Sorting books by Date Purchased in iBooks

[solitaire]

In iBooks there is an option to sort the library by the date that the book was purchased. This button is labelled as "Bookshelf"

This works fine if one send the books to iPad as and when we purchase them. But when Murphy strikes and you loose all backups of the iDevice, then you have no choice but to reload all the books again from Calibre in one shot. This makes the Bookshelf button useless as all the books have the same date.

My query/request:

Will it be possible to:
a) include the "date purchased" field in Calibre as a part of information transferred to iPad
b) Use this field as the sort order when pressing the Bookshelf button in iBooks library?

If yes, then I will create a ticket.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by solitaire

In iBooks there is an option to sort the library by the date that the book was purchased. This button is labelled as "Bookshelf"

This works fine if one send the books to iPad as and when we purchase them. But when Murphy strikes and you loose all backups of the iDevice, then you have no choice but to reload all the books again from Calibre in one shot. This makes the Bookshelf button useless as all the books have the same date.

My query/request:

Will it be possible to:
a) include the "date purchased" field in Calibre as a part of information transferred to iPad
b) Use this field as the sort order when pressing the Bookshelf button in iBooks library?

If yes, then I will create a ticket.

If you immediatly add those books to Calibre, the Date (added) column should contain the same(ish) info

[solitaire]

@theducks: yes, you are correct. However, my query pertains to whether the "date-added" field is sent to iPad and if yes, then can the "Bookshelf" button in iBooks Library view be used to map to this column.

If you send the books as and when you buy them, the bookshelf sorting is accurate. The problem arises when (for whatever reason) one copies all their books at the same time to iPad.

Hope I have been able to explain my issue.

[GRiker]

The Date Added field is not sent to iTunes. In Bookshelf view, books are shown in the order they were added to the iDevice. By controlling the order the books are sent to the iDevice, you can control the order they are displayed in iBooks. If you have a group of books to send, sort them by date added to calibre, oldest at the top. Group select, then send. The last book in the group will be the most recent addition in the bookshelf view.

G

[solitaire]

Thanks GRiker. I will try that way.

[solitaire]

@Griker, tried your suggestion, but no joy. In fact, the sort order now when using the Bookshelf option is completely random!

May I suggest that users can be given a option to replace whatever field iBooks uses to sort on BookShelf to be replaced by Date Purchased?

Thanks.

[GRiker]

Calibre talks to iTunes, which in turn talks to the connected iDevice. Calibre does not control the 'Date Added' value in iTunes; iTunes does.

The order of the books displayed in the Bookshelf view in iBooks is reverse chronological, i.e., the first book shown (at the top left) is the last book added to iBooks by iTunes.

For books already installed on the iDevice, you can change the Bookshelf order manually:

• In the covers view:
  • Touch the 'Edit' button at the top right corner of the screen
  • Touch and drag each book to its new location
• In the list view:
  • Touch the 'Edit' button at the top right corner of the screen
  • Touch and drag the three horizontal bars icon at the right edge of the book listing to its new location

For books being added by iTunes, the iBooks bookshelf order will be reverse chronological. To control the presentation order of the added books, you can drag them from iTunes Books playlist to the connected iDevice Books playlist. If you add book 1, then 2, then 3, the books will be shown in the Bookshelf view in order 3, 2, 1.

When syncing an iDevice, books being added to iBooks are added in an order detemined by iTunes, and I don't know (nor care) the order it uses. A motivated user might want to do further research.

G