Plugboard, template, and custom composite column recipes

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

And this on save to disk and on folder device.

I'm confused by your response above. The Connect to Folder option is meant to be used as a device. So you should be sending the books to the connected folder via Send to Device.

Connect to a folder via the Connect/Share icon.

[speakingtohe]

Sorry Walt
I thought I was clear that the plugboard didn't work with connect to device
I have tried that multiple times
I can connect to a folder and send the book to the folder/device but the series information is not added.

The manual says it does not work with connect to device or save to disk, but implies that it uses the save to disk function to do it and the save to disk and folder device are both listed in the drop down menu under plugboards

I am pretty new to kindle-ing so am probably making this more difficult than it has to be.
Probably I can use save to disk template and start a new library for her or send a bunch at a time to the kindle and copy them back to computer.

I want her to have a good selection but not have them all on the kindle at once as this will overwhelm her and she will be scared to use it.

Anyway thanks for the input
Helen

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

The manual says it does not work with connect to device or save to disk, but implies that it uses the save to disk function to do it and the save to disk and folder device are both listed in the drop down menu under plugboards

I guess I should read the manual.

If I didn't use a Sony I would have been more on the ball.

Good Luck.

[speakingtohe]

I guess I should read the manual.

To paraphrase John Cleese I read a manual once but I think I got away with it

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

I don't have your answer but I'm relatively sure you can test out the plug board by using the Connect to Folder option.

Or the save-to-disk... I've been using that to check my plugboards and save-as templates...

[chaley]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Sorry Walt
I thought I was clear that the plugboard didn't work with connect to device
I have tried that multiple times
I can connect to a folder and send the book to the folder/device but the series information is not added.

Uhhh ...
plugboards work fine with books saved via save-to-disk and to the folder device. At least they do for me.

The manual says it does not work with connect to device or save to disk, but implies that it uses the save to disk function to do it and the save to disk and folder device are both listed in the drop down menu under plugboards

Actually, the manual says that plugboards don't affect the metadata used in the templates - the parts that make up the file name. Plugboards affect the metadata that is in the books.

Templates and plugboards are used for different things. If you want series information in the title of the book *in the book*, use a plugboard. If you want series information *in the file name*, use a template. If you want the same information in both places, consider creating a composite custom column then using that column in both places.

[speakingtohe]

Alrighty.
Now I am really confused
Self inflicted confusion is the worst kind.
I had forgotten I had changed the kindle plugin template.
Thanks

[brewjono]

Just checking again.

Can anybody tell me how to get the author name to display as Initial and Surname, in either order, on my K3 using Plugboards?

Brewjono.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by brewjono

Just checking again.

Can anybody tell me how to get the author name to display as Initial and Surname, in either order, on my K3 using Plugboards?

Don't have a kindle, so I can't test this. As far as I can tell from various posts, kindles are very strange, so I don't make any guarantees.

1) I assume that your authors are in FN LN order (FirstName LastName), and that your author_sort values are LN, FN order. If not, then don't read on.
2) uncheck 'use author sort' in the mobi output plugin.
3) create a plugboard mobi/kindle2. Destination is authors. The source box contains

{author_sort:re((\, )(.).*?( &|$),\1\2\3)}

Edit 1: Actually, it doesn't matter what order your authors are in. What matters is the order of the author_sort.

Edit 2: for you regexp hackers, a note of explanation. As you will notice, the first group enclosing the comma space isn't necessary from a regexp point of view. It it there to work around a bug on 0.7.22 where backslashes aren't stripped from escaped commas in the replacement string. By using it, I don't need to put a comma into the replacement.

[brewjono]

Originally Posted by chaley

{author_sort:re((\, )(.).*?( &|$),\1\2\3)}

.

That worked brilliantly.

Thanks.

I would never have worked that out in a million years.

Brewjono.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

{title} consists of series and index, because the Sony isn't supported by the plugboard.

Using plugboards to change the Sony DB is now supported as a special format, device_db. I surely hope I didn't break anything.

I am working on a save template for my BBMini: it uses these composite fields:

{#folder_name} is a composite field: {#folder_a_t:lookup(#folder_a_t,#u_z)}
{#folder_a_t} is a composite field:

This is an interesting idea, and it screamed for simplification.

As of 0.7.22, try using the 'switch' function. Documentation is:

switch(pattern, value, pattern, value, ..., else_value) – for each pattern, value pair, checks 
if the field matches the pattern and if so, returns that value. If no pattern matches, 
then else_value is returned. You can have as many pattern, value pairs as you want.

I think that the following will do what you want.

{title:switch(^[a-dA-D],[A-D],^[e-jE-J],[E-J],^[k-qK-Q],[K_Q],^[r-zR-Z],[R-Z],[Other])}

Note that in the next release (0.7.23) you will be able to use title_sort as a field name. In .22, it always returns the empty string. Sigh.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by chaley

{author_sort:re((\, )(.).*?( &|$),\1\2\3)}

Regular expressions in templates? I must've missed that in the template language documentation. That's really neat.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Regular expressions in templates? I must've missed that in the template language documentation. That's really neat.

The template functions 'contains', 'switch', and 're' use regexps. After all, templates manipulate text, and when manipulating text, regexps are the best there is.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by chaley

The template functions 'contains', 'switch', and 're' use regexps. After all, templates manipulate text, and when manipulating text, regexps are the best there is.

Without wanting to derail this thread: I've seen that again yesterday while parsing file names. What normally would have been a painful exercise in C/C++ was as easy as just matching a regexp to the names in Python. (I didn't work out, but the filename parsing wasn't to blame.)

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by chaley

Using plugboards to change the Sony DB is now supported as a special format, device_db. I surely hope I didn't break anything.

I'll try that out this evening, when I'm at home.

Originally Posted by chaley

This is an interesting idea, and it screamed for simplification.

Karma is underway as this does make it a lot easier

Originally Posted by chaley

As of 0.7.22, try using the 'switch' function. Documentation is:

switch(pattern, value, pattern, value, ..., else_value) – for each pattern, value pair, checks 
if the field matches the pattern and if so, returns that value. If no pattern matches, 
then else_value is returned. You can have as many pattern, value pairs as you want.

I think that the following will do what you want.

{title:switch(^[a-dA-D],[A-D],^[e-jE-J],[E-J],^[k-qK-Q],[K_Q],^[r-zR-Z],[R-Z],[Other])}

Note that in the next release (0.7.23) you will be able to use title_sort as a field name. In .22, it always returns the empty string. Sigh.

Almost, because I want it based on {author_sort}

{author_sort:switch(^[A-D],[A - D],^[E-J],[E - J],^[K-O],[K - O],^[P-T],[P - T],^[U-Z],[U - Z],[Other])}

is a lot cleaner!