Need some help with my genre tagging

ficbot · 03-14-2011, 01:42 AM

I have been experimenting tonight with the hierarchical tagging, and wow, am I getting bogged down in the genre stuff! I think I had this idea that I wanted my library to be easily browse-able by someone other than me (for example, my mother loads all her ebooks off my computer) so I needed enough tags to clearly allow for easy browsing of over 1500 books. I have separated them into collections and then saved each collection as a saved search so that I can, for example, browse all the general books (not magazines, iPad books or kids books) or browse only the kids books. And when I do that, I can easily see which kid's books have the tag 'mystery' or whatever.

But as for the genre tags, it is taking way to long to get everything sorted properly. It started with simple stuff like 'I want to segregate paranormal books into vampire and non-vampire.' But then we had a historical mystery involving vampires with a romance element, so I started getting into genre entries like 'paranormal.vampire, paranormal.mystery, historical fiction.mystery, mystery.historical fiction, paranormal.romance, romance.paranormal' for a single book just so I could have 'paranormal' as a subset in all of these broader genre categories (mystery, romance, paranormal) and it just got very unwieldy. But on the other hand, with this many books, I suppose I have to be specific if I want myself or others to be able to find anything...

Am I missing something here? Is there a simpler way to set up what I want here? There just doesn't seem to be an easier way to browse for something specific without setting up every conceivable tag combination first. If I click on something like mystery, and then I click on something like romance, it goes straight over to romance without letting me see which romances ARE mystery also...

Perhaps there are plans for a more sophisticated filter/search system down the road where one could get a search box, type in a few things and get results. Then a person could just enter in every tag they could think of (paranormal, mystery, romance etc.) one time (i.e. without needing to do paranormal.romance and paranormal.mystery on the same book). But I don't think this exists now. So how can I best set this up?

kovidgoyal · 03-14-2011, 02:07 AM

you can enter all the tags you want and search on them there's no need to use hierarchical tags for the purpose you are describing.

Here's a hopefully self explanatory set of search queries you can use

Code:

tags:paranormal and tags:romance

tags:paranormal and not tags romance

tags:romance or tags:paranormal

tags:paranormal and tags:mystery and not tags:romance

kovidgoyal · 03-14-2011, 02:08 AM

Hierarchical tags are mainly useful to organize your *tags* so that finding them in the Tag Browser is easier, they're not as useful for finding *books*.

DoctorOhh · 03-14-2011, 02:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ficbot

Perhaps there are plans for a more sophisticated filter/search system down the road where one could get a search box, type in a few things and get results. Then a person could just enter in every tag they could think of (paranormal, mystery, romance etc.) one time (i.e. without needing to do paranormal.romance and paranormal.mystery on the same book). But I don't think this exists now. So how can I best set this up?

What you describe here is already the state of the search feature and exactly how tags are used now.

If you don't like typing (as Kovid shows) go to the tag browser change it to Match all at the bottom then hold down the Ctrl key and either click on a tag to add a tag to the search (shows a red plus) or click twice on a tag to remove a tag from the search(shows a green minus) to create exactly the combination you want to search for. Start with this page from the manual and review the search and tag browser areas.

For further understanding of this feature watch this tutorial.

ficbot · 03-14-2011, 12:49 PM

Thank you! I did not know I could use the command button to select multiple items. That actually solves a lot of my problem.

03-14-2011, 01:42 AM	#1
ficbot Wizard Posts: 2,409 Karma: 4132096 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Kindle Paperwhite/iOS Kindle App	Need some help with my genre tagging I have been experimenting tonight with the hierarchical tagging, and wow, am I getting bogged down in the genre stuff! I think I had this idea that I wanted my library to be easily browse-able by someone other than me (for example, my mother loads all her ebooks off my computer) so I needed enough tags to clearly allow for easy browsing of over 1500 books. I have separated them into collections and then saved each collection as a saved search so that I can, for example, browse all the general books (not magazines, iPad books or kids books) or browse only the kids books. And when I do that, I can easily see which kid's books have the tag 'mystery' or whatever. But as for the genre tags, it is taking way to long to get everything sorted properly. It started with simple stuff like 'I want to segregate paranormal books into vampire and non-vampire.' But then we had a historical mystery involving vampires with a romance element, so I started getting into genre entries like 'paranormal.vampire, paranormal.mystery, historical fiction.mystery, mystery.historical fiction, paranormal.romance, romance.paranormal' for a single book just so I could have 'paranormal' as a subset in all of these broader genre categories (mystery, romance, paranormal) and it just got very unwieldy. But on the other hand, with this many books, I suppose I have to be specific if I want myself or others to be able to find anything... Am I missing something here? Is there a simpler way to set up what I want here? There just doesn't seem to be an easier way to browse for something specific without setting up every conceivable tag combination first. If I click on something like mystery, and then I click on something like romance, it goes straight over to romance without letting me see which romances ARE mystery also... Perhaps there are plans for a more sophisticated filter/search system down the road where one could get a search box, type in a few things and get results. Then a person could just enter in every tag they could think of (paranormal, mystery, romance etc.) one time (i.e. without needing to do paranormal.romance and paranormal.mystery on the same book). But I don't think this exists now. So how can I best set this up?

03-14-2011, 02:07 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,856 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	you can enter all the tags you want and search on them there's no need to use hierarchical tags for the purpose you are describing. Here's a hopefully self explanatory set of search queries you can use Code: tags:paranormal and tags:romance tags:paranormal and not tags romance tags:romance or tags:paranormal tags:paranormal and tags:mystery and not tags:romance

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03-14-2011, 02:08 AM	#3
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,856 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Hierarchical tags are mainly useful to organize your tags so that finding them in the Tag Browser is easier, they're not as useful for finding books.

03-14-2011, 12:49 PM	#5
ficbot Wizard Posts: 2,409 Karma: 4132096 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Kindle Paperwhite/iOS Kindle App	Thank you! I did not know I could use the command button to select multiple items. That actually solves a lot of my problem.

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