janeczku
Add book entry without uploading
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
We've been using calibre-server for ages to be the front end to catalog both our ebooks as well as locations of hard copies of books. This requires calibre for modifying the database. calibre-web looks fantastic to us for ebooks. However, it doesn't seem to provide a way for us to create metadata entries without a file. While it's possible to continue to add calibre behind the scenes, it seems like calibre-web could provide an interface to do that as well.
Is this actually available and I'm just too daft to find the button/configuration to make this possible?
Describe the solution you'd like
A method to allow users to add book metadata without needing to upload a book. Can be as simple something that creates a stub entry that users populate or a way to insert an ISBN that subsequently searches the external databases for metadata.
Describe alternatives you've considered
- A workaround that we're considering is to instruct users to upload an empty garbage file then continue with the metadata population. It doesn't feel like a clean solution.
- Continue to use calibre behind the scenes. Currently the cleanest, however, it does require users to install a copy of caliber or find someone who has previously done so. caliber-web is just so easy to use though!
I think the solution here is to upload a dummy text file in place of the actual document, as you've suggested. I wonder if you could use a program like Sigil (Mac app, not sure about a Windows equivalent) and set up a dummy epub file with the metadata already inserted so that calibre-web can extract upon upload. The same thing could be done with PDF documents, which might be more Windows friendly. It's not what you're after but it would work. Calibre-web does let you manage different file types so you can always leave instructions to delete the dummy file when the actual file is uploaded.
I hope this makes sense. If you need further assistance, please let me know. I'm happy to explore different metadata options if you like. Just an FYI, I'm not a developer, just a user :)
Want to echo the need for this. I would like to add a blank book with just author and title so that I can keep track of a reading list -- even of books that I don't have.
I get the blank txt file idea and I am considering it, but it will always be a bit more of a PITA than having an "Add blank book" option.
You can allow upload of png (or any kind of file) upload it (a random .png) indeed of an ebook file... it is not realy what we want here, but I do it this way (waiting for an other)
