ebony - documentation

Author: Ahsan Ali ( ahsan-ali@users.sourceforge.net )

Permission is granted to distribute this document under the terms of the GPL License (version 2).

1. Introduction
2. System Requirements
3. Installation
4. Working with Collections
• Creating a New Collection
• Importing a Collection
• Exporting a Collection
• Creating Lists using Listmaker
5. Viewing a Collection
• Tracker
• Cover Browser
• List Maker
6. Editing a Collection
7. Afterword

Introduction

ebony is an ebook organiser for readers with a large (and growing) collection of ebooks, who find it difficult to keep track which books they've read, or which books they are current reading.

It also provides a user-friendly interface for readers to manipulate the ebooks, by, for example, opening them in an external application to read.

For those interested in sharing ebooks with friends, ebony provides a simple interface for exporting the collection to formats such as xml, csv, html, plain text, or even as an mirc list.

Required Software

Before you run ebony, please make sure you have the latest Sun Java Runtime Environment installed. 1.4.x is the recommended version.

Also, a screen resolution of 800x600 or above is recommended, but not necessary.

Installation

Download the latest version of ebony, run it by typing 'java -jar ebony-[version]-installer.jar' if you use a Unix-flavored environment. Double click runebony.sh in the [EBONY INSTALLATION PATH]/bin directory, to run ebony.

Windows

Download the latest version of ebony, and double-click ebony-[version]-installer.jar, if you use any of the Windows family of operating systems. Double click runebony.bat in the [EBONY INSTALLATION PATH]/bin directory, to run ebony.

Working with Collections

Creating a New Collection

Go to the menu Collection -> New. You will be prompted to enter the name of your collection, following which you have to choose the locatio of the collection.

If you select a folder named, let's say "mycollection", the collection will be created in it.

A collection consists of the following files:

• collectionname.ecol (ebony collection file)
• collectionname.data (database file)
• collectionname.script (database file)
• collectionname.properties (database file)
• titles (directory)
• lists (directory)
• covers (directory)

Do not delete or edit any of these files/directories

Importing a Collection

Exporting a Collection

Creating Lists using Listmaker

Viewing a Collection

Tracker

Cover Browser

List Maker

Editing a Collection

Afterword