device to a PC over USB so that you see the device shared storage as a drive on your PC.

One of the fundamental principles of my app is that it never touches book files on your device. It simply allows you to have access to files that have been externally copied to the device, but it never updates or deletes those files.

Each entry in the app library represents a separate file with a distinct file path. If you're seeing what looks like duplicate entries for the same book, then that probably means you have multiple files for the same book on your device. You can see the file path in the Book Information view, so check that for each of the duplicate entries to see if the File Path value is different for each duplicate. By default you should see File Path in the Book Info view, but if not, you can enable that in the eLibrary Settings "Book Info Properties" setting by adding "File Path" to the selected properties.

With respect to your mention of "an onboard file explorer", the full version of the app includes a Book Info Browser which allows you to browse your library based on different metadata/book info criteria. One browsing criteria available is File Path, so that gives you a way to navigate the file system to see the books loaded in your library. This feature isn't available in the Basic app though.

Hi Peregrina and anyone else who might be interested in this topic,

Just a quick update. I've got a fix that I'm happy with and I'll be releasing it soon (version 4.1.1). I just need to test things out a little more thoroughly, and if that goes well, then I should be able to release within a week or so.

Karl

Hi Peregrina,

I suspect the book file is explicitly setting the text colour, so you may not find the same issue with other books.

In general, I've taken the approach to apply styles only when those styles are not explicilty set in a book file. My rationale has been that, if a book author/provider is going out of his/her way to set styles explicilty, then I assume there is an esthetic reason for doing that and I don't try to override it. But as I find cases where the general rule may not work out for the best, I'm willing to see what I can do to force a specific style to override what is coded in the book. I'll see what I can do for this scenario.

You should know though that even if I can make this change (I'm assuming I should be able to - but I'll need to figure it out to be sure), there may always be cases where styles are applied at some level of nesting in the parent hierarchy for book content that can clash with whatever styles I apply. So it may not be foolproof. ePub book content is just HTML, so styling possibilities are almost endless, so without stripping all original styles and only applying my own, it can be tricky to ensure that any general book format works well with overrides that I apply.

As I mentioned above, my strategy has been to try and be as faithful to the original book format and styling as I can, so that books are rendered as intended by the author. I still want to keep to that philosophy as much as I can. But this sounds like a reasonable exception to the general rule.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll let you know if I can make this happen in a way that I'm happy with.

Karl Weckworth

[VERSION 2.0.7]

VERSION 2.0.7 (2024-03-17):

• Maintenance updates.

VERSION 2.0.6 (2024-01-14):

• Maintenance updates.
  

VERSION 2.0.5 (2023-10-07):

• Maintenance updates.

VERSION 2.0.4 (2023-09-18):

• Maintenance updates.

VERSION 2.0.3 (2023-07-31):

• Target SDK 34 (Android 14).
• Add setting to allow automatic refresh when connected to network over data.
  
  
  
  • Note: Be aware that this will increase data use.

VERSION 2.0.2 (2023-07-28):

• Internal test beta.

VERSION 2.0.1 (2023-05-22):

• Migrate to Android 14.


• Enable predictive back within app animation.
• Add series as a browseable category.
• Internal updates.

VERSION 2.0.0 (2023-03-24):

• Dynamic theming (i.e. Material You). Enable through settings (disabled by default). Requires Android 12+.

VERSION 1.4.3 (2023-03-05):

• Add adaptive/themed app icon.
• Minor updates.

VERSION 1.4.2 (2023-01-28):

• Minor updates.

VERSION 1.4.1 (2022-12-30):

• Minor improvements.

VERSION 1.4.0 (2022-10-01):

• Migrate to Android 13.
• Migrate to Kotlin.

VERSION 1.3.8 (2022-05-12):

• Allow dialog titles to wrap when too long to fit on one line (to maximum 3 lines).
• Minor fixes/improvements.

VERSION 1.3.7 (2022-04-24):

• Refresh images and add higher resolution images for larger screens.

VERSION 1.3.6 (2022-02-24):

• Fix issues with Duration Picker.
• Minor updates.

VERSION 1.3.5 (2021-12-21):

• Save dialog state on device rotation or background destroy.
• Small fixes and improvements.

VERSION 1.3.4 (2021-09-02):

• Target SDK 31 (i.e. Android 12).

VERSION 1.3.2 (2021-06-09):

• Fixes.

VERSION 1.3.1 (2021-04-29):

• Usability improvements.

VERSION 1.3.0 (2021-03-11):

• NEW: Add last refresh date/time to home screen.

VERSION 1.2.11 (2021-02-07):

• Minor updates.

VERSION 1.2.10 (2020-12-13):

• Minor updates.

VERSION 1.2.9 (2020-11-02):

• Fix for duration dialog layout issues on some devices.

VERSION 1.2.8 (2020-09-19):

• NEW: Auto scan book on successful calibre export.
• NEW: Enable update of identifier book information (aka metadata).
• Minor updates.

VERSION 1.2.6 (2020-05-14):

• Minor improvements.

VERSION 1.2.5 (2020-01-19):

• Minor improvements.

VERSION 1.2.4 (2019-11-17):

• Synchronize with system light/dark mode on Android 10+.
• Internal optimizations.
• Note: Due to issues on older versions of Android with the latest Android libraries required for Android 10 system dark/light mode integration, I've started producing separate builds for Android versions greater than or equal to version 8 and lower than 8. In the "About" box for the app, if the "Build" version number has a ".102" prefix, then the app does not support Android 10 system dark/light mode integration.
  

VERSION 1.2.3 (2019-09-09):

• Update book cover image.
• Minor fixes.

VERSION 1.2.2 (2019-06-28):

• Migrate to Android 10 (Q).

VERSION 1.2.1 (2019-04-18):

• Updates for Android Q.

VERSION 1.2.0 (2019-03-02):

• NEW: Automatically detect when calibre book file data becomes stale.
• NEW: Calibre Documents Provider home page.
• NEW: Add support for provider file search.
• Minor performance improvements.

VERSION 1.1.0 (2018-12-06):

• NEW: Allow integrating applications like eLibrary Manager to update book information (metadata) in calibre libraries.

VERSION 1.0.3 (2018-11-04):

• Update URL references to HTTPS.

VERSION 1.0.2 (2018-09-26):

• Minor fixes.

VERSION 1.0.1 (2018-08-07):

• Updates for Android 9 (Pie) and Chrome OS.

VERSION 1.0.0 (2018-05-28):

• Initial release.

You can find comprehensive online documentation for this product at Calibre Documents Provider.

You can also watch the YouTube tutorials at

• Video Tutorial and User Guide - Part 3
• Video Tutorial and User Guide - Part 2
• Video Tutorial and User Guide

You can access all of the above from the Calibre Documents Provider About Box directly from the application on your device. Here's a screen capture of the About Box - just tap on the link for your area of interest:



For support/queries/comments, please feel free to start new topics, or contact support@kpwsite.com.

Hi Truss,

What kind of activity are you finding the stuttering/freezing occurring with? Is that when using the reader or when using the library manager? Maybe you can describe what you are doing and how things are behaving. If you can also let me know some more environment details like Android version and version of the app, that might help as well. Is this something that's degraded recently, or have you been having these issues from the start?

Hopefully we can figure something out.

Karl

[Performance on Android 7.0+]

I will be releasing version 3.1.4 of eLibrary Manager within the next couple of days. If you use the software on Android 7.x, you should be aware of the following:

Performance on Android 7.0+
Current performance on Android 7.0+ is less than optimal, especially if book files are large (e.g. graphic novels, for example). As of eLibrary Manager v3.0, the application is using the Android Storage Access Framework (SAF) for file access. Using this framework, accessing book files is slower, most noticeable for large files (the larger the file, the slower the performance). To address this, I need to add the requirement for WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permissions back (I had removed that with the move to SAF) in order to efficiently access book file. So on updating to 3.1.4, you will be prompted to give the app those permissions on first launch. Hopefully the Android platform will improve over time to fill in the functional gaps with SAF - then I will remove the permission requirement. With version 3.1.4, performance on Android 7.0+ is much better.

Launching External Apps
Since Android 7.0 (and SDK level 24), Android no longer allows file URIs (e.g. file:///folder/book.epub) to be used when invoking external applications. With version 3.1.4 I am targeting the latest SDK level (currently 25). That means the app now launches external apps (e.g. readers, image viewers) differently. Most likely your favourite reader and image apps have already been updated to handle this change in the Android platform and you won't notice any change in behaviour.

However, if you discover that those apps are no longer being launched, that probably means that they still expect file URIs to identify book files. In that case, download and install the new eLibrary File URI Launcher add-on app. Installing that app will allow eLibrary Manager to behave as before. See http://kpwsite.com/home/content/eLibrary/guide_launch_external.html for more information and for download links.

Karl

A quick update on this topic...

I've just released version 2.2.3 that includes the ability to customize Night Mode colour scheme. You can read more about it at

• http://kpwsite.com/home/content/eReader/setup_day_night.html

Karl