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Old 08-20-2011, 04:17 AM   #91
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Latest version: KISS for New calibre Users, Version 0.70 (ThreadPost #230), 2011-09-09

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KISS (v 0.30)


0. Project Information:

Project. KISS my use of eBooks. KISS my use of calibre.

Purpose of Project. Learn about eBooks. Determine strategies and methods for gathering, managing, and reading eBooks, and determine relevant "best practices." Gather, manage, and read eBooks. In my case, mostly fiction.

Explanation of KISS. I'm using the principle "Keep It Simple Stupid" (K.I.S.S.) as a verb meaning to simplify a complex project or task. The word "Stupid" in the principle is not used or intended in a pejorative manner against myself or anyone else, but instead has a connotation of praise. A brief explanation of K.I.S.S. is at Wikipedia here.

Reasons to KISS. When I started out new to eBooks and calibre in January 2011, I frequently felt overwhelmed. Paper books (pBooks) are fundamentally different than eBooks, generating a need to determine different strategies and methods for using eBooks, which I hadn't done yet. The calibre application for managing eBooks is simple to use and accomodates more advanced users with many features and complexities, but I was overwhelmed at first because I didn't know much about eBooks in general and I let myself get tangled in calibre complexities. So I sidetracked into tangents for awhile before settling in. Later I noticed that the more I learned about eBooks in general and the more I consciously simplified my use of calibre, the more I was successful in managing eBooks.

Project Summary To Date. At 7 months in, I realized I needed feedback on my then-current strategies, methods, and work habits, so I laid out what I was doing hoping to get discussion. Details, discussion, and KISS versions 0.1 and 0.21 are available in this forum thread "KISS for New calibre Users". Per that discussion, I'm recasting the KISS posts from "giving advice to new users" to "documenting what I'm doing, as one new user." Also per discussion there, I scrapped everything and started over at baseline zero with both eBooks and calibre. I intend to do things better ways than I had been, during this next iteration cycle of my calibre use.

Status at Present. I use a MacBookPro17 running latest released version of OS X Snow Leopard with latest released binary versions of calibre for OS X, and an older MacBook set up the same way, both on an Airport wireless network. Both computers use auto-updated ESET Cybersecurity on auto-scan with calibre libraries excluded. My devices Kindle3, iPad1, and iPhone3 are also up to date with OS's and firmware. I have one Library named Main containing one eBook in a clean new calibre installation. With plugins added and preferences configured, user-specific info added (such as user name or ISBNdb key), 5 custom columns added, 1 template in metadata plugboards added, no new regex menu items added, no tweaks. Conversion settings are at default except for Input Options/ComicBook yes to "Disable conversion of images to black/white". In Look and Feel/Column Coloring I used tag "_q0" to color authors, series, title, and tags red. In Behavior I checked yes to all listed formats figuring I can always uncheck any later. My Raw Books folder outside of calibre is empty and I now have only a few miscellaneous eBooks scattered around: calibre Quick-Start Guide (in Main), Kindle User Guide, various user guide pdf formats, and a few technical, reference, and other old pdfs.

Baseline. That is now my initial baseline to proceed. It represents a baseline that a completely brand new user to eBooks and calibre might have at the start, after doing these initial tasks as soon as possible: read Quick-Start Guide thoroughly, set system security auto-scan antivirus to exclude calibre libraries, learn and set how to get the specific metadata desired onto user's current primary reading device (for example the metadata plugboard for my Kindle), and learn and set how to deal with Digital Rights Management (DRM) as it relates to converting eBooks to format of choice for reading device of choice.

KISS Revision Summary. In future I'll integrate revision markings into the items below. For now I'm re-starting with one overall new strategy, and variously unchanged, revised, or new work habits. So I'm labeling it all "proposed, for me." Specifically, that means proposed for me and not anyone else because my primary intent with this is to use it as a feedback mechanism to improve my own strategies, methods, work habits, and eBook reading. I hope this document may be useful to other new users, too, in seeing details and examples of how another new user does something.


1. Strategy for eBooks (Proposed, for me):

Overall Strategy. Obtain, cleanup, and read "on demand." I plan to make exceptions where warranted for good reasons such as "found a great edition that's hard to find" or "it's temporarily on sale" and "I want it enough to break the rule." But my primary purpose is to read eBooks, not to gather, clean, and hold them. And I want to hold them afterwards only if, after reading once, there is a chance I might want to read it again or it's somehow useful.

Gathering Strategy. Gather for read-on-demand strategy as possible. Primarily by browsing the internet. Places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Baen, and so on.

Cleaning Strategy. Lean and mean according to my skill level. Minimize multiple conversions in sequence. Retain original incoming format. Always do major clean-up work on copies first saved outside of calibre just as a matter of habitual hygiene.


2. Work Habits, General (Proposed, for me):

Cybersecurity. My anti-virus software is set to auto-scan all volumes, with specific settings to exclude calibre libraries from scans. That prevents the security software from causing performance slow-downs when calibre accesses the book files for one reason or another, which it does frequently. The books that were added to calibre had been scanned at download, then scanned again if they were accessed by any other application such as a compression expander or a reader application, then scanned again during Add Books to calibre.

Backups. I use backup software (Time Machine) to automatically backup my internal disk on an hourly basis to an external drive. The calibre application and all associated files are on my internal disk. I have file hosting/syncing services (Mobile Me, DropBox, SugarSync) but haven't used them with calibre because I didn't want another layer of complexity yet. In the future if I do use a file hosting/syncing service, I will continue to do an automated backup of my own rather than depending on a server owned by someone else.

Raw Books. I keep all downloaded files that got copied by calibre when I Added them. After Adding, I put them in folders in this structure: Raw Books/Source/DL Group/Original Filename. DL Group refers to identifying a group of files downloaded at once, or to a broader category such as Baen Free CDs. I've found myself searching Raw Books numerous times and re-adding books into calibre for one reason or another. They have bad metadata or haven't been cleaned up but at least they are the original incoming formats; keeping them available is an insurance policy against future need.

Metadata Loss. I don't make any decisions that result in losing metadata, until I'm more experienced and become aware of potential ramifications. Examples of what I did that needed considerable work later to fix: Deleted The, An, A from title. Changed Spectra to Bantam so publishers were more consistent. Used only one of the 3 or 4 co-authors of an anthology where the actual editor's name wasn't available, rather than taking the trouble to use all the names. I don't want to KISS things to the extreme of losing data.

Tangents. I want to avoid running off on complex time-consuming tangents that take me away from my main purpose, reading eBooks. Tangent examples: I spent a week writing and revising a script for printing the calibre catalog in Comma Separated Value (CSV) format exported to Excel; now printouts aren't practical anymore. I investigated drivers and front end interfaces to calibre's backend database engine, and I don't even like using Structured Query Language anyway. I developed a whole elaborate tagging schema of my own, spent weeks revising it then trying to comply with it; I don't use it now. I did those things initially to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Automation. I do a process manually for awhile until I'm familiar with it before trying to automate it with scripts, regular expressions, templates, computed columns, or whatever. Attempted automation without prior innate understanding of the manual mechanics usually wastes lots more of my time than it saves. Not knowing what I was doing but trying to combine different types of automation all at once anyway led to me feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

Work Habits Change. When I learn a new strategy, method, or skill, my work habits suddenly or gradually change to accomodate whatever I learned.


3. Work Habits, Devices (Proposed, for me):

Device Choices Per Type of Reading. I use Kindle most for fiction and iPad for technical and graphics eBooks. I haven't used iPhone for reading eBooks, although it's nice to know it's set up with readers in case of emergency with the other devices.

Conversion Before Device Loading. Delay conversion until just before reading, convert on-the-fly to whatever format is necessary for the desired device. Preferred conversion source format is the original incoming format that had been retained after adding to calibre, if it didn't need fixing, otherwise a cleaned-up format. I leave nearly all conversion settings at default until I've tested a setting change enough to know what it does.

Device Loading. I load my devices only 2 or 3 books at a time then when finished reading, delete off the device using calibre directly (preferred if possible), directly from iTunes (haven't tried that), or directly from device. After reading I assign a content rating in calibre metadata, then decide if there's even a slight chance I'll read it again. If not, I'll probably delete it from Main unless it can be useful as a placeholder item.


4. Work Habits, calibre (Proposed, for me):

Mouse Tips in calibre. (The little boxes that come up when I hover the cursor over something.) I plan to pay more attention to them than I used to. Their info is important and much more up to date than the manual due to calibre going through revisions and updates so rapidly.

Preferred Format. I prefer ePub format because it opens fast in the calibre viewer, works on my iPad without conversion, usually easily converts to Mobi format for my Kindle, and is useful for clean-up purposes.

Formats To Keep. Mobi (for my Kindle), ePub (for my iPad, initial evaluation, and possible clean-up), original incoming format (for clean-up-related or other conversion).

Formats To Read. When the device supports it, I want to read the book in it's native incoming format if it doesn't need clean-up, otherwise I'll read a conversion after any necessary clean-up.

Timing for Obtaining eBooks. I want to acquire on demand shortly before reading a book, if I don't already have it. Methods to determine what I shortly want to read: generally, browse the internet; specifically, To Be Determined (TBD).

Timing for Tasks. Using the calibre viewer I evaluate an incoming eBook's original format shortly after it's added then assign a format quality tag. If it's clean-up-able or better I delay any conversions for clean-up or conversions for reading until shortly before reading. If it's not, I tag it as a wishlist/placeholder item and go looking for a better format for that title, either right away or later. I delay clean-up and conversions until just before reading for several reasons. My skill at it will be better in future than now. Conversions in sequence for whatever reason is similar to photocopying copies of copies - the result is worse than copying the original once.

Templates. I currently use one template. It's in Metadata Plugboards and adds series and series index to title for my Kindle. {series}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}

Regular Expressions (regex). I am just beginning to incorporate search/replace regex into my workflow. The only regex I used for 6 months was calibre-menu-supplied for importing books by filename, or the Kindle title template.

Adding Books. Methods depend on a group of books' place of origin (source) and their filename structure. If that source provides good metadata in the formats, it's easiest for me to add them to calibre by reading that metadata from internal file rather than filename. If not, there are several methods using filename. Manually fix all the author/series/title info in the filename out in operating system (OS), or do it there using renaming tools (which use regex also) by batching together files with similar structures to fix, then Add Books to calibre once filenames are fixed to match one of the Add Books by filename regexs in the menu. If I knew enough regex I could write and use successively a different regex to match each varying file structure of those books and import the right info into the right field during Add Books - but I don't know regex enough yet. There are also scripts and tools available on this forum to help solve this problem, standardizing names before import. Or I could add that group of books as a mess without fixing names in the OS, then fix everything selectively using regex in the Edit Metadata in Bulk Search/Replace window. I've tried it all those ways except with renaming tools or scripts, and they all require work, but it seems importing the whole mess into calibre without standardizing names first requires even more time fixing it up than the other methods, for someone like me who isn't adept at regex yet.

Custom columns. I use these.
#isbn, to see at a glance (computed from other columns).
#format, to see at a glance (computed from other columns).
#act, for temporary working tags to batch process groups of books (comma separated text like tags).
#notes, for variant titles, pseudonyms, miscellaneous (text, show in tag browser).
#source, for origin of book (comma separated text like tags).

Series. I tried multiple series columns but eventually went back to using just the one default series column. When it's important to get several subseries in the right order, I handle multi-level series like this: SeriesUniverseAbbreviation; Series Name (a); SubseriesName. For example for Star Wars, as follows. SW; Clone Wars (b); SubseriesName. It's easy to search on "SW;" while ANDing any other desired keywords. If I use (a)'s, (b)'s, etc correctly, sorts by series come out in chronological order per original pubdate or recommended reading order, whichever I initially preferred it to be. But for most books in most series I don't worry or care about all that, and just use the smallest/lowest level subseries name. Sometimes I use the broadest series name only, put in reading order, such as "Valdemar" but I prefer to do that only when I'm certain of reading order and a series is complete. When a series is up to date, in Tags I add %su which means none missing and up to date through the most recent series member in the library - a particularly useful tag in the case of a multi-author series. For multi-author series I use author name rather than seriesname in author column; if I want to see all series members in a list I do a search or just sort by series.

Metadata Downloads. I grab only published-date, publisher, comments, cover, and isbn (isbn is calibre-automatic). I always grab cover, even when it has internal cover. I keep only a few sources checked (figuring the more checked, the slower the grab.) Amazon's seemed more consistently accurate with broader item availability than others. By default I also use ISBNdb and Open Library. Others I keep unchecked and only use on a case by case basis when necessary. Since several of the genres I read are speculative fiction, when the bulk metadata grab results don't please me I manually use ISFDB to get good covers and ISBN13s where available - it's amazing how much I use that site - and it's faster that way than one by one in "Edit Metadata Individually" using Download Metadata button.

Format Quality Tag Abbreviations. In a Format Quality Tag, the way I use them, for example "_q4" - the "_" sorts it to the beginning of the list of comma separated tags in the Tag column. The "q" reminds me that it's a format-Quality rating, and the "4" is the rating. I don't suggest anyone else do it that way, necessarily. The reason I use abbreviations in tags is to see them all in a small space in one relatively narrow column without needing to scroll through a long wide column or long sequence of different columns.

Format Quality. I want to achieve the highest level of format quality my skills allow, but I also want to minimize the time I spend fixing things. My clean-up skills gradually improve over time so older "cleaned" books in my library tend to have lower format quality levels than newer books. That's why I want to delay clean-ups until just before reading. For each new added book I examine it once then assign a format quality rating tag, as well as a separate tag identifying it as needing cleaning if it needs it. That quality rating applies to all the formats retained in that book record. When I want to keep formats for that title that have different format quality ratings, I make sure I put them in their own record with a higher or lower format quality rating. When I find and compare title duplicates the main criterion I use is the format quality rating and retain the record holding the higher quality format. I may have a _q3 sitting in the library for 6 months and then a _q4 for that title shows up, so eventually I replace the _q3 format with the _q4. I rarely use anything except _q0, _q3, or _q4. Doing it this way, worse formats have a chance of getting replaced by better later. That applies to anything that has something wrong with it: Advance Reader Copies, incomings in any format that have no bold/italics (usually caused by it previously having been a text format), problem formats of any kind, all of which are convenient to keep as placeholders.

Format Quality Tags.
_q0 wishlist item. I also use it to color that book record's text red. And for bad formats, saves the trouble of creating an empty book record or empty book placeholder format.
_q1 not used.
_q2 mostly not used, a few cases = more than minor annoyance, not fixable, retained anyway.
_q3 okay, readable with only minor annoyance.
_q4 good, readable with no annoyance.
_q5 excellent, I don't bother with this, except for a few examples.

Format cleanups. I'm not a publisher, distributor, or editor. Any cleanup I do takes valuable time. My goal isn't to make it perfect, but to spend the least amount of time possible to make it "readable by me with as little annoyance as possible." I examine all incomings for format quality, and then tag each with format-quality tag. If it looks like I won't be able to clean it up in 5 minutes or less, I scrap it as not worth it or tag it _q0 and add a tag for the type of format problems it has. I always work on a copy rather than on the main format in calibre. I haven't worried about or cleaned up most Table of Contents (TOCs) because for most books except big omnibuses I don't use or care about TOCs. I do strip out header/footer/page# when I can without causing a lot of split paragraphs, otherwise I scrap it or code it _q0. I'm comfortable in Word so I had been using this workflow format-conversion route: calibre epub --> rtf saved out --> Word (search/replace) docx --> Open Office odt --> add to calibre --> ePub. The conversions from rtf to docx to odt each reduced size considerably. During this next iteration of calibre use, I want to reduce the number of conversions and simplify that process so I'm now looking for better and simpler routes. I can simplify that workflow by eliminating Word and opening the rtf directly into Open Office and fixup there. Once I learn more HTML to be comfortable with it, I can switch to doing clean-ups going epub --> clean-up in Sigil --> epub. The Sigil route seems most efficient with the least conversions, so I'm making it a high priority to learn that.

Tags. Since beginning with calibre I gradually used the tag browser less and the search box more. At about 3 or 4 months in I stopped using a lot of columns for genre, booktype, series-status and so on, and started using the default tags column, with tag prefixes to designate tag type, accompanied by abbreviations. Example of how I use tags now on a book:
_FormatQuality, ((GenrePrimary, (GenreSecondaries, [Type, %status, miscellaneous
_q4, ((fn, (mgc, (ya, [om, %sma, %su, r3
That translates to: Format good, fantasy with magic, young adult, omnibus, in multiauthor series, series up to date, myRating=3stars (and I've read it, otherwise it wouldn't be rated).

Empty books. I don't use Empty Book command or Empty Book records. I created a folder containing empty files (originally text, later converted to epub) titled Empty01 through Empty10 by author AAA, TBD. When I need to, I add a group of 10 "empty" book formats and change the metadata of one or several appropriately, keeping it format quality tag _q0. The reason I do this is because empty books don't get included when I SaveToDisk a selection of books out. When I want them included in saves that eventually get added to a different library, book records indicating wishlist items need to hold a format. If I want to avoid all that I can just use CopyToLibrary instead which does copy empty books without formats.

Plugins. I use these Plugins frequently - Find Dupes, Open With, Search Internet, Quality Check.

Collections on Devices. I don't use or want them. I prefer referring to tags in main library when necessary.

Calibre Server. Not used.

Fetch News. Not used.

CSS. Not used. CSS is one of the complexities I want to take baby steps into soon.

Sigil for Clean-up. Tried it several times, not yet incorporated into workflow. Another of my baby-step goals.

Last edited by unboggling; 09-09-2011 at 06:20 PM. Reason: Link to newer version
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Old 08-20-2011, 04:40 AM   #92
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Request feedback on KISS v0.3. Please let me know any suggestions for better or other strategies or habits, any bad assumptions I've made, or anything else you disagree with. Basically aimed at brand new to relatively new users.

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Old 08-20-2011, 06:10 AM   #93
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I'd suggest using formatting to better distinguish the sections from each other. Skimming through the post looking for something in particular is difficult, because the headings don't really pop out.
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Old 08-20-2011, 06:27 AM   #94
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Originally Posted by Manichean View Post
I'd suggest using formatting to better distinguish the sections from each other. Skimming through the post looking for something in particular is difficult, because the headings don't really pop out.
Thanks, I'll do that. I like to write new things in a very simple text editor applying no formatting at all as I write. So I tend to forget to format later. Thanks for reminder.

Edit: Done

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Old 08-20-2011, 09:19 AM   #95
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I noticed there are a couple glitches in that proposed workflow regarding use of format quality rating tags at record level when the record contains multiple formats. If I keep the original incoming format in that same record where I've cleaned and now have an additional clean format. So I need to iron that out a little.

One way would be to use the format quality tags in a larger tags like "_q3lit, _q4epub" but that seems cumbersome and kinda violates KISS.

How do other people handle format quality at level of format then indicate it somehow in the metadata at record level when there are differing formats with differing qualities in that same record?

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Old 08-20-2011, 09:25 AM   #96
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Originally Posted by unboggling View Post
Thanks, I'll do that. I like to write new things in a very simple text editor applying no formatting at all as I write. So I tend to forget to format later. Thanks for reminder.
Just type in the PHBB tags as you go
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/misc.php?do=bbcode

these are simple text, not special characters.
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Old 08-20-2011, 09:34 AM   #97
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Just type in the PHBB tags as you go
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/misc.php?do=bbcode

these are simple text, not special characters.
ooooouuuu, cool. I love it.
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Old 08-20-2011, 09:48 AM   #98
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I noticed there are a couple glitches in that proposed workflow regarding use of format quality rating tags at record level when the record contains multiple formats. If I keep the original incoming format in that same record where I've cleaned and now have an additional clean format. So I need to iron that out a little.
Seems to me, if I insist on tagging anything for a specific format, one thing would be just to have a new rule: 1 record per format. Which doesn't seem very KISSy.

So I don't wanna whine (there's no crying in…) but I really liked converting everything to epub before and deleting everything else except one cleaned up epub, because that equated the format level to the record level and made it simple.

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Old 08-20-2011, 10:10 AM   #99
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Originally Posted by unboggling View Post
Seems to me, if I insist on tagging anything for a specific format, one thing would be just to have a new rule: 1 record per format. Which doesn't seem very KISSy.

So I don't wanna whine (there's no crying in…) but I really liked converting everything to epub before and deleting everything else except one cleaned up epub, because that equated the format level to the record level and made it simple.
This just reminded me (old age is hell) of an issue I saw in dot3:

JIT (just in time) conversion workflow does not allow for fine tuning of each format. You get what the converter sends you.
Calibre only remembers the last used format, book unique, settings. For different (from the stored) formats, you just get the one in Preferences.
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Old 08-20-2011, 10:31 AM   #100
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Originally Posted by theducks View Post
JIT (just in time) conversion workflow does not allow for fine tuning of each format. You get what the converter sends you.
Calibre only remembers the last used format, book unique, settings. For different (from the stored) formats, you just get the one in Preferences.
It took me a few minutes but I think I finally understood that.

So. Maybe this issue is another good reason to use 2 libraries, one for incomings and cleanups, and one for finals (e.g., my old Add Library, Main Library set-up). Then just leave all the incomings original formats in the first library if the rule is to retain them, and move all higher quality formats to the second library with appropriate format rating tag.
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Old 08-20-2011, 11:07 AM   #101
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Originally Posted by dwanthny View Post
The RTF to OOo to ODT seems like a good option. Since all of my books are in ePub if I want to clean something up or add a TOC I use Sigil to edit the ePub directly.
Wait. "Since all of my books are in ePub…." That sailed past me when it was first posted.

So I'm in this KISS thread, a poor limping along new user, and ask for advice. So experienced users come along and say "Oh, converting everything isn't necessarily good, and keep all original incoming formats in the same record as the clean-ups, etc. So I think (without actually testing the ideas first), Oh, okay, that's a better way (depending on other peoples' judgements and testing). And now, another experienced user, dwanthny, says that: all of my books are epub.

What a confused user (new or not) I am….

Edit: Because all of my books *used to be* epub….

Last edited by unboggling; 08-20-2011 at 11:24 AM.
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Old 08-20-2011, 11:29 AM   #102
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Originally Posted by unboggling View Post
Seems to me, if I insist on tagging anything for a specific format, one thing would be just to have a new rule: 1 record per format. Which doesn't seem very KISSy.
As for the whole tags issue, I just remembered the Zen Of Python (I've been coding Python these last two months, it's beginning to show ) : Readability counts. Just use one tag each for quality, genre, etc. and make it human readable. (Remember, one tag can be multiple words!) I wouldn't include format(s) as a tag, because you can easily get a formats column by building a custom column on the template {formats}.

KISS as a principle is broken when you begin to include arbitrary restrictions ("just one tag per book") or utterly non-readable tag codes.
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Old 08-20-2011, 11:47 AM   #103
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As for the whole tags issue, I just remembered the Zen Of Python (I've been coding Python these last two months, it's beginning to show ) : Readability counts. Just use one tag each for quality, genre, etc. and make it human readable. (Remember, one tag can be multiple words!) I wouldn't include format(s) as a tag, because you can easily get a formats column by building a custom column on the template {formats}.

KISS as a principle is broken when you begin to include arbitrary restrictions ("just one tag per book") or utterly non-readable tag codes.
I totally agree. Zen of Python is new to me, but I'm familiar with zen of other things. I probably should spell out those tag abbreviations in the KISS posts, but I didn't because to me it's even more KISSier to be able to see them and understand them at glance in a small horizontal length on the screen, rather than unabbreviatedly scrolling painfully thru the hugely long field. Plus, I developed those tags just for me to use, rather than to make them readable to the world. Edit: (So readability by others wasn't an issue for me. But the zen of how to deal with differing qualities of differing formats in format related tags all on the same record - that issue doesn't seem to be resolving. So I'm beginning to think that nobody handles the issue very well.)

Edit: Oh, if you're referring to my throwing "_q3" type format quality tags around in these subsequent posts, you're right, I should've spelled them out for human readability. I just think naturally in that abbreviated tag slang and forget that other people don't know that language.

Last edited by unboggling; 08-21-2011 at 07:01 AM. Reason: clarify
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Old 08-20-2011, 12:30 PM   #104
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Not sure if it's just me but I will admit I'm not crazy on one massive post with all that info. I do like the times one see's threads where the first post acts as an index, supplying links to additional posts that contain the actual data.
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Old 08-20-2011, 12:33 PM   #105
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Not sure if it's just me but I will admit I'm not crazy on one massive post with all that info. I do like the times one see's threads where the first post acts as an index, supplying links to additional posts that contain the actual data.
Yeah, I agree. It's too long. I'm trying to do too much in one post. Which is ironic it being KISS post about KISSing things.

Maybe next revision (if I don't die of confusion first) I'll split it up into 3 or 4 sequential posts somehow. Edit: The index post with links to the other detail posts - I really that idea.

And I still don't think it's developed or refined enough yet to be a sticky. Someday, maybe.

Last edited by unboggling; 08-20-2011 at 12:44 PM.
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