Bookit
A Firefox 3.x extension to convert the current web page into an ebook in various formats. Current version is 0.6.2. You must have the most recent version of Calibre, 0.6.0 or later, installed.
For updates to work automatically you must add heorot.org to your list of trusted sites. This should be asked the first time you install the plugin.
- Install version 0.6.2.
- Bring up the Tools Add-Ons dialog.
- Select Options on the Bookit extension.
- Update the output directory to point to where you want your books created.
- Ensure the paths to the calibre command line utilities are valid. You will need to run the calibre gui at least once before the command line utilities will work.
If you want to browse the source, I’ve put it up on github.com. Feel free to send patches.
Note for 64-bit Vista uses
The install path for the calibre utilities may need to be updated for 64-bit Vista to C:\Program Files (x86)\calibre\. I don’t know yet if there’s a way for me to auto-detect this.
Notes for 0.6.2
- Better 32×32 icon
- Option to keep working directory
- Use 0 as default value for max recursions
- Option to specify cover image
- Option to specify extra css file
- Option to disable default cover in ePub
Notes for 0.6.1
- Add icons to menus and add-on dialog.
- Fixes for editor and selection conversion.
Notes for 0.6.0
- Requires 0.6.0 calibre or later.
- Fixes for improper directory permissions under Linux.
Notes for 0.5.6
- Rewritten from the ground update.
- Only supports Firefox 3.*, 3.5 much preferred.
- Will display a jobs window and progress view.
- Support epub and mobi output, although until calibre 0.6 is released such support is limited.
Notes for 0.4.4
- File save/load added to editor
- Icon added to context and tools menu
- Add default selection to editor when opened
Notes for 0.4.3
- Ordered and Unordered lists in the html editor
- A Tools popup menu for folks who don’t use the status bar icon
- Quick fix for windows conversion, fixes a bug no one should have seen.
Notes for 0.4.2
- I’ve added a new editor feature. Bring up the context menu for the bookit icon on your status bar and select editor. Drag-n-drop or cut-n-paste selections from a web page into the editor window. Edit to please and then press the create toolbarbutton (the prs500 icon).
- Removed the ‘hide this’ menu item, the editor replaces this functionality
Notes for 0.4.0
A quick bug fix release.
- I reworked how parameters are passed to web2lrf. I forgot batch files use ? as a command parameter deliminator.
- Add an override to the output filename, Unicode files name are still not working under NT.
Notes for 0.3.9
- Log menu item to show stdout of last run. Mainly for my use.
- Fix for integer properties not being saved.
- Option to launch calibre after adding book to db.
- Restructured the Windows backend to make updates easier.
Notes for 0.3.8
I’ve changed the code to use the calibredb command to add lrf files to the database. There’s a new preference that stores the path to calibredb, after updating please verify in the options dialog that the path is correct.
The code to check for a colon in the output file has been fixed.
Two existing bugs that I’ve not yet found a solution for both involving unicode characters. If the title of the page has unicode characters the output file generated by web2lrf under Windows NT may not be correct. For now just edit the title when creating the page to not include exotic characters. Also, under Firefox 2.x when creating a lrf book from the current selection and the selection has unicode characters, the lrf file does not always contain the correct text. It’s not a consistent bug, and I’ve not been able to reproduce it using Firefox 3.x.
License
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see.
Some icons and source have been taken from the GPL’s extension Text Formatting Toolbar. The skeleton of the extension was taken from an earlier script version of the Extension Wizard.
The latest source can be downloaded here.
[...] 0.2.6 des Firefox-Plugins Bookit ist erhältlich. Es integriert einen Statusbar-Knopf in Firefox um mit einem Tastendruck aus einer [...]
Hi Eddie,
Thanks for your bookit firefox plugin. I read lots of technical data on the web. Now with your plugin. it’s a snap to convert to lrf so that I can read it in comfort, offline.
I also use the aardvark plugin to remove bits of the page I do not want, but I see that web2lrf redownloads the page again, so ignoring all my edits. Any ideas on how I can drop selected frames before converting.
thanks again for a really useful plugin.
Hi Anil,
Try using the editor feature or selection to eBook context menu item. I think that will work.
I’d like to use Mozilla code to download the web site before conversion, this would allow add blockers and the aardvark plugin to work, but it’s not a trivial thing to do. Right now I’m restructuring the code to allow outputs for the kindle, etc, but it’s been slow going due to a severe lack of free time.
Any chance you’ll update Bookit to work with Firefox 3.5?
I’ve been testing a completely new version via the mobileread forums. There are a few issues I can’t yet reproduce under the Mac, so I haven’t updated the main page.
I’ll update the version numbers on the old release tomorrow so it’s compatible with 3.5.
This exactly what I need, thanks for developing it! I have problems converting from the Editor on Linux — no jobs are being added. Could you please tell me where the logs are written when activated so that I can have a look?
Ack, not getting email notifications when emails are sent, sorry.
The logs are stored in a sqlite db, not easy to access. There is a bug in the current version under Linux, but I’ve commit a fix for it and will be putting a new release out in a day or so.
I don’t mean to be annoying, but on Windows XP with calibre 0.6.10 and FF3.5.2, the editor produces 0-byte files (the job seems to be finishing normally) and if I click directly on “Create ebook”, the job gets stuck on the “Saving web page…” stage. Anything I can do to help you debug this?
This is annoying me, I can’t seem to approve comments right now. Wordpress is just falling part.
I’ve put out v0.6.0, I’ll update the main page later. This may or may not fix some issues you’re having. I’ll put another update out this weekend that may fix other or at the very least make debugging easier.
Note v0.6.0 requires calibre 0.6.0 or greater.
@Stathis Sideris
Not annoying it all, I’m glad folks are using it. I’m just sorry I don’t have more time to fix your issues. Try out the new release, and if that doesn’t work I’ll get you a list of steps to try to help debug it.
Where is the software download link for Bookit?
It’s in the first bullet item. Current release is here.
Page with russian characters in URL cannot be converted.
Tried directly via web2disk – FF provides URL in next format:
http://bishop-it.ru/2009/02/%D1%8E%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%82-%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8B-%D0%B8-tdd/
While in Bookit log i see another:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox>”D:\Program Files\Calibre2\web2disk.exe” -r 0 –delay=0 -d “D:\Temp\bookit-work-7″ “http://bishop-it.ru/2009/02/8ebdb882-82b581828b-b8-tdd/”
can you fix this?
0.6.2 is crashing Firefox 3.5.7 on my Mac running 10.6.2.
Sorry the lack of response, the new year finds me working a crazy number of hours. I will try to find some hours next week to look into the outstanding issues.
Any news on an update? it was working so well, also theres a bookmarklet tat works pretty well in the format of the webpages and also you can save that to pdf, (like instapaper, but with images and better format) is there a way to use that bookmarklet and save automaticly this in and extension form? to save clicks and save articles easyly, i wondering because i dont have a clue on programming…. please?
Sorry, other things have taken over my free time and haven’t had any time to play around with this. The source is up on git hub (see link above) if anyone else wants to run with it.
I’ve found that using Instapaper to create ePub files satisfies most of my needs. It’s not perfect, but it works well enough.
What bookmarklet are you using that saves to pdf?
I almost think the cool route would be to write a printer driver that prints to ePub, but that’s definitely more work that my spare time allows.
Hi,
first thank you for the add on.. but i cant seems to make it work on my Window 7
does it work on W7 or?
thank you
I’ll see if I can find time to test it out, I don’t have ready access to a windows 7 box right now.
I’ve not had any time to work on it for quite a while, personally I’ve found that http://www.instapaper.com/ works very well and will generate an ePub file.
Hi
do you make the Plugin FF 4.x compatible?
Thx
Bastian
I haven’t done any work on this in quite a while. But I do have some time off next week. If I can, in a few hours, make it FF 4.x and 5.x compatible I will, but no promises. Sorry.