A problem I'm having with the new Collection feature

When I add a book to a Collection, the book remains on my Home Screen. In other words, all that seems to be happening is that I'm creating a link in the Collection folder but without actually moving the book off of the root on the Home Screen and into the Collection folder.

The purpose of Collections was supposed to be to reduce Home Screen clutter, but if the book isn't being moved from the root to the new Collection folder then this doesn't really serve any purpose. All I'm doing is increasing the number of files on the Home Screen by the new Collection folders I'm adding!

Am I making my problem clear? Is anyone else having this problem? I've eMailed Amazon tech support about this, but I'm wondering if anyone in here on LT has had any experience with this and can tell me if I'm doing something wrong. (Or, alternatively, if this is the way it's supposed to work, but if that's the case, then it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.)

Hi Mike,

I've decided not to install the update yet - I use the font hack and don't keep enough on my Kindle to make the collections worth doing without the fonts. Anyway, have you checked KindleBoards.com? Quite a few people there have installed the updates and could probably answer your question.

Hi Marge,

Actually, I'd posted this issue to the KindleKorner on YahooGroups and got the answer! Those "ghost copies" in the root of the Home Screen disappear when I switch to Collection view. (Well, doh, seems to make sense.) I was just coming back here to post the answer and I saw your post.

Incidentally, the 2.5.2 upgrade has additional font sizes. It looks like it's two additional fonts that are even larger than the previous set, and one of them is so huge that just a few words take up the whole screen. If your need for the hacks is for font sizes, that's going to be taken care of.

In any case, I'm not sure whether you're going to have the option of installing or not installing the update. It may just install automatically at some point on an Amazon roll-out, so be re-assured in advance that if you lose your hacks you'll be getting substantially larger font sizes in exchange.

Also, the 2.5.2 upgrade seems to make my K2 run loads faster in opening the Home Screen. Previously, whenever the machine went to sleep and I had to wake it up, it could take close to a minute for the Home Screen to load. (I have well over 600 books on there.) Also, prior to the upgrade I only had 500+ megs of free memory left for storage and I now have 700+ (nearly 800) megs. This upgrade seems really to make my K2 a good deal perkier!

Thanks for the suggestion about KindleBoards.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the explanation. Glad you found a solution.

Regarding the hack: I use it because I find the original fonts less clear as they could be, and IMHO, the contrast between the "ink" and background is not sufficient. The hacks provide font types which are easier to read, although they don't change the contrast. I still use a fairly small font size, it's just clearer. With the hack on, the Kindle will not automatically download the update, and I'll probably wait for hacks for the new update before removing them and downloading the update. Then I can add the new hacks back and have my clear letters again. I have only 4 or 5 pages of listings on my home page, so collections won't really make much difference to me.

Margaret

I also initially thought that once a book was added to a Collection it would be removed from the Home page list. But then I played around with it and realised sorting by 'Collections' rather than 'Titles' (toggle across the top of the Home page) puts Collections at the top of the list followed by any titles not assigned to a Collection.

I haven't noticed any extra 'perkiness' yet. But then I only have 40 books on it at the moment....

Incidentally, digifish, did you notice that you can add a book to more than one Collection? For example, I've got one Collection titled BritLit and another titled Fantasy/SciFi and I've put my H.G. Wells books into both. It's a nice feature that doesn't take up any additional hard-drive space. When I have a chance, I'll probably set up a Collection titled Victoriana for the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriet Martineau, and the like, but maybe keep those books in BritLit as well. It's nice having that option.

I am reading this forum about updates and collections. As far as I know, K1 owners are getting nothing. I can't believe that Amazon couldn't update the K1 if they wanted to. After we took a chance and spent (for me) serious money to buy an unknown product, now we are ignored. I suppose fair doesn't come into it, business is business, but it is irritating.

Hi xenchu,

As someone who has both a K1 and a K2, I sympathize with you. In fairness to Amazon, though, a folder ("Collections") update for K1 would probably be a major design problem (and I think it's folders that real Kindle aficionados are primarily interested in, not some of the other stuff like password protection and Facebook/Twitter).

K1, unlike K2, has the external SD-card slot. That external, interchangeable memory device complicates any folder structure on the K1. With K1, you've got two different root directories for the eBooks, and every time the user inserts a different SD-card the root directory on the SD-device would change to reflect the different contents of the new SD-card. You'd really be turning the memory structure of the K1 into something more along the lines of a regular computer, and that would probably (as a matter of interface design) require some kind of Explorer window, which I don't think the K1 or K2 screen really has room for.

The folder ("Collections") system on the new 2.5.2 upgrade is using something, I think, similar to shortcuts in a Windows operating system. That works fine if you've got a single root directory, which is all the K2 has since it lacks an SD-card slot. Try to apply that design to a system with swappable SD-cards, though, and you'd have a real engineering problem because the actual eBook files to which the shortcuts link will change with each SD-card insertion.

I've always said that the K1 is a superior piece of hardware, both because of its user-replaceable battery as well as its SD-card slot, but not having the new folder ("Collections") system for the K1 is a price you have to pay for having an SD-card slot. At least, though, you do have the SD-cards as an informal sorting mechanism.

I'm not being cavalier about your complaint, but I can understand why Amazon just can't put a folder ("Collections") system on the K1, given the problem of the hardware design. Now, as to the other new features of the 2.5.2 upgrade, stuff like password protection, you've probably got a valid point.