# &app; Manual

## Introduction

The &app; application enables you to manage your collection of books. &app; provides the following features:

- retrieves and displays book information (including cover pictures) from online libraries:

  - Amazon (.com, .co.uk, .de and .jp)

  - Proxis

  - Barnes and Noble

  - the Spanish Ministry of Culture

  - Amadeus Buch

  - Internet Bookshop Italia

  - The British Library and the US Library of Congress

- allows you to add new online providers using the Z39.50 protocol

- allows books to be added and updated by hand

- enables searches either by EAN/ISBN, title, authors or keyword

- shows books in different views (standard list or icons list), that can be filtered and/or sorted

- allows marking your books as loaned, each with the loan-date and the name of the person who has borrowed them

- handles book rating, favourite books, and additional notes

- can import and export data into ONIX, Tellico and EAN/ISBN-list formats

- generate XHTML web pages theme-able with CSS from your libraries

- supports Cuecat (c) barcode readers

Alexandria is under constant development - new features are being added regularly.

## Getting Started

### To Start &app;

You can start &app; in the following ways:

Command line

- To start &app; from a command line, type the following command, then press Return:

  `alexandria`

  &app; will open the most recently accessed library.

### When You Start &app;

When you start &app;, the following window is displayed.

#### &app; Start Up Window

Shows &app; main window. Contains titlebar, menubar, toolbar, library list and book display area. Menubar contains Library, Edit, View and Help menus.

The &app; window contains the following elements:

Menubar:

- The menus on the menubar contain all of the commands you need to work with libraries and books in &app;.

Toolbar:

- The toolbar contains buttons to quickly add new books and libraries to &app;, plus a search tool to filter books displayed in the main display area.

Library List:

- The library list pane at the left edge of the window displays the different libraries which have been set up in &app;.

Book display:

- The main part of the display lists all the books in the current library. &app; can display your books either in an Icon or List view - the List View, similar to that used in the Nautilus file manager, displays detailed information about each book on separate lines.

  In the icon view, your favourite books - rated with five stars - will be shown with a heart icon in the top corner.

Statusbar:

- The statusbar displays information about the current library in &app;, including the number of books, and the number of books which have not been rated.

## Adding Books

You can add books to &app; in several different ways:

- add-book-by-isbn

- add-book-by-search

- add-book-by-barcode-scan

- add-book-manually

You can also import a list of books into &app;:

- import-library

&app; will remember which method you prefer, and will automatically select the most recently used method. For instance, if you last added a book by searching for an author, &app; will open the Add Book... dialog with the Add book by author field selected.

### To add a book by supplying an ISBN

If you know the ISBN of the book you wish to add to a library, choose Library Add Book..., or click on the Add button on the toolbar. The Adding a Book dialog is displayed. Type in the ISBN of the book you wish to add, then click Add. The book will be added to the currently selected library. To add the book to a different library, select the library name from the Save in Library drop-down menu.

&app; will validate the ISBN supplied and will warn you if the number entered is not a valid ISBN.

&app; will automatically fetch the information about the book from the online information source selected in the application preferences.

### To search for a book whose ISBN you do not know

If you do not know the ISBN of the book you wish to add, you can specify either the Title, the Authors or the Keywords, and &app; will search your online information provider, such as Amazon, for books that match. You can then select the desired book from the displayed list and click Add to the book to the selected library.

With the Adding a Book dialog open, click on the Search checkbox then choose either by title, by authors or by keyword from the drop-down menu. Type in the details of the book you are looking for, then click on Find.

#### &app; Adding a book by searching

Shows the &app; Add by Search dialogue, allowing you to add a book by searching your online information provider for a specific Title, Author or Keyword.

Where possible, &app; will show thumbnails of the books it finds, making it easier to choose the right book or edition of a book. Select the book you want from the list, and click Add.

You may have to try several different search terms to find the book you want.

### To add a book by scanning its barcode

&app; supports Cuecard (c) barcode scanners. If you have set up a Cuecard (c) barcode scanner on your computer, &app; will display a small picture of a barcode next to the ISBN field. (If you don't have a scanner, this picture will be greyed out.)

Simply scan the barcode on the book and Alexandria will automatically fill in the ISBN field. Then click Add as normal.

### To manually add a book

Sometimes you will not be able to search for a book online. The book may not not have an ISBN (ISBN numbers only became standard in the 1970s). Perhaps the book is too new, and no information is available online. Or perhaps you simply don't have an internet connection. &app; allows you to specify all the details of a book - the Title, Authors, cover image and so forth - by supplying them yourself.

To manually add a book to a library, choose Library Add Book Manually. The following dialog will appear:

#### &app; adding a book manually

Shows the &app; Add book manually dialogue, allowing type in all the information for the book yourself.

This dialogue is very similar to the Edit Book dialog. There are three tabs to this dialogue - General, Loaning and Notes. There is space for you to specify the book title, the ISBN if you know it, the book publisher, the binding (such as Paperback, Hardback, or Audiobook), and the Authors.

To add a author, click on the + next to the author list, then type the name. To remove an author, select the name and click -. To edit a name, click twice on the name.

To supply a book cover image, click on the Cover button. A standard file selection dialogue will open. Navigate to the cover image file on your system - which can be in JPEG or GIF format - and click Open. The image will be scaled to fit into the Edit Book dialogue.

You can rate a book by clicking on the stars. To clear the rating, click on the space immediately to the left of the first star.

When you have filled in all the information, click on the Add button.

### To import a list of books

&app; can import Tellico files, used by applications such as Bookcase. It can also import a simple list of ISBNs, fetching the details for each book in turn. To import either a Tellico file or a flat ISBN list, choose Library Import.... Navigate to the appropriate file, and click Import. &app; can automatically determine what type of file is being imported; you can, of course, specify the file format by choosing either Archived Tellico or ISBN List from the Autodetect drop-down menu.

#### &app; importing a list of ISBNs

Shows &app; importing a list of ISBNs.

&app; will create a new Library when importing a library - its name will be the same as the filename you imported. &app; will automatically select and highlight this library in the library pane - you can immediately rename this by typing a new name, or accept the default by clicking the left mouse button.

## Editing Book Properties

You can use &app; to edit and update your book information:

- editing-info

- changing-cover-image

- loaning-books

- editing-notes

### Editing basic information

To edit a book, simply double-click on the book image in the main window, or choose Library Properties. The following window will appear, where you can change the books' Title, ISBN, Authors, Publisher, Binding and Rating.

#### Editing a book with &app;

Shows &app; editing a book.

To add a author, click on the + next to the author list, then type the new name. To remove an author, select the name and click -. To edit a name, click twice on the name.

You can rate a book by clicking on the stars. To clear the rating, click on the space immediately to the left of the first star. Your favourite books - those with five stars - will have a small heart icon in the Icon view of the main window.

### Changing cover images

To supply a book cover image, click on the existing cover image (or the image of a book if no cover is available). A standard file selection dialog will open. Navigate to the cover image file on your system - which can be in JPEG or GIF format - and click Open. The image will be scaled to fit into the Edit Book dialog.

### Loaning books

To mark a book as loaned, firstly open the Edit Book dialog as in editing-info. Then click on the Loaning tab. Click on the This book is loaned checkbox to mark the book as loaned. You can fill in the To field to specify who the book is loaned to. And click on the Since drop-down menu to specify the date the book was loaned on.

#### Loaning a book in &app;

Shows &app; loaning a book.

### Adding and editing notes

&app; allows you to store addition notes about your books - maybe a personal review, or useful page references. To add or edit a note, firstly open the Edit Book dialogue as in editing-info. Then click on the Notes tab. You can type your plain-text notes in this field.

## Working with Libraries

Books stored in &app; can be grouped into different collections, called libraries. For instance, you may have one library for all your novels, and other for your programming manuals. &app; allows you to create, edit, and move books between libraries.

Available libraries are listed in the Library pane at the left of the main &app; window. If you cannot see the library pane, open it with View Side Pane. You can close it again with the same menu option, or by clicking the Close icon in the top right of the library pane.

### An &app; list of libraries

The &app; list of libraries.

- create-new-library

- renaming-libraries

- delete-library

- moving-between-libraries

### Creating a new library

To create a new library, click on the New button on the toolbar, or choose Library New from the main menu. A new library will also be automatically created when you import a list of books from another source.

### Renaming a library

To rename a library, simply click on its name in the Library pane, and type in the new name. You can also right-click on the library name, and select Rename from the pop-up menu.

### Deleting a library

To delete a library, select the library in the library pane, either right-click and select Delete, choose Edit Delete from the main menu, or press the Delete key on your keyboard. &app; will ask for confirmation before deleting the library.

Deleting a library deletes all the books it contains, and cannot be undone!

### Moving books between libraries

You can move books between libraries by selecting the book or books you wish to move, right-clicking and choosing Move In Library Name or choosing Edit Move In Library Name from the main menu.

## Searching, Filtering and Views

&app; includes powerful tools for searching and filtering and books display. You can use these tools to display only books by a certain author or publisher, only those you rate highly or those with additional notes. &app; also contains both Icon and List views, and can directly link to online information providers to display more detailed information.

- searching-views

- searching-filtering

- searching-more-online

### Icon and List Views

Like the Nautilus file manager, &app; has both Icon and List views. The Icon view shows the cover and title for every book in your library, while the List view shows more detailed information (as defined in the alexandria-prefs-display preferences), with one book per line.

To switch between Icon and List views, either use the View as... button in the top right of the main window, or View View As List / View as Icons in the main menu and right-click menu.

The icons can be arranged in order of Title, Author, Publishing, Binding or Rating, and you can reverse this order. To change the order of the books in the Icon view, choose View Arrange Icons from the main menu or Arrange Icons from the right-click menu.

To change the order of the books in the List view, click on the appropriate column header.

#### The list view, showing books sorted in reverse by author name

The list view, showing books sorted by author name

### Searching or filtering the view

It is very easy to search for a particular book, or to limit the number of books displayed. To search for a specific title, just enter its name in the entry field on the toolbar. Use the Title contains drop-down menu to choose between searching for Titles, Authors, ISBNs, Publishers or Notes.

#### The list view, showing books only those books whose author name contains 'banks'

The list view, searching for books by 'banks'

From the keyboard, you can move to the search field by pressing Ctrl-F. You can clear the search by pressing Ctrl-Alt-B.

### Finding out more information about your books online

If you want to find out more information about your book, you can use &app; to open the web page of Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or one of the other online information providers and be taken directly to the relevant book. Simply select the book you wish to know more about, right-click on it, and from the menu Display Online Information, choose from either Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Proxis, Spanish Culture Ministry, Amadeus Buch, or Internet Bookshop Italia.

The Display Online Information At Amazon choice will take you to the Amazon .com, .co.uk, .de, or jp site, as set up in the alexandria-amazon-prefs.

Not every online information source has a complete list of books and you may have to try several different providers to find the information you want.

## Exporting Information

Information in &app; can be exported for use in other applications. Information can be exported in several formats:

- exporting-as-onix

- exporting-as-Tellico

- exporting-as-plaintext

- exporting-as-web-page, using XHTML and CSS stylesheets

### Exporting as a compressed ONIX archive

ONIX is an international standard used by publishers and retailers to define information - title, price, contributors, reviews and many others - about books. For more information about ONIX and its uses, see http://www.editeur.org/ .

&app; can gather up all your book information and export it as an archived (.tar.bz2) collection of ONIX files (called ONIX messages). To export your library as an ONIX archive, choose Library Export from the main menu, then choose Archived ONIX XML (.onix.tbz2) from the Export format menu. Specify a file name and a location to save the archive, and press Export.

### Exporting as a compressed Tellico file

Tellico is a standard file format, based on XML, for storing information about book and other collections. &app; can both import and export information in the Tellico format.

To export your library as a compressed (.tc) file, choose Archived Tellico XML (.tc) from the Export format menu in the Export dialogue.

### Exporting a list of ISBNs

&app; can export a plain test list of ISBNs - perhaps to transfer to another machine. To export a list of ISBNs, choose ISBN list (.txt) from the Export format menu in the Export dialogue.

### Exporting a library as a web page

&app; can create a web page from your book library, listing each book complete with cover images. To do this, it creates a directory of images, an XHMTL web page, and a CSS stylesheet. You can choose from different stylesheets to customise the appearance of the web page.

To export your library as a web page, Library Export from the main menu, then choose HTML Web Page (directory) from the Export format menu. Choose a style - or theme - for the web page from the Theme menu.

#### Using &app; to create a web page

Shows &app; exporting a library as a web page.

Type in a name for the directory the web page will be saved in, and press the Export to save the files.

Only one theme, called Clean, is available at present.

## Settings

To configure &app;, choose Edit Preferences. The Preferences dialogue contains the following tabbed sections:

- alexandria-prefs-display

- myapp-prefs-providers

You can also add new online information providers to &app;:

- alexandria-z3950-prefs

### List View

You can choose which columns are displayed in the List view by selecting or deselecting the checkboxes. Possible columns are Authors, ISBN, Publisher, Binding and Rating.

### Online information providers

&app; can download information from a variety of different online sources; some of these sources have additional options to control how the information is downloaded. &app; will search each of the sources in turn, in the order displayed in the list. You can change the order in which the sources are searched by moving each source up or down using the Up and Down buttons.

- alexandria-amazon-prefs

- alexandria-proxis-prefs

- The Spanish Culture Ministry

- Barnes and Noble

- Amadeus Buch

- Internet Bookshop Italia

- alexandria-britlib-prefs

- alexandria-uslibcon-prefs

You can also use the Z39.50 protocol to add and remove new information providers. Two providers have been set up using this protocol for you.

- alexandria-z3950-prefs

#### Amazon preferences

&app; can download book information from different amazon websites - currently, amazon.com, .co.uk, .de and .jp . To change which site to use, select Amazon from the Provider list, and click on Setup. Then choose either UK, DE, JP or US from the drop-down menu.

The Development token and Associate ID can be changed if you have an amazon web services account. You sign for an Amazon Web Services account at aws-portal.amazon.com. If you don't know what this means, then you can leave these values alone.

#### Proxis preferences

&app; can search the Proxis website for books in either English, French or Dutch. To change which language to use, select Proxis from the Provider list, and click on Setup. Then chose either en, fr or nl from the drop-down menu.

#### British Library preferences

If you have an account with the British Library, you can use this dialogue to specify your username and password for the z39.50 service. You can also choose which database to connect to.

#### US Library of Congress preferences

If you have an account with the US Library of Congress, you can use this dialogue to specify your username and password for the z39.50 service. You can also choose which database to connect to.

#### Adding Z39.50 providers

To add or remove a Z39.50 provider, you must first enable the advanced preferences options by clicking on the Advanced Settings checkbox. Two new buttons will appear: Add and Remove. Clicking Add will open the Z39.50 provider dialogue:

##### Adding a new Z39.50 information provider

The Z39.50 information provider dialog.

Here you can specify the Name of the provider, the Hostname, the internet Port to connect to, the name of the online Database, the Record Syntax used (&app; currently supports USMARC, UNIMARC and SUTRS formats), and, if relevant, a username and password to connect to the provider.

To remove a provider, select its name from the list and click on Remove. You cannot remove any of the default providers provided by &app;.

## About &app;

&app; was written by Laurent Sansonetti (lrz@gnome.org). To find more information about &app;, please visit the &app; Web page.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, follow the directions in this document.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public license as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. A copy of this license can be found at this link, or in the file COPYING included with the source code of this program.