Remove 'Update EPUB Cover?' Download Option from FFF Plugin

[JimmXinu]

TL;DR

The FanFicFare Cover Settings wiki page documents using covers in FanFicFare Plugin after the changes made in FanFicFare v4.16.

FanFicFare v4.16 adds a Set Calibre Cover Only for New Books checkbox in the plugin config Calibre Cover tag plus use_old_cover and force_cover_image personal.ini settings to be cleaner replacements for Update EPUB Cover? and never_make_cover.

You can get the same behavior as unchecked Update EPUB Cover? with personal.ini setting:

[overrides]
never_make_cover:true

But you might find a better idea in FanFicFare Cover Settings.

The 'Update EPUB Cover?' Checkbox, a History

Since practically day one of the FanFicFare Plugin, every download has had a 'Download Option' checkbox labeled Update EPUB Cover? (And corresponding Default Update EPUB Cover when Updating EPUB? setting in FFF Config.)

This was for the benefit of early users who wanted to use the plugin, but only wanted to download covers some of the time. They were vocal enough about FFF overwriting covers at the time that Default Update EPUB Cover when Updating EPUB? has always defaulted to unchecked for new users.

In their defense, the first generation of FFF plugin users often had existing libraries of fanfics and FFF (then FFDL) overwriting their hand crafted covers was rude, at best. And, at the time, FFF shipped with include_images:false set by default, so downloading images at all was a bit novel.

How it worked:

The way Update EPUB Cover? worked, was when it was UNchecked FFF literally appended an extra setting to personal.ini when it was processed:

[overrides]
never_make_cover: true

In retrospect, a Plugin setting that changed personal.ini was a mistake.

never_make_cover: true causes the FanFicFare downloader to not use a story's specific cover images (if there is one) and suppresses any cover that may have resulted from make_firstimage_cover:true. It does not prevent any default_cover_image that may be set, nor the inclusion of an existing cover image during epub update.

What Update EPUB Cover? did not do (directly) was control whether Calibre's cover is updated. This has long been a point of confusion, especially with the later addition of the 'Calibre Cover' tab in FFF's Config.

Removal of a Feature

In FanFicFare v4.16, the 'Download Option' Update EPUB Cover? checkbox is disabled. The corresponding Default Update EPUB Cover when Updating EPUB? setting in FFF Config still works, but a warning dialog is displayed any time Default Update EPUB Cover when Updating EPUB? will be used or when it is unset.

Update EPUB Cover? and Default Update EPUB Cover when Updating EPUB? will be removed completely in a future release.

At the same, the 'new install' default values for several other Calibre Cover features are changed to be more useful and intuitive for new users and some new features added, namely:

• Set Calibre Cover Only for New Books in FFF Config 'Calibre Cover' tab;
• use_old_cover in personal.ini, and;
• force_cover_image in personal.ini.

---

FanFicFare CLI --update-cover option

The FFF CLI's --update-cover option is analogous to Update EPUB Cover?, eg, applying never_make_cover: true when --update-cover is not specified.

But while Update EPUB Cover? was applied all the time, including to new downloads, the absence of --update-cover in CLI only applies never_make_cover: true when actually updating an existing epub.

That, and the tendency for Calibre Plugin users to care about covers significantly more, means the CLI --update-cover option is not being changed at this time. But use_old_cover and force_cover_image in personal.ini will be available for CLI.

[JimmXinu]

Update EPUB Cover? is removed entirely in test version v4.17.1 and is planned to not appear in release v4.18.

[JimmXinu]

Closing this issue with the release of v4.18.0.