Editing an ePub's internal cover should update its metadata cover

[Michele Galimberti]

This problem seems to stem from the behaviour mentioned in this bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1618970

When I edit a book I sometimes compress the internal cover of the book to save space. I do this with the edit book tool as it allows me to choose the compression level, evaluate the results and in case, easily roll back. However, if I re-edit the book (and maybe other operations), the cover is overwritten with the not compressed external one. This was observed with the EPUB format.

I see various ways this problem could be fixed:

-Sync the changes in the book editor to the metadata, for pictures at least. The drawback is that it would then influence the other formats of the book, if edited

-Allow cover compression from the metadata editor (this wouldn't fix the problem though, just make it less common)

-Make the fact that Calibre updates internal metadata when editing more visible, I only discovered this due to this problem

-Don't include the cover in the metadata that are synced to the book internals: sometimes different resolutions or even different covers are preferable for different formats/devices, this way the choice would be left to the user

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

I'm afraid editing covers using the editor rather than just directly in
calibre is not a common enough operation to merit dedicated behavior/UI.
You can always update the cover in calibre from the edited book with a
couple of clicks, assuming that is what you want to do. Click the edit
metadata button, and then the set cover from format button in the top
right area of the edit metadata dialog.

 status wontfix

[Michele Galimberti (galimberti-michele)]

I didn't know of that button, thank you, that kind of solves my problem.

However, I'm still not sure this is the best way to deal with that. There is a very fine tool in the editor that allows you to compress images, the cover in this case. Having the cover automatically overwritten at the next occasion, possibly without the user noticing it, is a problem in my view.

I think the 1st or the 2nd proposed solutions would improve the user experience

In any case, thank you for the quick response and for your work with Calibre

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Would be a lot easier to just allow compressing images using the same
tool in the edit metadata dialog. There really isnt any need to go
through edit book just to compress the cover.

[Michele Galimberti (galimberti-michele)]

Yes, that was one of my proposals

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Fixed in branch master. The fix will be in the next release. calibre is usually released every alternate Friday.

 status fixreleased