Bulk fill title with same value (like bulk rename author)?

[rebl]

Hello all,
First of all I would like to thank all the people involved in making calibre and maintaining this community.

I am doing some tests regarding how would be best to add and maintain my collection. When having different versions of the same book (that you want to keep or haven't decided yet which one to keep) you can't just merge them. Some might be in the same format, or some might have different metadata in other filds (such as a "version" or quality tag) so one might need to set their title field to the exactly same value but keep them distinct.

Later edit -->
I noticed that was asked before, for example here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...k+rename+title
but it seems to refer to books already using a similar naming scheme (like when all the books are in the same series but the series name got in the title field). The solution involves using the plugboard but I don't thing it would work when my books have titles like:
Les Misères de Londres (1867–68)
Les Misères de Londres (1867)
Les Misères de Londres
Les Miseres de Londres
Les_Miseres_de_Londres
Miseres de Londres, Les
Rocambole [09] Les Misères de Londres
[9] Rocambole - Les Miseres de Londres
<-- end later edit

I don't see a "title" field in the bulk metadata edit window/dialogue. I can understand having multiple entries with the same title might seem not so useful/usual compared to multiple entries with the same author/series/tag. But still there are cases when you need it.

I don't see any other option but using the bulk search/replace regex, am I wrong?

Because that is very unergonomic, involving 9 additional steps compared to the regular bulk metadata edit.
After selecting the books with CTRL click and pressing E, you have to:
1. Press third tab (search/replace). If done it just before it would be already active but if done something else (such as an author edit) it wouldn't.
2. Move mouse pointer to "search field".
3. Click to expand down "search field" combo box.
4. Move mouse down low to the "title" entry (so down low in the list!)
5. Click on "title".
6. Move mouse to "search for".
7. Click to expand down "search for" combo box.
8. Move mouse down to e.g. ^(.+)$ (we assume it's there, 'cos you've done that before)
9. Click on the chosen regex.
10. Move mouse to the "replace to".
11. Click
12. Move right hand from mouse to keyboard, type new title and press ENTER.

If a title field would be (hypothetically) present in the main (first) tab the steps would be:
1. Move mouse pointer to "title" filed
2. Click in the "title" field.
3. Move right hand from mouse to keyboard, type the new title in the title field and press ENTER.

Am I missing something? Maybe the title filed it's there in the bulk edit windows and I don't see it? Or could it be made available via a tweak in preferences/tweaks?

Many thanks in advance...

[fidvo]

My guess is that the Title field isn't on the main bulk edit screen because that would make it too easy to *&@#!!!! I ACCIDENTALLY OVERWROTE ALL THE TITLES IN MY LIBRARY!

In the rare case that you do need to bulk change the titles, you can use Search and Replace, as you've already discovered.