Tags for authors

[macnab69]

It would be nice to be able to add tags to an author. Not the books, to the actual Author.

Along the lines of "Complete" meaning you've got all their books, or "NeedMore" meaning you still have to get some of their books.

Even a star rating would be nice.

[theducks]

I can see a use for table specific 'Custom columns' (Authors in this case).

The Issue is 'user support' How many of Calibre Users know that Calibre is not a 'Flat File'? Now try and explain why you attach the Column to 'authors' and not 'books_authors_lnk'

Forgetting those user issues
How do you support a decent UI and data integrity for these other tables

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

I can see a use for table specific 'Custom columns' (Authors in this case).

The Issue is 'user support' How many of Calibre Users know that Calibre is not a 'Flat File'?

How many users of internet banking know their bank accounts are not in a flat file, and how many care.

Originally Posted by theducks

Now try and explain why you attach the Column to 'authors' and not 'books_authors_lnk'

Why on earth would a user want to know about what foreign keys are defined in what tables.

Originally Posted by theducks

Forgetting those user issues
How do you support a decent UI and data integrity for these other tables

For UI's that support multiple entities there are several Salesforce, Patient Care, Purchasing, Help Desk etc systems from which ideas might be drawn.

As for database integrity, why would one not apply the same techniques and disciplines as are already used in Calibre. There's already somewhere to store the author metadata backup files - as an xml file in the Author folders - same as the opf files in Book folders.

I am NOT saying its easy, nor that it wouldn't be quite a lot of work - but lets not pretend its rocket science

BR

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by macnab69

It would be nice to be able to add tags to an author. Not the books, to the actual Author.

Along the lines of "Complete" meaning you've got all their books, or "NeedMore" meaning you still have to get some of their books.

Even a star rating would be nice.

Even if there were a way to enter author-level data just once per author rather than on each of that author's books, I would still want to see at least some of that data at book level.

So the issue is: is there enough need for seeing data at author-level, not book level? To me, without giving it a whole lot of thought, it doesn't seem worth it to have to switch between tables of book level and author level. I'd rather have it all at book level. Storage space is cheap enough that data redundancy isn't a big problem.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by unboggling

Even if there were a way to enter author-level data just once per author rather than on each of that author's books, I would still want to see at least some of that data at book level.

So the issue is: is there enough need for seeing data at author-level, not book level? To me, without giving it a whole lot of thought, it doesn't seem worth it to have to switch between tables of book level and author level. I'd rather have it all at book level. Storage space is cheap enough that data redundancy isn't a big problem.

It is not redundant data. It is the maintenance of the data.
Authors: Andre Norton
Pseudonym: Andrew North

If it was linked at the authors level, I would only have 1 Author (type pseudonym): Andrew North which would be cross linked to the '(Real) Author' : Andre Norton

Show 'All' books by Andre Norton would include all her pseudonyms: (Alice Mary Norton, Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston)

Show 'only' would work as it now does: Andre Norton
Doing (and maintaining) this axillary info at the title level is awkward.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by macnab69

It would be nice to be able to add tags to an author. Not the books, to the actual Author.

Along the lines of "Complete" meaning you've got all their books, or "NeedMore" meaning you still have to get some of their books.

Even a star rating would be nice.

@macnab69 - to address your specific issue I create empty books (books with no format files) with title, author(s) etc, I also have a custom column (status/Status) with a defined set of values - one of which is '99 - Missing'.

So its not too hard to find out what books I have/don't have for a particular author

That said, there are other reasons I would like to have Author metadata, as a place to store associated urls - blog, publishing site, employer etc. also something that would to link author names when pseudonyms are used, or different spellings in different languages, even sometimes in the same language.

I read quite a lot of economics & Law - it would be nice to be able to classify authors as Monetarists, Keynesian, Black Letter etc.

BR

[macnab69]

@BetterRed: The empty book row is quite a good idea - you also immediately know which title is missing, especially useful when the books are not part of a series. It should be easy enough to set up a search showing there are no formats for a particular book, saves using a special column called "missing".

Seems to me quite a few people have a number of reasons for wanting an author table.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by macnab69

@BetterRed: The empty book row is quite a good idea - you also immediately know which title is missing, especially useful when the books are not part of a series. It should be easy enough to set up a search showing there are no formats for a particular book, saves using a special column called "missing".

Seems to me quite a few people have a number of reasons for wanting an author table.

I have been using the Import List PI to help create these (I had a bit of a learning curve to get it right )

[unboggling]

After further thought….

There seems to be an author-level table now, for Author and Author-Sort.

Let's say fields are added to that table for author level tags, link, bio, whatever. How would that best be displayed? How conveniently access/edit it and switch between library view booklist and author data?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by unboggling

After further thought….

There seems to be an author-level table now, for Author and Author-Sort.

Let's say fields are added to that table for author level tags, link, bio, whatever. How would that best be displayed? How conveniently access/edit it and switch between library view booklist and author data?

That was one of the points I was trying to make in my first post. Logical User interface

[travger]

Oh, how wonderful it would be to have one place where to keep all kinds of stuff about the author and which is linked to the author's name!
I can already see how I toggle between Book Details and Author Details

But adding only one kind of info to the author can be done with colors or icons. For example, simple circle with cut-out segments to note how much of the author's books are in the library.

[unboggling]

BTW, I just noticed there is already a link field in the author, author-sort table. I haven't used it.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by unboggling

BTW, I just noticed there is already a link field in the author, author-sort table. I haven't used it.

I'd forgotten about that, I did think of using it. I assumed that the link I put there would be used in Book Details in place of the search on Wikipedia (or whatever you use).

However, it doesn't and I never got an answer to my "why not, and if not... " question.

You can enter a value in Alter Tag Browser->Manage Authors, Tags etc->Manage Authors -- but I cannot find any reference to the field in the manual, nor any place where you can make use of it.

I would have put in a file link to my author folder where I keep author specific data. So my question still stands :-

Why is the link I put in the Manage Authors not used for the link behind the author name in Book Details, and if that's not what it's there for, then what is it there for, then... ?

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I would have put in a file link to my author folder where I keep author specific data. So my question still stands :-

Why is the link I put in the Manage Authors not used for the link behind the author name in Book Details, and if that's not what it's there for, then what is it there for, then... ?

BR

It is used for the link as shown by the following screen shots. The first shows the contents of the link field for the author. The second shows copying the link to the clipboard. The third shows the contents of the clipboard pasted to a text editor. The fourth shows the firefox trying to open that link.

I also tried it with the link file:///c:/windows/. Clicking on this link opened a file explorer.

[BetterRed]

Thanks @chaley

yes http links work for me, I assume they did back when I discovered the field, but I can't recall trying - I think I only tried folder links

But I still cant get folder or file links to work - even a cut and paste of your link to the windows folder still gives the wikipedia entry

If I enter a website address, eg http://www.charlierose.com/, it works, but if I enter file:///E:/_Sandpit/CharlieRose/ I get Charlie Rose's wikipedia entry

Yet if I put the same folder links (via paste from clipboard) into book comments it works fine

There must be either something 'blocking it' or I'm missing something obvious - I suspect the latter - I shall try a bit harder.

Update : I tried a restart. By gosh, the Charlie Rose folder link worked.

So I tried another author (Stiglitz) on another book, didn't work - went back down to the Charlie Rose book, still working phew. Went back up to the Stiglitz book - working.

After entering the Author link, if the current book is from that Author you have to 'refresh' Book details before the link will work - how on earth did I miss that

It must resolve the link when the page is displayed, not when its clicked - that's cool, its the way this stupid thing called the Web works - its not as dynamic as they like to make us think it is.

Now, the question is - can I update Author Links from the CLI, I can't see anything,

@chaley, can you confirm that I should put my folder links in to the author.link column in metadata.db - I can write a powershell script to do that.

That'll teach me to when a question falls into the bit bucket

BR