[Manichean]

Originally Posted by unboggling

1. Print, with choice of all or choice of search results in the gui window, in csv. Report Print in basic table in html, or in other formats. (But I could only select columns for printing csv by hiding the ones I didn't want printed, which was clunky. Report Print only used author, title, isbn, estimated_value, not user-selectable fields.) [Sorry. No intent to beat a dead horse here, regarding the printing issue.]

2. Export metadata as csv or other filetypes, allows user-chosen and user-orderable columns.

Calibre does catalog export in multiple formats, which you can then print, if you like to.
(Why do people want dead-tree lists anyway?)

3. Import csv. (But in Readerware the fields in the import csv have to be in the exact order Readerware wants them in, even the fields in Readerware that don't exist previously in your csv, which it doesn't tell you in advance.)

I've seen script solutions that do this.

4. Scan ISBN of pBooks for auto metadata grab with cuecat or some other barcode scanner. (If I use calibre for also tracking my pBooks, I've got to get metadata for 2000+ books into empty records somehow, then also for any new pBooks I buy. For my existing pLibrary, I can automate calibredb add_empty_book with formulas from existing pBook spreadsheet pasted into OS command line, or a script to do all that. For new pBooks, it'd be nice to scan directly into an automatic calibre add_empty_book and metadata grab based on the scanned ISBN.)

You can add books from ISBN already. I imagine that if you have a barcode scanner that simulates keyboard input, you could simply scan your ISBNs into the entry field.

5. Auto-metadata-grab from multiple pBook vendors based on ISBN. (Amazon, B&N, many others, then merge those various metadata's.)

One word: Plugins. Also, more fine-grained metadata download control is somewhere on the roadmap.

6. Auto-load books purchased from vendors (e.g., it obtains metadata from vendors for the books I've bought there. Presently it only seems to do Amazon.)

7. Fields include, among the usual: Copyright_date (in addition to Published_date), Read or not, number of Pages, LCCN, Dewey. I don't use or care about LCCN and Dewey but other people might. Number of pages is possibly useful for pBook owners though I don't care about that either.

8. Column-dragging in the gui to re-order them.

You can add whatever custom columns you like and reorder and/or hide them in the preferences.

9. Authors, title, and other fields links. Clicking author in the author field results in search and display of all titles in db by that author. Clicking title in the title field results in search and display of all duplicates. Clicking on items in other fields does other things depending on which field.

Two words: Tag browser.