Store chooser / enable, disable dialog

[user_none]

As the number of stores grows the list of stores in the search dialog is getting long. In the list are stores that some users do not find helpful for various reasons. One such reason is language, I only care about stores that sell books in languages I can read.

Currently you can disable stores in preferences, plugins. They're plugins so you can disable them just like any other plugin. However, I don't find this very friendly.

I have been speaking to chaley about this but I want to open the discussion up to the community. Some of these changes will require modification to the plugins themselves but this isn't a big deal. Here is what I have in mind.

A store chooser dialog accessible from the "Get Books" menu. The dialog will be similar to the store search dialog. Search input at the top and table of results at the bottom. The search is a full boolean search just like the store and main window search. So you can easily filter out stores you want to see or don't want to see.

The table will have multiple columns that can be searched. The first two are:

Enabled and Name. Enabled is a simple check box. Checked if you want the store plugin enabled and unchecked if you want it disabled.

What I'm thinking for the other columns is:

Drm free only - I feel that there are enough users who do no want to buy from stores that sell Drm content to make this a good column. This is for stores like smashwords that does not sell any drm content.

Public domain only - gutenberg and the like. Some people don't like classics.

Language - list of all languages the store carries books in.

Formats - list of formats the store has.

These columns should make it much easier for people to see what stores are right for them.

Sadly geographic restrictions is not doable. Few stores disclose this and fewer notify when they change this. It's very hard to determine without the store disclosing and I would rather not guess. A wrong guess will cause too many issues.

Suggestions, ideas, changes?

[kovidgoyal]

My only suggestion is to also have a button under the stores list in the main dialog that opens the store chooser. It may also be good to have some stores disabled by default and enabled only if the user chooses the appropriate settings in the welcome wizard as is done for metadata download plugins today.

[user_none]

I intend to hook into the welcome wizard and use the language and device to disable some non-revelent stores on first run.

[user_none]

I'm also thinking of adding a Genre column. This would be for stores like Wizard's Tower that specializes in a specific Genre. Stores like Amazon would just show Various as the genre.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by user_none

The table will have multiple columns that can be searched. The first two are:

Enabled and Name. Enabled is a simple check box. Checked if you want the store plugin enabled and unchecked if you want it disabled.

What I'm thinking for the other columns is:

Drm free only - I feel that there are enough users who do no want to buy from stores that sell Drm content to make this a good column. This is for stores like smashwords that does not sell any drm content.

High priority.

Readers: to avoid the same confusion I had, note that one can enter DRM:false on the book search line to see only non-infested books. This lets you search stores that sell both infested and clean books, seeing only the clean ones.

Public domain only - gutenberg and the like. Some people don't like classics.

Medium priority. One possible issue is that the meaning of "public domain" varies from country to country. For example, the University of Adelaide in Australia offers some books that are public domain there but not in the US.

Language - list of all languages the store carries books in.

I think this should be the country code of the location of the store, not the languages of books the store sells. The major use will be a hint about geographical restrictions. Stores all over the world sell books in English, but many sell only to people who live in the appropriate places.

The location of the store does provide a hint about the languages in which books are available (more below).

It would be tedious to maintain an accurate "books' language" column.

Formats - list of formats the store has.

High priority.

'm also thinking of adding a Genre column. This would be for stores like Wizard's Tower that specializes in a specific Genre. Stores like Amazon would just show Various as the genre.

Medium priority.

As I said in my email, I am not convinced that this can be specific enough to be useful, but I won't argue against it.

It might be that the idea you suggested a while back, a short blurb about the store, would complement the genre idea, or possibly replace it. The blurb could come from the store's "about us" page, and one hopes that it provides the information a person would need to decide if it is a store of interest.

Some ideas that I won't fight for.

• The language(s) of the store website. The country implies the language, but it is only an implication. This field relates to the book languages issue. If a site is in Spanish, it probably sells books in Spanish even if the store is located in California.
• The currency of the store
• Payment types (cards, google checkout, paypal, etc)

[user_none]

Currency is a no go. Kobo for instance uses geolocation via ip (guessing) to show you the price in the currency of the country you're in.

I like location instead of language. I'll just need to make it clear that this is the location of the store not geographic restrictions.

I have no problem and would rather have a detailed description instead of genre. This also lets us remove the publi domain column and roll it in here.

I'm inclined to keep the plugin description the store's tag line as it already is. Then add an additional long description value for this dialog. However, it might be more useful to have this become the description as it's shown in the plugin preferences pane.

So the list as it stands is:

enable
name
drm
location
formats

I plan to do the long description as a mouse over. The first bit will show under name.

If no one objects or provides more input by Monday I'll start making the changes.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by user_none

I plan to do the long description as a mouse over. The first bit will show under name.

Perhaps it should be a comments-like column so that it is searchable. Yes, it could be searchable anyway, but having the column would make that fact discoverable.

Searching the description raises the 'naked search' issue that we had to deal with in the library view: when I search for "foo", what columns are examined? I am not sure what the right answer is. It might be wise to limit naked terms to name, location, and formats, but that would force a user who wants to find stores with "mysteries" in the description to use something like description:"mysteries".

To save some real estate, you can show some of the description on the table. The entire description could popup in the mouse over.

[chaley]

Given the comments in the store web browser thread, perhaps it is worth adding a second checkbox to the chooser dialog where the user can select which browser to use. The checkbox should be a second column so that it can be sorted & selected. The store plugin would provide the default for this box. I see 4 values: force system browser (amazon and company), force calibre browser (any?), use system browser, use calibre browser. The first two would show as greyed unchangeable (un)checked boxes. The last two would show as a normal box, checked as appropriate.

A harder-to-use alternative, but one that might pay some dividends in the future, would be to have a way to easily get to the plugin's configuration dialog from the chooser. A tool button next to the checkbox in the 'Use' column might work. If this alternative is used, then the value of the choice should be shown to the user on the chooser dialog.

Not metadata related, but you might also want to have set all/none on the column header context menu. Nicer would be a pair of tool buttons in a virtual row stuck at the bottom/top of the table, but I haven't figured out how to do that with Qt.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by chaley

Perhaps it should be a comments-like column so that it is searchable. Yes, it could be searchable anyway, but having the column would make that fact discoverable.

I'm working on the assumption that most people will be using naked search the majority of the time. The advanced search builder dialog would be used to create complex queries. At least until the user understands the syntax and how it works.

Originally Posted by chaley

Searching the description raises the 'naked search' issue that we had to deal with in the library view: when I search for "foo", what columns are examined? I am not sure what the right answer is. It might be wise to limit naked terms to name, location, and formats, but that would force a user who wants to find stores with "mysteries" in the description to use something like description:"mysteries".

The way I've always looked at it is, naked searches everything. If you want to search a specific thing then you use a field search.

Originally Posted by chaley

A harder-to-use alternative, but one that might pay some dividends in the future, would be to have a way to easily get to the plugin's configuration dialog from the chooser.

I like this idea better because it gives access to more than just the browser choice. I don't feel we need to relate any settings information in the chooser because that's not going to help the user decide if they want to disable or enable a store.