V5.0.1.1 Beta 1
This is the V5 beta release following the V5 alpha test.
Change log from V4, in no particular order:
Change log from V5.0.0.7 Alpha 7
Comments:
This is the V5 beta release following the V5 alpha test.
Change log from V4, in no particular order:
- Dropped support for Gingerbread and Honeycomb (Android 2 and 3). See below for more information.
- Changed to newest Google tools and libraries. This change touches most of CC's user interface, usually is subtle ways, because the new tools try to enforce some "Material Design" guidelines. For example, the action bar is a bit different, dialog buttons have moved around a bit, and some animations have come or gone. It is this change that introduces the most risk that I broke something.
- Use Android's Storage Access Framework (SAF) when CC is running on Android 5 (Lollipop) or higher. This permits storing your library in arbitrary folders on the SD card. When you go to Settings / Formats and Folders and tap an extension or the default line, CC opens an Android folder chooser instead of the existing one. Note that I have no control at all over that chooser dialog.
The app-private-folder hack is now only necessary on Android 4.4 (Kitkat).
The tools and library changes were necessary to make this work. - The settings screeen(s) have reverted back to the "standard" for the android theme.
- Add a transition animation from the book list to book details. Don't do the animation if e-ink corrections are enabled. Add an option in Settings / Book details to disable the animation.
- Move the cloud connection database cache out of the library, instead storing it in the app private folder on the SD card if there is one, otherwise in main memory. This was required because of the change to use the SAF.
- Handle Android 6 asking for permissions at run time instead of install time.
- Add an option in Settings / File names to remove accents (diacritical marks) on characters used in path names. This does not "ascii-fy" the path. It just removes accents. Exactly what is an accent is defined by the ICU (International Components for Unicode) consortium.
- Add Android 6 auto-backup support. I have no idea if it works at all. It doesn't on my Nexus 5. There is a lot of chatter saying that one must do a system reinit after an upgrade to make it work and I am unwilling to do that on my "production" phone.
If it works then it will backup CC's settings. The database is too large. - Change templates to do what calibre does for several non-alphanumeric characters. See below for more information.
- Change the default template to {title} - {authors} ({id}) to ensure that books cannot overwrite each other in the rare case that two books have the same title and author. This is also calibre's default template. The default template is used by the content server and cloud connections if no options are checked in Settings / File names.
- Add an option to rename book files if a book with a different filename (path) is being downloaded
- Reorganize the Settings / File name preferences screen to put Use templates ... on top.
- Use CC's notification when receiving books over the wireless connection, in addition to the existing uses (database upgrade and bulk download in the cloud and content server).
- Support for the new calibre content server. This server is not generally available. My main concern at the moment is that I don't break anything when using the current calibre server.
- Updated languages: French, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese.
- [BUG FIX]Don't use a "left over" template as the default if the "Use templates ..." setting is unchecked, but preserve such a template in case the option is rechecked later.
- [BUG FIX]Make CC really able to open azw3 files with FBReader
- [BUG FIX]Fix crash in Android M (6) when long-pressing on a book in the content server and cloud lists
- [BUG FIX]Make on-device work in the cloud connection work when a book is downloaded in book details
- [BUG FIX]Fix rare crash when adding books with strange internal metadata.
- [BUG FIX]Yet another try to make a selected language "stick".
- [BUG FIX]Make searching on custom comments (long text) fields work.
Change log from V5.0.0.7 Alpha 7
- Remove superfluous quotes from some strings
- Updated languages: French, Spanish, Vietnamese
- [BUG FIX]Make searching on custom comments work. Ignore html in comments when searching.
Comments:
- Re dropping support for Android 2 and 3: CC version 4 will remain on Google Play and will be offered to the these devices. Devices running Android 4 and higher will automatically be offered CC version 5. I don't intend to continue development of V4, but I will fix egregious bugs.
- Re non-alphanumeric characters in file names: CC now matches calibre's behavior in the following ways:
- CC changes the following characters to underscores -- characters that are not:
letters, numbers, or a space
!, $, %, ^, &, (, ), =, -, {, }, \, [, ], @, ~, ', #, comma, period, _, and /. - CC next changes any leading period to an underscore and removes all trailing periods.
- Finally, CC removes any empty path segments, e.g., aaa//bbb becomes aaa/bbb.
- CC changes the following characters to underscores -- characters that are not:
- Re rename book files: By default and since forever, when sending a book over the wireless device that already exists in CC's library, calibre + CC reused the old path, ignoring the results of the template. This means that if you changed a book's author from AAA to BBB and then resent the book, the file name would still contain AAA. If you downloaded a book that already exists via the content server or the cloud a similar thing happened. The book file was not renamed. This is good behavior in that it prevented creation of duplicate files. The bad behavior is that the file names might not match the metadata.
When templates were introduced this behavior changed. Using the above example, if you changed the author from AAA to BBB then you would get two copies of the book on your device, one with path AAA ... and one with path BBB .... This has the good behavior that file names match metadata. It has the bad behavior that you can get multiple copies of the same book in your CC library.
The changes I made attempt to get the best of both worlds. If templates are in use then if a book is downloaded by any method, the book file is renamed to match the template. File names match metadata and only one copy exists. The down side is that during wireless connects CC can "ignore" calibre and use a file name that calibre doesn't know about. Calibre interprets this as meaning that there are two copies on the device when in fact there aren't. CC now beeps and shows a message (a popup "toast") to tell you that calibre might be confused. Disconnecting and reconnecting eliminates the confusion.