Settings

ShelfServer's Settings screen provides a number of customizations to ShelfServer's behavior. To access the screen, click the Settings button from the main window.

Convert to Plucker

Plucker is an e-book format originally created for the Palm Pilot line of handhelds. Plucker is an open specification, and the format is well documented. Plucker's main strength is that is can be quickly opened and accessed on devices with limited memory, CPU, and storage access speed. It's ideally suited for use on the iPhone.

The Plucker format supports images, HTML formatting, a Table of Contents, and compression. By default, ShelfServer will convert most documents into Plucker format in order to provide the best reading experience possible on your iPhone.

The Convert to Plucker settings offers three options:

Unless you have specific problems with Plucker formatted documents, it's highly recommened that this setting be left at the default value of All. Other settings will cause BookShelf to perform poorly with large documents, especially those with many or large images.

Fix Hard Linebreaks

For plain-text files which have line breaks to wrap lines (rather than just line breaks between paragraphs), this option will attempt to remove the additional line breaks and leave breaks only between paragraphs. Text files which have been sent through email or Usenet are often wrapped to around 72 characters wide, and this option can improve the appearance of these files.

For poetry, song lyrics or other text which is expected to have a single line break at the end of most lines, enabling this option will likely worsen the file's appearance rather than improve it. This option has no effect on HTML-like formats. Only plain-text file types are effected.

Log Individual Requests

If enabled, this option will log each file or folder listing request made to ShelfServer in a log file. This option can help in debugging and may be desireable as a security measure on publically accessible servers. Enabling this option may cause a large amount of disk space to be taken up by log files, especially on busy servers. Most users should leave this option disabled.

Shelf Display Name

ShelfServer will appear as this name from within BookShelf. By default, the ShelfServer name is based on the hostname of your computer, but this option allows you to specify anything you want.

Hostname

This option sets the hostname that ShelfServer uses when creating URL's within responses. By default ShelfServer uses the primary IP address of the host in order to create URL's. This default behavior works fine for nearly all users, but setting this option may help when accessing ShelfServer through a firewall or from the public Internet.

TCP Port

By default, ShelfServer will select a random unused port to operate on. This port serves as part of the "address" that BookShelf uses to find ShelfServer. For most users the default behavior is fine, but for users accessing ShelfServer through a router or from the Internet, this option allows a single static port to be assigned. Most users should leave this option alone.

Server password

Sets a password necessary to access any resources on ShelfServer. It is highly recommended that a strong password be set for Internet accessible servers. If no password is set, anyone on your network will be able to access all content on ShelfServer.

Search Metadata

BookShelf allows searching for books from within its download interface. Normally this search looks only at book file and folder names. Enabling this option causes ShelfServer to also search though any available title, author, or description metadata. This option may allow more accurate searches, but it has a significant performance impact, especially on large libraries.

Split Chapters On

When books are converted to Plucker format, documents are automatically broken into approximately 32KB "chunks" for best performance. This option allows posiitoning these boundaries before any or all of the shown HTML tags: HR, H1, H2, or H3. Enabling this setting usually allows a more enjoyable reading experience with chapters ending at the "bottom of the page." Different combinations of tags may produce better settings on certain books.

Show Log...

The Show Log button displays ShelfServer's log file. If you ever have a problem with a document not converting properly, sending a copy of this log (copy & paste in an email) along with the troublesome document will help in finding a quick solution to the problem.