Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
There are several options. You can:
- help with fixing bugs or writing new code
- help with translations -- we only have a few translations at the moment, and more, or corrections are always welcome
- help with documentation; our help web pages are embarrassingly out of date.
- Send us bug reports and feature requests
- send us a PayPal Donation or an Amazon Gift Card on this Amazon Wish List
PayPal Donation ... OR ... Amazon Wishlist
Did you read the message that came after the upgrade message? In particular there SHOULD have been one that started with "PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE CAREFULLY"? Specifically, that messages says:
Google has required that this and all future versions of Book Catalogue must store their files in more standard directories.
They also no longer allow us to access the old directories.
We have detected an upgrade from an old version of the app and need to be granted access to it in order to move the files.
Click 'OK' to continue and then grant access in the following dialog. If you select 'Cancel' then you can always restart this process via 'Administration and Preferences'->'Import old files'.
We suggest you try the latter (ie. Administration and Preferences->Import old files), and select the old bookCatalogue directory.
NOTE: We have heard a few reports of users NOT seeing this message. It's not clear how it fails to display -- it's hard-wired to appear on first run after an upgrade from a version prior to 6.0. Possibly the app may have been started then killed, so it might not display, though that seems unlikely.
If you do experience this (and are sure that the message did not display) please let us know the circumstances: Which version of Android you were running and which version of Book Catalogue were you upgrading from.
There are several possible reasons; most will be solved by doing the following:
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Make sure the barcode is an ISBN barcode; many older books have other kinds of barcodes; some older books have an ISBN barcode inside the cover.
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install one of the recommended scanners (Zxing or pic2shop)
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go to 'Admin & Prefereneces' -> 'Other Preferences' and set 'Preferred Barcode Scanner' to the one you installed.
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if you are having trouble with poor focus or low light, the pic2shop scanner has better performance, but the free version of this scanner comes with very annoying ads.
If the above fails, send us an email.
We have zero, zilch, zip, nada...ads. Not a one (except in the form of hints sometimes, which can be disabled by tapping the 'Do Not Show Again' checkbox).
If you are seeing ads, it's another app, probably the scanner. The Zxing scanner has no ads.
You probably installed security or "cache cleaning" apps. These seem to like deleting Book Catalogue cover images. Uninstall/fix/reconfigure the conflicting app.
If you don't have a recent backup, you can update the covers from the internet:
- go to 'Admin & Prefs'
- click on 'Automatically Update Fields'
- uncheck everything except cover thumbnail (may take more that one click)
- press the button to start the import.
You can still use the old method (below). But there is an easier approach (assuming you have space on an sdcard):
On old phone
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Go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Backup to Archive' and save the archive to your phone, preferably on a removable storage card
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Note for KitKat and beyond: you may be limited to saving the archive to the default 'bookCatalogue' directory (which is probably not on the external SD card). In this case, backup to the 'bookCatalogue' directory, then use a utility like 'ES File Explorer' to move the .bcbk file to the external SD card or some other location.
On the new phone
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install 'Book Catalogue' if not already installed
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copy the archive file created above to your new phone (via a PC or by inserting the removable card if possible)
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Go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Import Archive' and navigate to and select the archive file
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Note for KitKat and beyond: you may be limited to restoring the archive from the default 'bookCatalogue' directory (created when the app is installed). Use a utility like 'ES File Explorer' to move the .bcbk file from the external SD card (or other location) to the 'bookCatalogue' directory before trying to run the import.
All your books, covers, settings and preferences will be restored.
On old phone
- Go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Export Books'
- Copy the entire 'bookCatalogue' directory from your phone to a PC or other device. This should contain the 'export.csv' file created in the previous step as well as all the cover images.
On the new phone
- install 'Book Catalogue' if not already installed
- copy the export.csv and all .png or .jpg files from the PC to the 'bookCatalogue' directory on the new phone
- Go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Import Books'
File access restrictions mean that you probably need to move the CSV or BCBK files directly into the 'bookCatalogue' directory on the new phone. This directory is created by the app the first time it is run.
While this is not natively supported, there are three ways you can achieve this.
- The first is to sync with Goodreads and set up a connection on each device. However goodreads is limited to only those books with an ISBN, and even then it can sometimes be missing a book.
- Alternatively you can backup the database from the administration page, copy the .bcbk file to each device and restore the backup. This would not be realtime and may be very manual.
- The third way is to use an app like dropsync. Dropsync synchronises a folder on your phone with dropbox. I use it to synchronise the bookCatalogue folder to ensure my backups are always safe. If you have this setup on all devices you can backup on one device and restore on another without manually copying the file.
If you need to restore from backup but you don't have an sdcard:
- Copy the backup file to the downloads directory on your phone (or any directory)
- Navigate to that directory as per this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c4ip9Siauk
- Restore
Book Catalogue stores all of it's data on the phone. If you can not access the old phone, have no access to the SD Card from the phone, and never copied an export.csv, or (as of 5.0) an Archive file (.bcbk) from your phone to another location, then your data is lost.
In order of easiest to hardest, the following methods can be used to recover your data:
If you have a recent archive file (.bcbk) -- and you should because the app regularly prompts to create one
Copy it to your new phone and go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Import Archive', then navigate to the file and open it. This will completely restore your books, bookshelves, settings, styles etc.
If you have access to the running app on the old phone
For version 5.0+:
Go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Backup to Archive' Copy the archive file to the new phone, and see above.
For versions prior to 5.0:
Go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Export Books' Copy the entire 'bookCatalogue' directory (the one containing export.csv) to the new phone On the new phone, go to 'Admin&Prefs'->'Import Books' and select the CSV file you just copied
If you have access to the SD Card from the old phone
See above; the 'bookCatalogue' directory may exist; if it does it may contain an up to date export.csv or an Archive file. If so follow the relevant steps above.
If you have an export.csv file
- copy the export file to the phone and put it in the bookCatalogue directory
- go to 'Admin & Prefs'->'Import Books'
To update the covers:
- go to 'Admin & Prefs'
- click on 'Automatically Update Fields'
- uncheck everything except cover thumbnail (may take more that one click)
- press the button to start the import.
When I authorize with goodreads I just get a blank page or network error; when I try to sync, it says I need to authorize. What should I do?
First, try another browser. The default internet client has been known to cause problems. Try Firefox or Chrome.
If that does not work, then check is if the app is authorized, and the best way to do that is use a web browser (preferably on your phone), to go to the goodreads site, log in (preferably not via Facebook), click on the profile icon in the top right, and select 'Edit Profile'. Then go to the 'Apps' tab and you should see a section entitled "Applications You've Given Access To", and Book Catalogue will be in the list if it is authorized.
Finally, if all else fails, try backup to archive, uninstall the app, reinstall the app, restore from archive and then retry goodreads.
If after trying different browsers, the app is still not registered, send us an email!
When I try to add book with scan barcode it gives me an unexpected error, fails, or never returns. What's going on?
There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most common are:
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You are using an unusual third party scanner. We recommend the Zxing scanner. Other scanners will respond to the Zxing API but fail to behave in the same way.
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You have a phone with a fixed focus (or front facing) camera. Not even the Zxing scanner can help here; fixed focus lenses are not good at recognizing barcodes. Version 4.2.4 (or 4.3) supports the pic2shop scanner which is capable of working in lower light or with fixed focus lenses but is only available as a beta as of 19-Jan-2013.
If you have a variable focus camera and already have Zxing installed, try uninstalling and reinstalling; if it is not installed, then install it.
If you have a fixed focus camera, or no rear-facing camera (as on many tablets), and are running BookCatalogue version 5+, try using the pic2shop scanner. It can handle poor focus and low light quite well, though it is prone to crash.
Note: Google goggles has the capability to recognize books from their covers but the API is largely useless to us as of the time of writing because it will not return the ISBN or barcode to us.
There are four things to try:
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If you have the Zxing scanner installed, uninstall and reinstall it. If it is not installed, install it and try using it.
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If 1 fails, start the Zxing scanner directly (NOT via Book Catalogue) and go to 'Settings' then make sure "No Continuous Focus" is checked. Restart Book Catalogue and try scanning.
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If 1 & 2 fail, start the Zxing scanner directly (NOT via Book Catalogue) and go to 'Settings' then change the setting of "Use auto focus" to whatever it is not currently set. Restart Book Catalogue and try again.
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If 1-3 fail, uninstall the Zxing scanner and install the pic2shop scanner and restart Book Catalogue. Try scanning something.
If none of these work, please send us exact descriptions of what went wrong at each step. eg. saying "It's doesn't work" does not help diagnose why it fails.
When I add a book, it appears more than once in the list. If I delete one of them, they are all deleted. What's going on?
This is most likely because you have selected a list that sorts by Author or series. Books can have multiple authors and be in multiple series. Depending on your preferences this means that the book may appear under each author or series, and can thus appear more than once in the list.
Further, BookCatalogue gets its data from multiple sources and it is possible that two sources list the same author in different ways: eg. 'Isaac Asimov' and 'I. Asimov'. In this case you can edit the book to remove one of the authors, or you can long-click on the author name to edit it -- if you edit an author name to match an existing name, it will be merged with that name.
We do! It's called 'Bookshelves'. OK, it's not well named, but simply create a bookshelf called 'Wishlist' or 'To Read' and start putting books on it. Books can be on multiple shelves.
We rely on freely available book data that supports some kind of API that allows programatic access to that data. Currently we use Amazon (US), Google, goodreads and LibraryThing.
We have two difficulties in supporting book databases from other countries: (1) we need to be able to read the API documentation (chances are, we can't), and (2) there are a lot of countries out there.
The good news is that this is an open source project: if someone from one of those countries wants to build the relevant search interface for the app (we'll help), we will most likely include it in the app.
You are probably running a Samsung Galaxy. This is a known bug with some of their firmware:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=978012
http://kmansoft.com/2011/04/10/js5-firmware-for-samsung-galaxy-s-i9000-is-garbage/
We'd like to add it. Technically it would be easy. But...from a UI design, it is really complex. Feel free to submit a design, but have a look at this thread first
https://github.com/eleybourn/Book-Catalogue/issues/10
We could, but each integration takes considerable time and we have to prioritize. We did goodreads because (a) they were very supportive and helpful and (b) we used their service.
We do provide a CSV export, perhaps it's worth asking XXX service to support CSV files?
If anyone comes up with an open standard for a 'bibliographic interchange format', and if the major sites support it, we'll support it.
Ideally we would like to have "Sync with Desktop" implemented via some means.
We add the ones that seem useful in general, especially if they relate to data we can retrieve from our sources, but there are many such requests.
We are looking into a way to allow 'user-defined fields', but that is currently a low priority.
Yes. Put it in your gallery. Anything in the gallery can be used to replace/set a book cover. You can also use the camera in the phone to add new covers.
If you edit the CSV file in a spreadsheet program like LibreOffice or Excel, it will try to interpret the meaning of the columns. If they are all numeric (like most ISBNs), then they will be imported as floating point numbers. This means that 9785172341230 would appear as 9.79e+12, which is far from ideal. Worse, it will be exported as '9.79e+12' when you save the file.
So,when importing a CSV file into a spreadsheet program, you need to specify that the type of each column is 'Text', not 'Standard', 'Automatic' or 'General' or any similar format.
Consult with the 'Help' in your chosen spreadhseet application for details, but in general this setting is per-column in the 'open' or 'import' dialog.
This is a fake FAQ question. It is rarely asked. But the answer is we don't know.
We can say that the upgrade from 3.8 to 4.0 took more than 370 hours development time, and added more than 30,000 lines of code. It's anybodies guess what versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 took. And that does not include support.