User Columns in Calibre2Opds

[higlider]

I have a user defined column called "read" in which I put initials of family members that have read the book, separated by commas: tw, cw, etc. In Calibre that column symbol appears on the left pane and it expands to all the readers--excellent, and of course clicking on "tw" selects those books read by tw. This is an automated search of #read:"=tw".

Now in generating a Calibre2Opds catalog, I thought I might use Featured Books as my "Read Books" by using the above search, but it gets an error during generation, I think because C20 doesn't let us search on user defined columns. Using a search saved in Calibre also gets the same error, of course. I would like to request search be expanded to user defined columns.

I could change to using tags like Read:tw, Read:cw, etc., and then use tag splitting, but it isn't as clean or as convenient for input as having my "Read" column where it is easy to add two letters. Why simulate having a Read field when you can actually have a Read field!

So search on user defined fields would be nice to have.

[itimpi]

Support for User defined fields has been on the 'nice to have' list for some time, but it is a non-trivial feature to implement and there is no ETA for when/if it might become available.

Part of the reason has been around GUI related design issues and the structure of generated sub-catalogs. Do you see any advantage to supporting it within the Filter/search capability only? It occurs to me that if it was limited to that it might be easier to implement.

[higlider]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Support for User defined fields has been on the 'nice to have' list for some time, but it is a non-trivial feature to implement and there is no ETA for when/if it might become available.

Part of the reason has been around GUI related design issues and the structure of generated sub-catalogs. Do you see any advantage to supporting it within the Filter/search capability only? It occurs to me that if it was limited to that it might be easier to implement.

My use currently would be simply to use #read:"=tw" in the "Featured Books" section or perhaps the "Custom Catalog". I haven't played with the latter and don't really understand how it works or what it generates.

[higlider]

Splitting tags in Calibre uses a "period" separator, works fine. I was exploring using a tag Read.tw , but then when in Calibre2Opds and I requested "Split tags" with "period character" as the separator, the Tags section of the catalog had only one tag: "###|||&&&ROOT###|||&&&" and it had two books that did not have "Read.tw" as tags. It would work for ":", but not for ".", which means that the separator that establishes heirarchy in Calibre can't be used to establish a heirarchy in Calibre2Opds. I tried this several times and the error was repeatable, always losing all tags and giving this strange "###|||&&&ROOT###|||&&&". Surely someone has tried to do this before.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by higlider

My use currently would be simply to use #read:"=tw" in the "Featured Books" section or perhaps the "Custom Catalog". I haven't played with the latter and don't really understand how it works or what it generates.

OK - that is usful feedback.

FYI: Featured bookms simply generates a list of books. As such it as at the same level as other standard sections such as Authors, Series etc. Custom catalogs (at least those based on a search rather than a URL) create a whole new catalog sub-level including Authors, Series, Tags, etc.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by higlider

Splitting tags in Calibre uses a "period" separator, works fine. I was exploring using a tag Read.tw , but then when in Calibre2Opds and I requested "Split tags" with "period character" as the separator, the Tags section of the catalog had only one tag: "###|||&&&ROOT###|||&&&" and it had two books that did not have "Read.tw" as tags. It would work for ":", but not for ".", which means that the separator that establishes heirarchy in Calibre can't be used to establish a heirarchy in Calibre2Opds. I tried this several times and the error was repeatable, always losing all tags and giving this strange "###|||&&&ROOT###|||&&&". Surely someone has tried to do this before.

I have no idea. We get no feedback on how often particular features are used except when they go wrong . It is always possible it got brooken at some point (or neve worked with full-stop as the separator) and if no-one reported problems it could easily get overlooked as we do not have formal test matrix we carry out. I know ideally we should but since calibre2opds is done as a 'hobby' it is hard to get motivated to do such formal testing.

I personally do not use such tags in my own library so would not notice when generating a catalog for my own library. I cannot recall if any of my test libraries use this, but I will see if I can re-create your symptoms, and if so will add it to the Calibre2opds Issue register.

[higlider]

Thanks itimpi, I think the program is great and with the cloud services increasing, it is the right approach at the right time.

One suggestion: When there is nothing to download, one could suppress the heading "Downloads" from the web page. I checked "do not produce opds download" and "do not produce html download" so there was nothing to download, but the heading still appears with nothing of course below it to download.

I also noticed some funny business with saving profiles. When I would select a previously saved profile, it seemed like the settings of the above download options were not what I had saved. And when I was on page 2 of configuration and hit save, it saved and I specified "no" do not exit, that widget remained on the screen whereas normally it goes away when you specify "no". But by selecting "main options" I could go back to the first page so the program was not hung. I'll see if I can figure out a reproducible pattern.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by higlider

One suggestion: When there is nothing to download, one could suppress the heading "Downloads" from the web page. I checked "do not produce opds download" and "do not produce html download" so there was nothing to download, but the heading still appears with nothing of course below it to download.

Good point. I have added this as a feature request to the Calibre2Opds issue register. Feel free to add any comments or additional ideas to that issue.

I also noticed some funny business with saving profiles. When I would select a previously saved profile, it seemed like the settings of the above download options were not what I had saved. And when I was on page 2 of configuration and hit save, it saved and I specified "no" do not exit, that widget remained on the screen whereas normally it goes away when you specify "no". But by selecting "main options" I could go back to the first page so the program was not hung. I'll see if I can figure out a reproducible pattern.

If you get to the point of being able to state the problem clearly, could you raise it as a bug report on the Calibre2opds issue register. Doing it that way makes it easier to track progress, and also provide feedback and diagnoostic information.