GoodReads Ratings AND Number of Reviews

[JohnnyRocks]

I know there is a GoodReads Plugin but could not find the following information for the life of me.

Is it possible to add custom columns/fields which, when syncing with Goodreads, will provide the rating (not by stars, but rather a numerical value like "4.32"...the way GR displays it), AND the number of Ratings?

Both of these are available on the GR website and I've been manually inputting this into Calibre, but, it's kind of a pain in the butt (and EXTREMELY time consuming, given the size of my library), and was wondering if there was an easier way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[kiwidude]

This touches on a subject I would appreciate some confirmation from Kovid on. Is it possible for a metadata source plugin to populate a custom column on a result object, and have that survive the various merges, or do only the known Calibre metadata fields get merged? My guess is that the answer to this is no it is not possible currently...

If it "was" possible then in theory a metadata plugin could with some additional configuration scrape any bespoke data into a custom column of your choice. So for instance someone who wanted to scrape a price off Amazon could do an enhanced version of the Amazon plugin to do that.

The only other way of doing this would be a completely bespoke plugin that is not a metadata source that specifically goes to Goodreads to get this data. However it seems a bit silly to do that when everything else you need is already in a metadata source plugin saving the extra clicks/time taken to fetch...

We shall see what Kovid says.

[JohnnyRocks]

So, let me ask you, KiwiDude, are you saying that, if it is NOT possible, then I could simply manually input into my OWN custom field/column, based on the information that is downloaded from GoodReads and visible on the right hand side, in the metadata area?

If this IS the case, are you saying that the EXACT NUMERICAL (and not STAR) rating, as well as the NUMBER of ratings is already something that the plugin fetches? If so, which of the two GoodReads plugins would do this?

[kiwidude]

The "Goodreads" plugin (Metadata Source) is the one that is relevant to this discussion, not the "Goodreads Sync" one which is focused on synchronising shelves with your Calibre collection.

Right now the Goodreads plugin does get the exact numerical value like 4.02 or whatever. However two things happen to this - firstly that rating will get averaged with any other ratings received, such as if you had Amazon/Barnes & Noble or another plugin that has ratings enabled.

The second thing is that the rating gets truncated to be stored as an integer value in the database. So even the rating field alone as it stands now will not even give you part of what you want.

I must confess I have been tempted to do some rounding to my values I get from Goodreads because of how it works currently (but I haven't). For instance if you have a rating value of 3.98 from Goodreads, then this will become 3 stars, rather than 4. This feels wrong to me, and if I spot it I will bump the stars up manually. But it is consistent with the other metadata source plugins that come with Calibre.

So right now there is no option available to do what you want. At the very best I could try to append the rating information in the format you want into the comments field, so you could paste it into a custom column. However for even that to work the comments field from Goodreads must be "chosen" over any others you have enabled, and that will be a lottery unless you disable comments for all the other plugins. Too icky to seriously contemplate doing.

So I "think" it needs some changes to Calibre AND some enhancements to the Goodreads plugin to do what you want. But as I said perhaps Kovid has different thoughts or does not intend to enable this if it is not possible currently.

[JohnnyRocks]

Wow. So, basically, I'm out of luck at this point.

[JohnnyRocks]

I installed the plugin and don't quite know how to use it, though. Where exactly is any of the information downloaded from GoodReads actually visible? I can't see it anywhere.

[kiwidude]

Did you enable the plugin in the metadata download configuration screen?

If it has grabbed some data from Goodreads you will see a hyperlinked "Goodreads" link on the right side when you click on the book in the "Downloading metadata" screen. Then provided a cover is available it should be one of the choices in the cover browser. Once you click ok, that Goodreads id will also be hyperlinked in the book details panel on the right side of the library view in "Ids" allowing you to jump straight to the website for that book.

You can also click the View log button to see that it did a lookup on Goodreads.

If you really want to verify it is working, disable all the other metadata download plugins and then you can be sure any data retrieved is coming from Goodreads.

Note that if you have multiple plugins enabled, you cannot be sure of exactly where any piece of data of the book came from, as that is done in the merge voodoo behind the scenes. However if for instance you only have Amazon and Goodreads enabled, and you get series information appearing in your book after a download, then that will definitely have come from Goodreads as Amazon has no series information.

[kiwidude]

Also, see this thread for more information - I'm guessing you expected to see another book appear in the results for the Goodreads source and this thread explains why that will not happen normally.

[JohnnyRocks]

Wow. Now I'm more lost than ever. Where on earth is the "Downloading metadata" screen or the "Covers Browser"?

[kiwidude]

It sounds like you need to watch the tutorial video from this page.

[JohnnyRocks]

Sorry but that didn't help. In addition, I just made sure i had the latest version of Calibre (by downloading it directly again) and, my GUI looks NOTHING Like the one on the video. What is wrong here?