Dear developers,

     after several years of not using Books.app, I'm just trying to come
back to it. So far, I like it. But there are some features (which might
or might not be easy to implement) that I'd love to see in future
versions (or to read any tip to have them instantaneous).

     1) Jump to the search-field with CMD+f.
        So many applications use this shortcut, so I'm used to it. Nobody
        else missing this?

     2) Have the ability to select multiple items in the gallery-view.
        Maybe there's a reason why it's not there, but I'd prefer it.

     3) Make the `New Book` window disappear with ESC
        Again, many applications use this with pop-up windows...

     3b) When I open the `New Book` window and close it without filling
         in any informations, I'd prefer to not have any `New Book` entry
         in my list.

     4) Have a meta-list containing all books
        What apple did with iTunes and iPhoto and such -- to have the
        ability to view all books in a gallery/list. I'd prefer the
        philosophy to even keep books in there if I delete a list
        containing them, because the book might still be there, just the
        list changed. And it's easier to see how many books you have in
        total.
        I quickly tried to do it via SmartLists, but I couldn't figure
        out what criteria to set. Some books of mine are old and don't
        have any ISBN or such...

      4b) Ship several SmartList-examples.
          Again like what apple did in iTunes, give me a list like
          `conferred`, `10/20/50 most recently added`, `books with
          missing ISBN/title/...`.
          I think they should be easy enough to create and help some
          people to find some books more quickly.

      5) Make me use umlauts
         I, but that might be a problem with my system, cannot seem to
         use `ü` in book titles when quickfilling with amazon (de/us).
         Nice enough that it works with `ue` in this case, but I'd prefer
         to write the title as is... (same for ß etc.).

      6) more SmartList options
         I'd love to have options like:

         [title] [is set]
         [author] [is set]

         But that relates to 4b I guess...

Well, actually I didn't search around long to see if these requests
have been done before, I just wanted to tell you my opinion. Apart from
that, keep up the great work.

Andy
--
``Earth is about to become the thirty-third member of the Interplanetary
Confederation. Satan has learned his lesson and is now a good guy.´´
				            -Ruth of Unarius

On 8 Aug, 2007, at 23:34 PM, Chris Karr wrote:
> On Aug 8, 2007, at 9:50 PM, ravi wrote:
>> first: a thank you to Chris and Co for an excellent app that is a
>> handsome open source substitute to Delicious Library et al.
> Substitute? We were here first! :-)


My apologies! I was unaware of the history!


> Oy. You caught me with my pants down. Those URLs are quite old and
> likely no longer work. I've posted a zip file containing the Default
> Display plugin at
>
>  http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/DefaultDisplay.plugin.zip
>
> This contains the CSS styling and the list of default fields
> specified by the plugin.


I already snarfed the Default Display from my Books directory, but
the above will no doubt help future display plugin writers. More
importantly, thanks for the book page example, since now I have more
info on the class names, etc.

At some point, perhaps it would be a good feature to let the display
plugin writer drive the entire HTML with some macro substitution done
by Books for the various field values in an HTML template provided by
the plugin author. This would however defeat the other feature you
mention: the ability of users to choose the fields displayed and even
their order.


> You can change the order of the fields to suit your purposes by
> manipulating the order in the CSV file. The rest is up to CSS.


Ah, wonderful. I should have realised that!


> The only potential problem is that users can override this list with
> their own, so it might be helpful to not make it too dependent upon
> order.


That is an issue, indeed. I could position the DIVs using absolute
positioning, but then that gives the user the wrong impression,
should she uncheck the "Display default fields specified by plug-in"
only to find that the ordering she created is not honoured. I am
going to just add a README that says "changing the order of fields
will have aesthetically distasteful consequences" ;-).

Two more questions:

1) Where do you want bug reports on 3.1b to go? (sorry if that info
is already on the web site).

2) Is it okay to post attachments to this list? I would like to do a
screenshot of my display style for comments.

	 --ravi

On Aug 8, 2007, at 10:23 PM, ravi wrote:
> I have one more question: is it only through the CSS that I can
> control the layout or is there some way to drive the HTML layout used
> in the book info panel? Here is what I would like to do:
...
> One way to get this sort of ordering is by generating the HTML. I
> could achieve this using CSS by "position: absolute", I suppose... is
> there some other mechanism I am unaware of?
You can change the order of the fields to suit your purposes by
manipulating the order in the CSV file. The rest is up to CSS.

The only potential problem is that users can override this list with
their own, so it might be helpful to not make it too dependent upon
order.
> Also, I assume I can get to the class name of the fields in the
> fields.csv file by just adding the name to the prefix "books-"? (e.g:
> div.book-genre, etc)?
That's exactly it.

-Chris

On 8 Aug, 2007, at 22:50 PM, ravi wrote:
>
> Now my question: I am trying to create a display plug-in and though I
> ...


I have one more question: is it only through the CSS that I can
control the layout or is there some way to drive the HTML layout used
in the book info panel? Here is what I would like to do:

* Display the title on top (similar to Default Display)
* Show author, year, publisher, and a few other bits of info in a box
that
    floats left, with lines separating each item
* Show the summary to the right of the info box
* List the genres in small font at the bottom

One way to get this sort of ordering is by generating the HTML. I
could achieve this using CSS by "position: absolute", I suppose... is
there some other mechanism I am unaware of?

Also, I assume I can get to the class name of the fields in the
fields.csv file by just adding the name to the prefix "books-"? (e.g:
div.book-genre, etc)?

Thank you,

	 --ravi

On Aug 8, 2007, at 9:50 PM, ravi wrote:
> first: a thank you to Chris and Co for an excellent app that is a
> handsome open source substitute to Delicious Library et al.
Substitute? We were here first! :-)
> Now my question: I am trying to create a display plug-in and though I
> have enough info to keep going, I have a couple of things that I
> could use some info on: Neither of the URLs I have seen for the plug-
> ins page (http://www.aetherial.net/books-plugins/ mentioned in the
> plug-in HOWTO in the wiki, and http://books-plugins.aetherial.net/
> mentioned by Chris in his announcement to this list regarding web
> export plug-in) work.
Oy. You caught me with my pants down. Those URLs are quite old and
likely no longer work. I've posted a zip file containing the Default
Display plugin at

	 http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/DefaultDisplay.plugin.zip

This contains the CSS styling and the list of default fields
specified by the plugin.
> The HOWTO mentions "three sample HTML files" (for the three kinds of
> main window displays: none, single, multiple). It would be great to
> get hold of these files to make it testing changes to the display CSS
> easier -- which I assume is the idea behind them. Can someone point
> me to them or the right URL for the plug-ins page?
Books dynamically generates these HTML files.

A single book page example:

<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="file://localhost/Users/cjkarr/Documents/
Xcode/Release/Books.app/Contents/Resources/DefaultDisplay.plugin/
Contents/Resources/stylesheet.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="book-definition">
	 <div class="book-title">Guilliver's Travels</div>
	 <div class="book-authors">Jonathan Swift</div>
	 <div class="book-genre">Literature</div>
	 <div class="book-format">Hardcover</div>
	 <div class="book-publisher">Easton Press</div>
	 <div class="book-listName">Unread Books</div>

</div>
</body>
</html>

Multiple books selected:

<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="file://localhost/Users/cjkarr/Documents/
Xcode/Release/Books.app/Contents/Resources/DefaultDisplay.plugin/
Contents/Resources/stylesheet.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="multiple-message">
	 <div class="multiple-title">Multiple Selection</div>

	 <div class="book-list">
		 <p class="booklist-item"><div class="booklist-title">Knights of the
Dinner Table: Origins '03 Special</div><div class="booklist-
authors"></div></p>
<p class="booklist-item"><div class="booklist-title">Voodoo Child
Rough Cut</div><div class="booklist-authors"></div></p>
<p class="booklist-item"><div class="booklist-title">Raiders of the
Lost Ark #3</div><div class="booklist-authors">Walter Simonson</div></p>
<p class="booklist-item"><div class="booklist-title">Super-Villain
Classics #1</div><div class="booklist-authors">Mark Gruenwald; Stan
Lee</div></p>
<p class="booklist-item"><div class="booklist-title">The A-Team #1</
div><div class="booklist-authors">Jim Salicrup</div></p>

	 </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

No books selected:

<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="file://localhost/Users/cjkarr/Documents/
Xcode/Release/Books.app/Contents/Resources/DefaultDisplay.plugin/
Contents/Resources/stylesheet.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="empty">
	 <div class="empty-message">Please select a book from above.</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

--

In each of these cases, Books fills in the stylesheet URLs and the
contents of the individual pages. For a single book, it generates a
list of fields. For multiple books, it generates a list of selected
books with author and title.

I need to document this better, but let me know if you need more
information to get going.

-Chris

Hello all,

first: a thank you to Chris and Co for an excellent app that is a
handsome open source substitute to Delicious Library et al.

Now my question: I am trying to create a display plug-in and though I
have enough info to keep going, I have a couple of things that I
could use some info on: Neither of the URLs I have seen for the plug-
ins page (http://www.aetherial.net/books-plugins/ mentioned in the
plug-in HOWTO in the wiki, and http://books-plugins.aetherial.net/
mentioned by Chris in his announcement to this list regarding web
export plug-in) work.

The HOWTO mentions "three sample HTML files" (for the three kinds of
main window displays: none, single, multiple). It would be great to
get hold of these files to make it testing changes to the display CSS
easier -- which I assume is the idea behind them. Can someone point
me to them or the right URL for the plug-ins page?

Thank you,

	 --ravi

I am trying to import a large file of book data (2,000+ entries) into Books. 
The original data
was in Hypercard.  I exported the data to tab delimited text.  I then imported
the file into
Excel and rearanged the columns so they were in the same order as I got from a
sample tab
deliminated text export from Books (v2.2.1).  I then converted the excel file
back to tab
delimited text (it has Excel's text icon).

I then asked Books to import a file.  It led me through a search for the file,
but when I
selected it nothing appeared to happen.  I checked the web site and instructions
and didn't
see anything obvious.

Is the input file too big?  Am I doing something wrong?

Please help!

Don

Hi,

I recently discovered the Books program and would like to offer my services to
do a Dutch
translation (Dutch: official language of The Netherlands and about half of
Belgium, and still
heavily used in Surinam and by lawyers in Indonesia).

How do I go about this?

Greetings,

Kees Beerepoot

Simply copy the

	 ~/Library/Application Support/Books

folder from the old machine to the same place on the new machine and
you should be set.

-Chris


On Nov 17, 2006, at 2:23 PM, Maxi P. Bongiovanni wrote:

> Friend,
>
> I´been using books for the last 10 months. I´ve bought a new mac
> and i want to pass all
> my old library to my new MAC... can you help me.
>
> Thanks.
>
> _

Friend,

I´been using books for the last 10 months. I´ve bought a new mac and i want to
pass all
my old library to my new MAC... can you help me.

Thanks.



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Sponsored Link

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Frieds,
i using BOOKS, to keep my BIBLIOTECA in order... I want to know, if there´s a
soft
similar to books, but for music?

Thanks for Buenos Aires,

__________________________________________________
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1. I don't have the source under revision control because I haven't
figured out a good system where the revision control adds anything to
my development. I do post source releases online, and I'll get one
online shortly for the current codebase.

2. I do accept patches and I incorporate them myself. Books is small
enough that this isn't a big deal.

3. I don't have many concrete plans at the moment, but the best way
of finding what most resembles a roadmap is the Books blog. I'll post
ideas there and plans from time to time. I don't know if I've done
that in a while, though.

-Chris


On May 3, 2006, at 11:02 PM, Igor Foox wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've recently discovered Books, and I find it to be a very cool
> little app. I have no experience
> as a Cocoa developer but I'd like to try and hack on Books a bit, and
> maybe add some things
> to it. I have several questions:
>
> - Is the source code under revision control somewhere? (publicly
> accessible)
> - If I do end up successfully doing something, do you accept patches,
> or is there another form
> of sending you changes?
> - Are your future plans documented somewhere? (If you have concrete
> plans ;-) ).
>
> Thanks much,
> Igor
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------
> ~-->
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> technology. It's free.
> http://us.click.yahoo.com/97bhrC/LGxNAA/yQLSAA/W4wwlB/TM
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> ~->
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hi,

I've recently discovered Books, and I find it to be a very cool
little app. I have no experience
as a Cocoa developer but I'd like to try and hack on Books a bit, and
maybe add some things
to it. I have several questions:

- Is the source code under revision control somewhere? (publicly
accessible)
- If I do end up successfully doing something, do you accept patches,
or is there another form
of sending you changes?
- Are your future plans documented somewhere? (If you have concrete
plans ;-) ).

Thanks much,
Igor

The latest version of Books is now available for download:

	 http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/Books_3.0a13.tbz

This release fixes some embarassang performance-related bugs in
addition to some other bug fixes. No new functionality has been
added, but the existing app should be quite a bit faster for those of
you using lists with hundreds of items in it. I Highly recommend that
everyone install this update.

-Chris

The new version of Books is out and available at

	 http://books.aetherial.net/wordpress/?p=376

This update includes a number of interface fixes, under the hood fixes, and
updates to the
auto-updating that reflects my new hosting situation.

As always, if you have questions or problems, feel free to post a comment on the
blog or
send a note to the list.

Thanks again for your patience.

-Chris

The new version of Books is now available. You can fetch it online at

	 http://books.aetherial.net/2006/04/books_30alpha10.html

of update from within the application.

There's quite a bit of new functionality crammed in this one that I haven't had
the time to
document, so if you have any questions about how any of it works, post a note to
the blog or
list. In particular, if you're interested in creating your own printing styles,
let me know and I'll
explain how that is done. It's fairly easy and flexible.

-Chris

The latest iteration of Books is now available:

	 http://books.aetherial.net/2006/03/books_30alpha9.html

Give it a spin and let me know how it works for you.

-Chris

Hi Chris,

Bad news in general, I'm afraid.

1] I just haven't been able to get my head around importing and exporting in
Eclipse - I
was hoping I could just open the .jar file, change the connected
WebExporter.java and
save, but it's not quite that simple and I never seem to get all the necessary
files in the
project to begin with, which means the final .jar fails, the errors suggesting
it's because
the .java file is then referring to other package files that it can no longer
find... Based upon
my hour or two of trying to work it out unsuccessfully, I've now pretty much
given up on
that approach, even though it would be a time saver.

2] One of the reasons why the barcode option doesn't seem that crash hot is that
you can't
actually do much with the barcodes output on screen. I can't actually scan them
off the
screen, so from a practical point of view, it's only useful when printed out.
And printing
out a page per barcode would only seem useful in a very limited set of
circumstances.

3] I did, however, scan in some of my library and upload it with barcodes today.
It was a
rather painful process - I imported the books from Delicious Library, changed
each
barcode field to "<img src=barcode.php..." etc., ran the normal WebExporter and
then
opened up the resultant .xml to edit back out the ISBN changes in it before
uploading... My
library is currently at http://www.orgburo.com/library/ , with the barcodes
simply
appearing in place of the ISBN number when there was one.

4] Given the trouble I had with java and my lack of expertise, I think I might
stick with a
MySQL approach for future web uploads of my library, exporting to a
tab-delimited file.
Sorry I couldn't be any help in developing even a slight change to the plugin
for other
users.

Regards,
James.

When you get it up, send the list a pointer to your site (if you
don't mind). I hadn't considered including barcodes on the pages,
though I can now see some of the potential uses.

-Chris


On Mar 4, 2006, at 5:40 PM, mxmlitvinov wrote:

> Thanks, Chris for such a detailed and excellent response.
>
> I've downloaded Eclipse, and when I get the time later this week
> I'll start tinkering again. In
> the short term, I'll just take the PHP route, because while I
> realise not everyone has access to
> PHP, it will save looking into other barcoding options and actually
> exporting another graphic
> file for each of the books.
>
> In the long run, I'm hoping to do some more tweaking, but I'd
> better start crawling before I
> learn to walk.
>
> Kind Regards,
> James.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Thanks, Chris for such a detailed and excellent response.

I've downloaded Eclipse, and when I get the time later this week I'll start
tinkering again. In
the short term, I'll just take the PHP route, because while I realise not
everyone has access to
PHP, it will save looking into other barcoding options and actually exporting
another graphic
file for each of the books.

In the long run, I'm hoping to do some more tweaking, but I'd better start
crawling before I
learn to walk.

Kind Regards,
James.

First of all, thanks for being one of the first to write to the
developer's list. This is an excellent question.

Some answers:

1. The web export plugin's core is a Java application that reads the
XML from the Books export process to generate HTML pages. Since this
is Java, you'll need to recompile the main JAR file containing the
code to get things to work. In the plugin, this is the web-export.jar
file. I do my Java work in Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org). You
should have no problem taking the Java source files from within the
plugin and working with them in Eclipse and having Eclipse spit out
an appropriate JAR file.

2. Since this is all Java, you'll need a Java library for generating
the barcode graphic files. Barbeque (http://
barbecue.sourceforge.net/) looks like a promising library. The BBQ
jar file will need to be added to the Resources folder of the plugin.
The run.sh file will need to be modified to point to the new jar file
in its classpath:

	 -cp web-export.jar

becomes

	 -cp web-export.jar:bbq.jar

3. Within the Java source, in WebExporter.java, you'll most likely
want to add the code to generate the barcode in the chunk that does
stuff with ISBN numbers (assuming you're generating based on ISBN):

	 String isbn = fields.get ("isbn");

	 if (isbn != null && !isbn.equals (""))
	 {
		 isbn = isbn.replaceAll ("-", "").replaceAll (" ", "");

		 htmlString += "<div class=\"buy\">Buy online: <a href=\"http://
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/" + isbn + "/aetherialnu-20\">Amazon</
a>, " +
			 "<a href=\"http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?
bfmid=2181&sourceid=41590896&bfpid=" + isbn + "&bfmtype=book\">Barnes
&amp; Noble</a></div>";
	 }

Within that if block, you'll want to add the code that generates the
graphic file and saves it to a file. Somewhere within that method,
you'll want to add the HTML code that points to the new image.

4. The reason that you can't use PHP in this setup is because the Web
Export plugin can't make any assumptions about the server
technologies on the server that it's living, so everything's plain
static HTML. If you are running on a server that does use PHP and
you'd be fine pointing to that instead of adding the code to the Java
portions, you may be able to get away with doing some creative
searching and replacing within a text editor (TextMate works great
for this) that can search and replace across multiple files. In
particular, you could set up a search and replace task that replaces
the Amazon buy code with the barcode

	 Find: <div class="buy">Buy online: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/
exec/obidos/ASIN/"
	 Replace: <div clas="img-barcode"><img src="barcode.php?code=

and

	 Find: /aetherialnu-20">Amazon</a>,
	 Replace: " /></div><div class="buy">Buy online:

This would replace the Amazon buy link with a pointer to the
generated barcode image file. You'd want to play with the CSS to
style it and position the code where you wanted, but it's a simple
non-programming way to accomplish the same thing. You could do the
same thing with the ISBN text field:

	 <tr><td class="key">ISBN:</td><td class="value">0201514257</td></tr>


I hope that this gets you started on the right path. If you need more
pointers, please let me know.

-Chris



On Mar 4, 2006, at 2:57 AM, mxmlitvinov wrote:

> Hello and sorry to barge in...
>
> I am but a humble tinkerer who wants to customise the Web Export
> plugin a bit before
> outputting his library.
>
> Specifically, I'm wanting to add a barcode into each book's page on
> export, something that
> will probably be of little use eventually, but might give me some
> limited personal
> satisfaction (and I do have a barcode scanner, so it isn't just for
> aesthetic reasons). I can
> generate ISBN barcodes in a standard web page easily enough by
> calling a PHP page to
> generate an image on the fly, (eg: "<img src=barcode.php?
> code=1583671021>"), but am
> stumped as to how I can actually modify Web Exporter.app in the
> first place to place the
> relevant code on each book's page.
>
> I've opened up the package, gone to src/resources/Java/net/
> aetherial/books/
> webexporter/WebExporter.java and played around with that file in a
> way that my enfeebled
> mind considered would output what I wanted, but this hasn't made
> any difference to the
> output of the Web Exporter.
>
> Could someone just point me on the right track? Do I need to *do*
> something (other than
> save) with the modified Java file before the modifications will
> take effect? I feel just
> providing the ability for people with limited understanding of css
> and html to customise
> some elements of the Web Exporter would lend enormous flexibility
> to the software, but at
> the moment it all seems just a bit over my head.
>
> Kind Regards,
> James.

Hello and sorry to barge in...

I am but a humble tinkerer who wants to customise the Web Export plugin a bit
before
outputting his library.

Specifically, I'm wanting to add a barcode into each book's page on export,
something that
will probably be of little use eventually, but might give me some limited
personal
satisfaction (and I do have a barcode scanner, so it isn't just for aesthetic
reasons). I can
generate ISBN barcodes in a standard web page easily enough by calling a PHP
page to
generate an image on the fly, (eg: "<img src=barcode.php?code=1583671021>"), but
am
stumped as to how I can actually modify Web Exporter.app in the first place to
place the
relevant code on each book's page.

I've opened up the package, gone to src/resources/Java/net/aetherial/books/
webexporter/WebExporter.java and played around with that file in a way that my
enfeebled
mind considered would output what I wanted, but this hasn't made any difference
to the
output of the Web Exporter.

Could someone just point me on the right track? Do I need to *do* something
(other than
save) with the modified Java file before the modifications will take effect? I
feel just
providing the ability for people with limited understanding of css and html to
customise
some elements of the Web Exporter would lend enormous flexibility to the
software, but at
the moment it all seems just a bit over my head.

Kind Regards,
James.

Hello all. I hope everyone had a good weekend.

I'm just writing to let you all know that I put a couple of new Books
plugins online this weekend. They are available at the Books plugin
site:

	 http://books-plugins.aetherial.net/

I imagine that the Web Exporter is of most interest, but there is
also now a J2ME export plugin that allows you to export your
collection to J2ME-compatible cell phones and PDAs. The web plugin is
closer to being finished than the J2ME plugin, but both are in a
usable state. (The J2ME plugin needs a bit more polish.)

If you're interested in either of these, give them a download and
install. If you have any questions on how to use them or how they
were built, feel free to post a comment on the blog entries or send a
message to the group.

-Chris

The Books export works by creating a folder with an XML file
containing the textual metadata and all the full quality covers in
PNG format.

An export plugin is simply a program that can read this XML and
extract the useful contents and write those contents out into a
custom file.

If you know what formats your Windows program uses, you might
consider installing Books 3, using the Books 2.0 import plugin to
suck in the contents of your old library into Books 3, and then
exporting that data using the Books Folder Exporter to get the folder
with XML and PNG files. You can then write a Python script or Java
program (or whatever floats your boat) to read that and write a file
that your Windows app can import.

Clear as mud, right?

-Chris


On Feb 16, 2006, at 7:58 AM, Jaap Kuyvenhoven wrote:

> We are a group using an old Books program running on a Windows 95 PC.
> We would like to export the "Books" database (only the data of the
> books)
> to another database program running on a Windows 2000 PC.
> In which file format the "Books" database can be exported?
>
>
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We are a group using an old Books program running on a Windows 95 PC.
We would like to export the "Books" database (only the data of the
books)
to another database program running on a Windows 2000 PC.
In which file format the "Books" database can be exported?