Re: [IDEA] An eBook manager for Emacs

[Xiao-Yong Jin <xj2106NO@SPAMcolumbia.edu>]

Leon <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> Dear all,
>
> In the digital age, eBooks are becoming more and more popular. Some of
> us may have a few hundreds of ebooks stored in the computer but yet an
> efficient method of using them.
>
Please allow me to make it further.

The idea is, not only ebooks, but also musics, movies, source codes
and anything else.  (It could be a very large project)

> A google search shows there is no ready to use ebook catalog package
> for emacs. However it is a nice one to have and it seems not very hard
> to implement. Therefore, I put the idea here to attract contribution
> from elisp gurus.
>
> I imagine the interface will be quite similar to bbdb but instead of
> contacts it's books.
>
With integrated support of dired.

> Function one:
>    Retrieve book information from website such as amazon using ISBN.
>
It could be generalized to be any kind of meta-data retrieving.

> Function two:
>    TAG.
>    For example a book: "Lie group actions in complex analysis"   
>    Can be tagged "Lie groups::Complex manifolds"
>
Mathias' file-props.el is really a good start.

> Function three:
>    Local copy info.
>    Store a link to a copy in local machine which will be used to open
>    the ebooks.
> ...
>
> BTW, some applications[1] are using xml to store the book data.
>
Ideally, the meta-data could be stored in file system's meta data.

> Thank you for your time.
>
> Footnotes: 
> [1]  http://ibookshelf.sourceforge.net/
>
> -- 
> Leon
>
>
>

Anyway, it could be a very good feature to implement for dired.  And
for other project management packages?  Org mode?  Planner mode?

-- 
Xiao-Yong