Question: Multiple shelves possible for Kobo Sync?

[koehntopp]

(No discussions tab available, so I'll try my luck here)

I've been using Calibre Web Automated, which lets me sync all or selected shelves to my Kobo.

BookLore seems to be better suited for my purposes, though, but can I really only sync one shelf (the Kobo shelf)?

[alva-seal]

I would like to add it would be great if I could sync a magic shelf with my kobo.

[acx10]

In my opinion, having a dedicated Kobo shelf is a cleaner approach since it makes it clear which books are currently synced to the device.

That said, I’m open to hearing any arguments or use cases for supporting multiple shelves, happy to discuss if there’s a strong need for it.

[koehntopp]

Well, the #1 reason would be that Kobo also has "collections", which I'd want to use to structure my library.

Calibre Web Automated can have any number of shelves, and you can either sync all or only selected one to Kobo.

That means that I don't just have a flat list of books on Kobo, but a library structure that supports my reading habits as well as the Kobo features perfectly.

[olistug]

As a "mood" reader, being able to sync and group books into specific collections on my Kobo was one of my favorite features of Calibre-Web-Automated.

For example, I have shelves in Calibre-Web-Automated for my TBR and favorite re-reads, as well as specific categories and themes, such as cozy mysteries and "lovable psychos". These shelves are synced to collections on my Kobo and are automatically updated to include books added to the associated shelf in Calibre-Web-Automated. And from my Kobo I can easily navigate to a specific collection and download / read a book from said collection.

Personally, this approach is significantly more convenient than needing to manually add books to a general bucket of books synced to my Kobo, as well as offering a more user friendly approach to discovery from the Kobo side.

[akashpopat]

I do agree with @alva-seal on having the kobo shelf be also a magic shelf or be it sync with a magic shelf so I can auto sync books to my kobo by dropping the book in a directory

[nicolecomputer]

I read lots of fiction but also have a bunch of topics I'm curious about- biology, programming, and culinary history. I also read stories to my niece sometimes. All of these are different kinds of books that I would love in different shelves

[jduar]

This is the one feature I'm "missing" from Booklore. If I could have multiple shelves sync with Kobo, and have the books in those shelves be automatically placed in collections in the Kobo that match the shelves, I could fully use Booklore to organize my collection and the Kobo would just automatically mirror it, without having to manually create collections or move books around.

This would I think also address the suggestion in #1466 - the user could just create shelves in Booklore with his favourite genres, mark them as syncable, and on sync the Kobo would create collections matching those shelves - with the added bonus that it doesn't restrict that functionality to genres alone, but it allows for any kind of organization style the users might prefer (I for example tend to organize books on language and whether they're modern books, classics, heavy or light reads, not on genre).

Ideally, this would even include magic shelves. Right now, I have magic shelves dedicated to news articles for example, based on the author and the read status. If I could tell Booklore to sync these shelves with Kobo, I would be able to wake up, sync with Booklore, and have those articles immediately available on my Kobo without having to manually assign them to the Kobo shelf on Booklore.

[pedronave]

How would Booklore deal with removing books from the Kobo? Since currently, if you remove a book from the Kobo removes it from the Kobo Sync shelf, would it remove from all shelves?

I could see two options for this:

• We keep the removal status separate from the shelf (this could potentially lead to some confusion, "Why isn't this syncing if it's there?")
• We keep the one kobo sync shelf, but we allow users to choose which metadata builds the collections. (I believe this is how the KoboTouchExtended plugin does it in calibre). E.g. Use "Genres" metadata as collections, then each genre would be a collection where the books are added
  • This gives us the ability to create collections based on how we organize our library, with one central place to manage which books should be synced to Kobo
  • The downside is that we still need to manually add each book to the shelf.