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Author Topic: Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)  (Read 2861 times)

Offline gunug

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« on: August 24, 2014, 09:07:33 AM »
A number of us seem to use Calibre to read and work with eBooks and Calibre 2.0 adds the ability to edit files in both the EPUB and AZW3 (Kindle) formats.  To do this and probably as a tip of the hat to the inevitable the have switched to using QT 5 so they won't work in Windows XP any more (who cares now) or in anything any older than MAC OS 10.7 (which I'm still running on this Macbook Pro because I simply don't see 10.8 or 10.9 to be any better and who knows about 10.10!  For more info go to the source and read the docs:

http://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/eleven
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2014, 11:04:41 AM »
Well, I'm certainly confused (again!). I've read all the bullet points (except one, described below), and still don't understand everything. (what's new?! flail.gif )

I don't do much e-book editing but I'm sure it will be easier having that capability in the same apps to read them. Likewise, the "Compare" function will come in handy when editing. Looks like support for manual connections to a Mac and non-Apple devices will be welcomed by those who have them, obviously. Library organization improvements are usually always welcomed.

My biggest area of confusion is the adoption of QT. I didn't know Apple was even maintaining its development, preferring to go the HTML5 route. Since e-books are basically a sub-set of html, I don't see the benefit of QuickTime in displaying an e-book. I first thought the developer was talking about the display of the app, itself. It's always been a rather kludged looking port since it was cross-platform. But the text seems to be saying that QuickTime will be used in the actual rendering and display of an ebook while at the same time talking about @font-face rules. AFAIK, that's actually a CSS2 capability, that was never well-supported in IE, but that's nothing new and not particularly relevant to an ebook. dntknw.gif I wonder if the developer actually meant HTML5 support instead of "Qt5"? Thinking.gif

The only bullet point I did not read (beyond the text) was the "The ebook editor". Inspite of mentioning "Qt5" support, the video is a Flash® presentation. Since I have that blocked, I'm unable to see it unless I mark the site as "Trusted" or download an mp4 file (which I did). rolleyes.gif OTOH, these behaviors may be the result of my personal settings... dntknw.gif
« Last Edit: August 24, 2014, 11:24:18 AM by Xairbusdriver »
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Offline tacit

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2014, 10:43:59 PM »
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Aug 24 2014, 04:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
My biggest area of confusion is the adoption of QT. I didn't know Apple was even maintaining its development, preferring to go the HTML5 route. Since e-books are basically a sub-set of html, I don't see the benefit of QuickTime in displaying an e-book. I first thought the developer was talking about the display of the app, itself. It's always been a rather kludged looking port since it was cross-platform. But the text seems to be saying that QuickTime will be used in the actual rendering and display of an ebook while at the same time talking about @font-face rules. AFAIK, that's actually a CSS2 capability, that was never well-supported in IE, but that's nothing new and not particularly relevant to an ebook. dntknw.gif I wonder if the developer actually meant HTML5 support instead of "Qt5"? Thinking.gif


QT is QuickTime.

Qt is the name of a development library and language based on JavaScript and CSS. Calibre's processing engine is written in Qt, not QT.

I've long used Calibre for editing eBooks, but recently ran into a problem. For the book More Than Two that my partner Eve and I have written, we wanted widespread availability, so we're making the eBook version available on a host of platforms rather than just on Amazon.

Unfortunately, the version of the eBook created in Calibre can't be distributed on several platforms, including Barnes & Noble's eBook store and Smashwords. It turns out there's a long-standing bug in Calibre: chapter heading anchors (which use HTML <a> tags) are broken across page breaks, and that's not permitted in the eBook specification. So eBooks saved from Calibre fail the automated validation checks that some distributors use.

We've had to switch to Sigil for creating eBooks that validate properly. I wonder if the new version of Calibre fixes the problem. (I'm not hopeful; that bug has apparently persisted for quite a while.)
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2014, 02:16:47 PM »
Thanks, tacit, bee out of the house all morning and haven't had time to search for "Qt", which is what is on the Calibre site. Not sure where "QT 5" came from...

Not sure how a link/url would 'break' across' a page boundary. I would assume that the B&N display engine is causing a break between two words of the text (or auto-hyphenates one word) that serves as the display of a link. As you know, the actual url is not really those words, the link inside the "<" and ">" should be protected from line breaks or auto-hyphenation! Maybe I should look up how chapter heading anchors are different from 'regular' anchors! wink.gif Maybe you just need shorter chapter titles! tongue.gif laugh.gif
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2014, 04:18:53 PM »
I've wasted too much spent a few hours searching for more details on this statement:
QUOTE("Vook- Error: Unnecessary anchor links")
Some authors choose to forego the table of contents altogether in favor of the eReaders' built-in systems. [emphasis added]
I'd never even heard of this (so what's new?!). Of course, there must be ~1,000+ pages on how to manually create this animal! Apparently, the hardware does this the same way most "How to" articles suggest; use the <h1> tag for chapter names. I don't actually have a hardware eReader, so I can't do any testing. dntknw.gif

Quote is from an un-numbered pdf at <https://vook.com/static/media/media/Ebook_Errors_Guide.pdf>
<Vook: FAQ>
« Last Edit: August 25, 2014, 04:26:47 PM by Xairbusdriver »
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Offline tacit

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2014, 06:32:18 PM »
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Aug 25 2014, 09:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I've wasted too much spent a few hours searching for more details on this statement:
QUOTE("Vook- Error: Unnecessary anchor links")
Some authors choose to forego the table of contents altogether in favor of the eReaders' built-in systems. [emphasis added]
I'd never even heard of this (so what's new?!). Of course, there must be ~1,000+ pages on how to manually create this animal! Apparently, the hardware does this the same way most "How to" articles suggest; use the <h1> tag for chapter names. I don't actually have a hardware eReader, so I can't do any testing. dntknw.gif

Quote is from an un-numbered pdf at <https://vook.com/static/media/media/Ebook_Errors_Guide.pdf>
<Vook: FAQ>


We're creating a table of contents using Calibre (well, we had been, before we switched to Sigil), and what Calibre had been doing was something like

<a name="Chapter 2"><div style=”page-break-before:always;”><h1>Chapter 2</h1></div></a>

So the anchor is being split across the break, because it encloses the <div>. That's not permitted by the ePub standard; from what I gather, it's supposed to look more like this:

<div style=”page-break-before:always;”><h1><a name="Chapter 2"></a>Chapter 2</h1></div>

Anyway, Sigil makes eBooks that pass validation. I haven't tried Calibre 2 yet.
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2014, 06:49:01 PM »
You're correct. That's what I saw in many posts; people writing valid XHMTL but some eReaders (usually Kindles) not using it. Apparently, this is not the only valid markup that is interpreted differently by different eReaders. Of course, the rules are rather an after thought or a collection of what is being done not how things should be done. Almost seems like the "browser wars" all over again! laughhard.gif

I was surprised that I only found one link mentioning the automatic rendering of TOCs by hardware/OSes. If that were true, it must not be very powerful and probably not style-able, at all. dntknw.gif Oh well...
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Offline tacit

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« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2014, 03:49:42 PM »
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Aug 25 2014, 11:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I was surprised that I only found one link mentioning the automatic rendering of TOCs by hardware/OSes. If that were true, it must not be very powerful and probably not style-able, at all. dntknw.gif Oh well...
The automatic ToC rendering in most apps is pretty atrocious. For example, in InDesign, you have to hilight a chapter heading and set its style to Chapter to mark it as the start of a chapter, but when you export the ePub, the ToC will list the chapters as "InDesignePub-Chapterbreak-002ac3b"--which is a little weird considering you hilight the name of the chapter so InDesign knows what the chapter is named. (Grr) So invariably, he ToC has to be rebuilt by hand anyway.
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Aug 25 2014, 11:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I was surprised that I only found one link mentioning the automatic rendering of TOCs by hardware/OSes. If that were true, it must not be very powerful and probably not style-able, at all. dntknw.gif Oh well...
The automatic ToC rendering in most apps is pretty atrocious. For example, in InDesign, you have to hilight a chapter heading and set its style to Chapter to mark it as the start of a chapter, but when you export the ePub, the ToC will list the chapters as "InDesignePub-Chapterbreak-002ac3b"--which is a little weird considering you hilight the name of the chapter so InDesign knows what the chapter is named. (Grr) So invariably, he ToC has to be rebuilt by hand anyway.
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2014, 04:05:56 PM »
OK, I didn't understand what was rendering the ToC, I was thinking it was the eReader doing that. I figured the eReader simply looked for <h1> tags and built a ToC from those. That would be pretty basic and probably not allow even supply any styling. If the 'chapters' were always i separate files, all the eReader needs to do is set the create an anchor with the files title. How it would actually work, of course, is purely guess 'work' on my part. InDesign (Adobe), apparently, felt that simply adding an <h1> was not enough! laughhard.gif Many 'developers' think they have a better way! I know I do! Oh... wait... I'm not a real developer! eek2.gif rolleyes.gif

I'm not going to say anything about your "double-posting". Reminds me of some of those esurance ads, your (double-posting) method is simply not how that works! laughhard.gif
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Offline sandyman

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« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2014, 06:23:11 AM »
Maybe I'm being stupid and missing something. When using calibre 1.48 I had 40 rows showing in the main window. If I use calibre 2 I only have 22. Is there any way of changing the row hight or is this just a consequence of using Qt?
Sandy
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2014, 08:48:25 AM »
Perhaps some of those were different formats of the same 'book' (ePub, PDF, mobi, etc.)? I'm back at my Mac, I'll take a look, I still have a copy of an earlier version...

Later...

I found that there is a still newer version available. wink.gif However, the three versions I have seem identical in the way the display my 'books' in the main page list. I see 33 items in each. Even the columns are the same which, to me, implies that all the versions are using the same plist file.

Perhaps a partial screen shot of your different versions could help. There are some prefs for setting font sizes and line spacing, but I don't see how that would affect the total number of rows. dntknw.gif
« Last Edit: August 29, 2014, 12:42:15 PM by Xairbusdriver »
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Offline sandyman

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« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2014, 03:15:21 PM »
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Aug 29 2014, 02:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Perhaps some of those were different formats of the same 'book' (ePub, PDF, mobi, etc.)? I'm back at my Mac, I'll take a look, I still have a copy of an earlier version...

Later...

I found that there is a still newer version available. wink.gif However, the three versions I have seem identical in the way the display my 'books' in the main page list. I see 33 items in each. Even the columns are the same which, to me, implies that all the versions are using the same plist file.

Perhaps a partial screen shot of your different versions could help. There are some prefs for setting font sizes and line spacing, but I don't see how that would affect the total number of rows. dntknw.gif


Here are screen caps of the two versions. As you can see there is a big difference

calibre 1.48[attachment=3053:calibre_1.48.png]

and calibre 2 [attachment=3054:calibre_2.png]

Sandy
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Offline kimmer

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« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2014, 03:30:46 PM »
Found this info at Mobile Reads:

QUOTE
Preferences->Look & Feel->Extra spacing to add between rows (can be negative)

A value of -11 px in the field ** mentioned above seems about right to set the spacing back to the way it was before.
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Offline sandyman

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« Reply #13 on: August 30, 2014, 02:01:52 AM »
QUOTE(kimmer @ Aug 29 2014, 09:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Found this info at Mobile Reads:

QUOTE
Preferences->Look & Feel->Extra spacing to add between rows (can be negative)

A value of -11 px in the field ** mentioned above seems about right to set the spacing back to the way it was before.



Thanks for that Kim. It did the trick.  notworthy.gif

The only things that bug me are

1) How did I miss seeing that setting?
2) How did my online searches ask the wrong question as I couldn't find that anywhere?

I guess it's a sign that old age/senility is setting in  wink.gif

Sandy
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Calibre 2.0 adds new eBook editor :)
« Reply #14 on: August 30, 2014, 10:24:52 AM »
You may have the same problem I suffer with; speed reading questions or replies? blush-anim-cl.gif Thus, when I read your post I thought you were saying there were nearly twice as many items in one of the two versions. That's why I took a stab, apparently too subtly, by suggesting changing the font size and/or line spacing.

Your screen shots made clear what my mind could not imagine. Thanks! Turns out all the items were there, you just needed to scroll to see them all. The line spacing and font size was the actual problem.

It doesn't help that Calibre is one of the most non-standard "Mac" apps around. The "Prefs" seem to be a rather combination of silly, large, amateurish icons and the Mac's System Prefs window. At least the command comma method works. Me thinks the developer loves the Windows plethora of tabs inside tabs inside tabs a bit too much; Prefs->Look and Feel opens a new window with seven tabs. The Cover Grid tab adds three more tab along the left side! Once you've simply looked at the choices, the only way back to the main Prefs window is via a large, red "Cancel" button. I don't know about you, but I tend to stop when I see a large red object! laughhard.gif Oh well...
« Last Edit: August 30, 2014, 10:48:08 AM by Xairbusdriver »
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