Kobo Cover Fixer

[TheDcoder]

41 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

Does it really matter bud?

Yes bud, it does, I am tired of pretending that it doesn't

41 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

All that matters for me, is that things are uniform and I get what I expect when I click return or tab.

And spaces defeat that purpose because they are inflexible unlike TABs which can be of any size depending on the user's preference. On small screens it is desirable to only have 2-character wide gap, but if your code is using spaces then you're out of luck, you have to muck around and forget about sharing your changes.

41 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

What you seem to be talking about is quite esoteric and not something that seems worth worrying about

Not at all bud, not at all, all coders should be aware of the implications of using spaces and tabs, that is the reason why I am kind of hijacking your thread

A responsible coder should use TABs unless there is a very good reason not to.

41 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

except if you are a person creating an editor program or somesuch.

The people creating those editors are to be blamed for propagating the continued use of spaces in this modern age. So you shouldn't rely on them to pick the right approach for you.

41 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

I certainly don't understand why you bothered to bring it up in this topic, especially in the telling off kind of manner you did.  

Well bud I hope you understand now, hopefully I have enlightened some of you. Peace! 🕊️

P.S. I do apologize for the momentary interruption caused by my passionate posts regarding this topic.

Edited June 4, 2024 by TheDcoder

[TheSaint]

23 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

Yes bud, it does, I am tired of pretending that it doesn't

Gawd, get a life.  

23 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

And spaces defeat that purpose because they are inflexible unlike TABs which can be of any size depending on the user's preference. On small screens it is desirable to only have 2-character wide gap, but if your code is using spaces then you're out of luck, you have to muck around and forget about sharing your changes.

I thought you said you knew I wasn't using spaces.

23 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

Not at all bud, not at all, all coders should be aware of the implications of using spaces and tabs, that is the reason why I am kind of hijacking your thread

A responsible coder should use TABs unless there is a very good reason not to.

But I am using tabs bud. So you hijacked for no reason.

Unless you are complaining that SciTE does indents wrongly? Good luck with that, as I am not about to change to another editor.

If any folk are having an issue with my code, then from my point of view, the issue is them.  

23 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

The people creating those editors are to be blamed for propagating the continued use of spaces in this modern age.
So you shouldn't rely on them to pick the right approach for you.

I do apologize for the momentary interruption caused by my passionate posts regarding this topic.

Gawd.  

23 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

A responsible coder should use TABs unless there is a very good reason not to.

To TAB or NOT to TAB ... that is the question.

We have a TAB here in AUS, where folk go to place bets.  

23 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

Well bud I hope you understand now, hopefully I have enlightened some of you. Peace!

Peace on you too bud.

You are like a light in the darkness, when the rest of us are just trying to sleep ..... Turn that bloody light out will ya. 

P.S. You do realize this is the Examples forum. All this if you needed to discuss it, should have been done in the Chat forum, not here.

Edited June 4, 2024 by TheSaint

[TheDcoder]

10 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

But I am using tabs bud. So you hijacked for no reason.

Gawd, didn't you say that you were configuring the number of spaces that were inserted when you hit Tab? Let me find the quote...

Quote

Bud, I was providing the number of spaces in the TABS I use ... get with the program.  

I can't believe you would think I spaced out those spaces for every line.  

 

[TheSaint]

25 minutes ago, TheDcoder said:

Gawd, didn't you say that you were configuring the number of spaces that were inserted when you hit Tab?

Or something equivalent to spaces ... whatever SciTE does.

All I know, is that if I place the cursor at the start of a tab and click my right arrow, it jumps the amount of that indent value, not just a single space ... unless of course I'd made that indent a single space in program settings. To me, that indicates it is a true tab, and not just a bunch of spaces.

How about you open my script and see that for yourself.  

P.S. Have you ever used SciTE?

Edited June 4, 2024 by TheSaint

[TheDcoder]

41 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

P.S. Have you ever used SciTE?

Yes bud, used it all the time.

47 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

How about you open my script and see that for yourself.  

I see that you are indeed using TABs

[TheSaint]

5 hours ago, TheDcoder said:

I see that you are indeed using TABs

Why is it that I am thinking you made a BIG ASS with your first post here about all this.  

[TheSaint]

A bit of an update, available via the first post.

After a bit of a break, 10 months, I finally played around with the program again, today.

I haven't done much, just mainly improved some things to make them clearer. Having not used it for quite a while, I was getting a little lost on figuring out how to use it, so I needed a refresher course, and that has resulted in me adding some helpful tips etc ...  to make it all easier next time after any extended break.

Anyway, I did actually check if it did what I needed it to ... determine image folder numbers, and create such folders and copy correct image files to them ... and it did the job as expected, which is to say, excellently. So I can now finally claim that it works.

I'd put off doing that last, for a few reasons. The biggest one being an incomplete revamp of the program ... which is still the case, but needs must, and I added some helpful information to the program to assist with dealing with some incomplete aspects.

It is also the case, that my USB connection to my Kobo device continues to plague me.
I have been able to determine, that when my Kobo device isn't fully charged, my USB connection is maintained. But the moment it reaches full charge or is full charge, it keeps losing the connection, though after xx amount of times of auto disconnecting and auto connecting, it finally settles down. Clearly there is some flaw in the hardware and or software.

Add to that, the fact the content on my Kobo has continued to grow, and so I had to pick a point where I was ready to update the folder listings etc.

I did all that, because I side loaded a big bunch of ebook files yesterday, and I thought it was time, while I was doing that, to check that my fix for missing number folders and cover images, actually worked. I did the first part of that yesterday, but for one reason or another, the second part did not happen until today.

Alas, my Kobo device charged up all too soon, and it took me ages to overcome the disconnects to complete cloning the Kobo device on my PC. After that I tested that fix for cover images, and I am very pleased to say that it works as hoped. So my program can now do all the really important things ... create the correct number sub-folders and copy image files to them, converting to the right size image on-the-fly (for three images). I can also replace wrong size image files or black and white with color, but that's something I've been able to do anyway, since the early days of the program's development.

As things currently stand, the program is not fully completed, hence no compiled EXE file, but it certainly works well enough to do what is needed.

Enjoy!

P.S. One new thing I added, was a three state checkbox to the right of the NEXT button. You can now do three things with that button, instead of just one. You can still jump to the next 'marked' row (shown in yellow), when the checkbox is un-selected. But now also you can jump to the next entry with less than three cover image files (when ticked) or jump to the first such entry that hasn't already been marked (when a block ... neither selected or un-selected).

 

Edited Friday at 02:06 PM by TheSaint

[TheSaint]

I thought I was done tinkering with the program for the day, but apparently not.

I've added an OnTop button and facility.

Clicking the main list continues to select a matching title JPG entry on the 'Cover Images - Source' list, if it can find one, but now if Image 'Source' is selected, that image will auto display in the 'Cover Image' preview field.

Clicking the black & white 'Author' and 'Title' labels now copies their related input field value to the clipboard.

Enable and Disable of controls at startup and loading has been tweaked a bit.

See the first post for the latest update.

[TheSaint]

Oops, I've uploaded the Other Dependencies.zip file again (see first post).

I'd forgotten you needed the full content of the Python folder, not just my compiled Python executable file ... so a few DLLs etc as well.

Edited Friday at 06:58 PM by TheSaint

[TheSaint]

Okay, I've now done away with the previously required Python executable and code.

Thanks to my persistence and the heavy lifting of ChatGPT, we finally wrestled a solution using pure AutoIt to get the correct numbered sub-folders for cover images for an ebook. You can read about some of that here.

NOTE - This was based on some Python code I found in a file of my calibre install. The original Python script can be found in the Other Dependencies.zip file.

See the first post for the updated downloads. The Other Dependencies.zip file is now around 7 MB smaller.

P.S. Please note that this has had minimal testing so far.

Edited Saturday at 02:37 PM by TheSaint

[TheSaint]

Latest update now available, see the first post.

Everything is now in a single ZIP file, including an EXE version.

While the program is still not fully complete, it is complete enough to do what it needs to, and I may never get around to fully implementing the Clone stuff etc.

Here's what I worked on today.

Quote

A 'Results' button has been added to the main 'Viewer' program window, to the left of the new 'OnTop' button. This opens the 'Results.ini' file for viewing etc.

'Settings' window has been reworked, moving elements around and adding new options. Width has doubled and height halved.

Creation of a _DONE folder and option to relocate source image file to _DONE, after images created on device.

You can now specify what image file to have selected in 'Image File' at program startup, if you wish. 'Image File' group was renamed from just 'Image'.

Any 'Device Alert' at startup, can now be reduced to just a one second splash screen message.

A 'View Files' option with two buttons has been added to the 'Settings' window, to view either the 'Ebooks.txt' file or 'Folders.txt' file.

When viewing an ebook cover full size, it can now be auto reduced to a little less than the desktop height & width values with a 'Settings' option. Width and or Height is determined by a percentage value, to maintain the proportional aspect ratio.

When an image is created on your device, a mark value is now stored, so that on reload of the list, each instance (entry line) will be colored as Fuchsia. NOTE - To remove this mark, you can 'Mark' the entry again, so it will be in yellow, or to remove altogether, select 'Mark' again (i.e. twice overall). Either type of marked entry will be stepped to with the NEXT button, in its default unselected checkbox state.

Tooltips added to the Next checkbox option selections.

Improvements made to the selected image file display of 'Cover Images - Source' (i.e no image entry for an ebook will now result in the black image being shown for every selection method).

Here's the latest screenshots.

That's it.

Enjoy!

P.S. I am now going to start using my program in earnest, as a lot of cover image files are missing on my Kobo device. It will be a lengthy process though, with most of that taken up with retrieving image files for those ebooks, that luckily exist in my copy of calibre, and using the clipboard button to retrieve text, to rename them appropriately, before moving each image file to the 'Cover Images - Source' folder, and then refreshing the display of that folder content. I have two calibre library folders I need to keep swapping between - Digital Editions, which has all my DRM ebooks from Kobo, plus Kobo (DRM-Free), which is for ebooks that came DRM-Free from Kobo. While the greater number of my Kobo ebooks are in the Digital Editions library folder, I still have a lot in the Kobo (DRM-Free) library folder.

[TheSaint]

Latest update now available, see the first post.

Okay, as I was waking today, it suddenly occurred to me that I had missed a very obvious improvement.

This was a Dropzone for quick and easy renaming and copying of a cover image file, in preparation for the main usage of my program.

So after pondering on how best to do that, with limited GUI space, I did the following ... optionally repurposed the 'Cover Image' preview field.

To do that, you need to enable it via a checkbox on the 'Settings' window.

So basically I did the following.

Quote

Added a 'Dropzone' checkbox to the 'Settings' window. That changes the group 'Cover Image' to 'Dropzone' on the main 'Viewer' window, and replaces any preview JPG with a white JPG that contains text instructions. Some fields are also either disabled or have unavailable aspects.

NOTE - You can now browse to a desired cover image file, and drag & drop it onto the Dropzone, to have it auto renamed and copied to the 'Cover Images' source folder, for use with the program, when creating images to send to missing cover image sub-folders.

That means another level of automation, making things quicker and less fiddly etc.

Enjoy!

[TheSaint]

I thought it was time to amend a few things in the first post, so I've done that, and also added a new update to download there.

Latest Changes

Quote

Changed the 'Dropzone' checkbox to be a three state one, where the block option means advancing to the next marked entry after an image file is copied. NOTE - You still need to pay attention, to whether a list entry already has a cover image in the 'Cover Images' source folder, but this can save you at least one click and having to scroll.

You can now also drag & drop a folder containing a image file called 'cover.jpg' and that will be detected and used for renaming and copying. NOTE - This is typically the case in calibre, where an ebook title folder contains such a file. I myself are mostly using such folders, so this can save on a couple of mouse clicks.

Splash screen now also shows 'Exists' if a cover image with the same name already exists in the 'Cover Images' source folder.

An entry is now created in the 'Log.txt' file for 'copied', 'failed' or 'existed', and includes the desired file name.

Bugfix for 'Ebooks List' selection after clicking on the preview image to see it larger. This previously stopped other 'Ebooks List' items when clicked, from showing in the 'Cover Image' preview field, unless an entry in the 'Cover Images - Source' list was clicked meanwhile. This was due to a silly mix up of variable names for the same combo read, and the wrong one being set, but corrected if you selected a list entry in the 'Cover Images - Source' list.

Somehow I'd previously overlooked adding a search option, which has been corrected now. A small FIND button has now been added to the right of the FIX button. NOTE - The searched for text, just needs to exist in an entry, in whole or part, but if 'Title' or 'Author' is selected, it must exist in that column. Search text can be specified via the 'Title' or 'Author' input fields, or you can choose to type some search text in a presented Inputbox. Use of the CTRL key as well, can impact a search, so take note of the information about that in the presented dialogs. Generally, clicking on CANCEL in the first dialog, will repeat the same search from the currently selected 'Ebooks List' entry (row) or last result.

Hopefully my bugfix did not break anything, as it was somewhat elusive to figure out.