User Categories

[jesscat]

Could some of you who use user categories give me some examples of what you do with them? I've seen many references to how useful they are, and the recent sub-categories feature supports that, but I haven't found any applications for them, and I hate to think that my lack of imagination might be causing me to ignore one of Calibre's great features.

I thought maybe I might be failing to see their potential applications and usefulness, and if I saw some of the different ways others use them it might trigger something for me!

[theducks]

(TNX for asking)

[kiwidude]

I've used them for a number of purposes. My main usage is for when I want to keep track of things at author level. Such as at the moment for my parents, where I have separate user categories containing lists of authors that they like. So I can very easily filter and search books that are of interest to them, without having to tag things at book level. Or it can be my own lists of favourite authors, authors I have "processed" to find missing books etc.

With the changes chaley made recently of allowing you to do a search across a whole user category (and then tying this into a saved search) you can very easily bring up a set of books for a set of authors and use that for quick access or as a search restriction. So if you have multiple ebook readers and want separate lists of authors for each this is very easily managed.

I've also used them for other types of lists such as series that I want to read. I find it a nice way to avoid the ongoing maintenance of applying tags/custom column values to individual books as I add them to the library.

Of course the other advantage is that having put them into a user category you have a nice easy to click on lists in the tag viewer for each of them. For my parents particularly that is way more friendly to use than the search bar.

I'm a fan obviously - hence why I wrote the User Category plugin to make adding/removing to lists easier from the library view itself.

[jesscat]

I can see using categories when you have different users of the same library (especially, as in the case of your parents, when some users are regularly using less than the entire library) to make it easy to restrict Calibre to that set of authors or books or whatever.

But I'm still not seeing the applications for one user (not that I don't believe they exist, I'm just not getting it). Why would you put series into a user category instead of just identifying them in the series column and then using the Series section in the tag browser, for example?

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by jesscat

But I'm still not seeing the applications for one user (not that I don't believe they exist, I'm just not getting it). Why would you put series into a user category instead of just identifying them in the series column and then using the Series section in the tag browser, for example?

Series is indeed identified in the series column. But what if you have thousands of books and have several of your series which you have identified as ones you would like to read next? If you have hundreds of series listed in your tag viewer under "series" that isn't easy to recall which you had flagged for attention. Yes you could tag the books but then you need to tag every book in the series, including new ones you get. If instead you add the specific series tags to a user category of "ToRead" or whatever you have a much more manageable subset.

If you only have a small collection, or you only think at "book" level then User Categories probably don't do much for you. Don't sweat it if that is the case . I personally haven't used Calibre for long enough to know the history of why they were added - I'm just grateful they are for when you want to work with multiple sets of books at a higher level of abstraction.

[jesscat]

Thank you - that actually does give me a little help in conceptualizing what they might be used for, though I still haven't thought of an application for myself (I have about 1500 books and don't always think in book level - lots of tags and lots of series - but most of the time, probably). Though I would love to hear from any others out there who might use them - there must be others, I'm guessing!

Am I right that you can't add a single book to a user category?

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by jesscat

Am I right that you can't add a single book to a user category?

Indeed you are correct.

[Aidan]

I use user categories for overarching series. For example the main series I use for 'Men at Arms' by Terry Pratchett is City Watch 2, and the overarching user column is Discworld 15. Another example would be the Midkemia series by Feist.

It also allows me to have the SF Masterworks series without having to remove the actual series for certain books (eg Dune) and could be used (but not be me) to create a top 100 list for your books.

[jesscat]

Originally Posted by Aidan

....and could be used (but not be me) to create a top 100 list for your books.

How could you use it to create a top 100 list for your books, since you can't add individual books to a user category? Wouldn't you have to do this with tags - e.g., by creating a top-100 tag and then add that tag to the category (or maybe top-10 and top-50 and top-100 tags and adding all those to the category?).

I had been thinking about using user categories to gather together my favorite books - but unless I've tagged them as favorites (in which case I could conceivably just use a search or a quick click in the tag browser, at least if I have just one "favorites" tag), there's no way I can see to do that.

I am definitely understanding, however, that if you have series with many books and/or many subseries, user categories could definitely be helpful to enable you to see all of these at once without having to construct searches or click on a bunch of series names in the tag browser each time...

[Nyssa]

I just learned how to create these earlier today. I now use 6 of them:

1. A Yes/No check box to show whether or not it is on my Kindle (since that option only appears if the Kindle is plugged in).

2. A Yes/No check box to indicate whether or not I have read the book.

3. The "Series Info" column to indicate Prequels, Bonus Stories, and/or Chronological Order (i.e. There are 4 anthologies and few stand alone books in the "Honorverse", which are separate from the main Honor Harrington series).

4. "Store" - Where I purchased or downloaded the e-book. Great when making recommendations.

5. "Cost" - as text, so I can either enter the price or mark it as "free"

6. "Comments" - for, well, comments.

[nynaevelan]

I have several user categories, one for favorites which with the new sub-categories now have a sub category for favorites series, authors and publishers. I also have some for authors, publishers, series which are missing books that I want to purchase and of course my preferred tags. In my library the user categories and searches are how I utilize my library.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jesscat

How could you use it to create a top 100 list for your books, since you can't add individual books to a user category? Wouldn't you have to do this with tags - e.g., by creating a top-100 tag and then add that tag to the category (or maybe top-10 and top-50 and top-100 tags and adding all those to the category?).

I had been thinking about using user categories to gather together my favorite books - but unless I've tagged them as favorites (in which case I could conceivably just use a search or a quick click in the tag browser, at least if I have just one "favorites" tag), there's no way I can see to do that.

My guess is that hierarchical tags would work better for tracking individual books. For example, you could set up a tag structure:

Favorite
  Mysteries
    English
    Vampire
  Thrillers
    Crime
    Horror
  Space Opera

etc.

These will show in the tag browser as items (in this example, a tag) with a small triangle next to it. Clicking on that triangle will open the item, showing the subitems. You could apply a tag to a book by dragging the book onto an item, or by manually adding it using the full item name Favorite.Mysteries.English etc. In the tag browser you can search for Favorites by clicking on (you guessed it) Favorite. You can search for any subitem by clicking on that subitem.

Hierarchical items are phrases separated by periods, as in Favorite.Mysteries.English or Favorite.Thrillers.Crime. If you want hierarchy in a category, you must enable it by adding the category name (in this example, tags) in preferences -> look & feel -> Categories with hierarchical items.

Hierarchy works in series (series names, not indices), tags, and custom text columns.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I just learned how to create these earlier today. I now use 6 of them:
[...]

Those are custom column. User defined categories are... something you do in the tag browser, I honestly never bothered
(By the way, this is just me being nitpicky again )

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Those are custom column. User defined categories are... something you do in the tag browser, I honestly never bothered
(By the way, this is just me being nitpicky again )

Oh! Oops! thanks for the heads-up.