05-24-2013, 10:02 AM | #1 |
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Tags for authors
It would be nice to be able to add tags to an author. Not the books, to the actual Author.
Along the lines of "Complete" meaning you've got all their books, or "NeedMore" meaning you still have to get some of their books. Even a star rating would be nice. |
05-24-2013, 10:56 AM | #2 |
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I can see a use for table specific 'Custom columns' (Authors in this case).
The Issue is 'user support' How many of Calibre Users know that Calibre is not a 'Flat File'? Now try and explain why you attach the Column to 'authors' and not 'books_authors_lnk' Forgetting those user issues How do you support a decent UI and data integrity for these other tables |
05-24-2013, 08:46 PM | #3 | |||
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As for database integrity, why would one not apply the same techniques and disciplines as are already used in Calibre. There's already somewhere to store the author metadata backup files - as an xml file in the Author folders - same as the opf files in Book folders. I am NOT saying its easy, nor that it wouldn't be quite a lot of work - but lets not pretend its rocket science BR |
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05-24-2013, 09:05 PM | #4 | |
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So the issue is: is there enough need for seeing data at author-level, not book level? To me, without giving it a whole lot of thought, it doesn't seem worth it to have to switch between tables of book level and author level. I'd rather have it all at book level. Storage space is cheap enough that data redundancy isn't a big problem. Last edited by unboggling; 05-24-2013 at 09:09 PM. |
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05-24-2013, 09:34 PM | #5 | |
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Authors: Andre Norton Pseudonym: Andrew North If it was linked at the authors level, I would only have 1 Author (type pseudonym): Andrew North which would be cross linked to the '(Real) Author' : Andre Norton Show 'All' books by Andre Norton would include all her pseudonyms: (Alice Mary Norton, Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston) Show 'only' would work as it now does: Andre Norton Doing (and maintaining) this axillary info at the title level is awkward. |
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05-24-2013, 09:51 PM | #6 | |
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So its not too hard to find out what books I have/don't have for a particular author That said, there are other reasons I would like to have Author metadata, as a place to store associated urls - blog, publishing site, employer etc. also something that would to link author names when pseudonyms are used, or different spellings in different languages, even sometimes in the same language. I read quite a lot of economics & Law - it would be nice to be able to classify authors as Monetarists, Keynesian, Black Letter etc. BR |
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05-24-2013, 10:02 PM | #7 |
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@BetterRed: The empty book row is quite a good idea - you also immediately know which title is missing, especially useful when the books are not part of a series. It should be easy enough to set up a search showing there are no formats for a particular book, saves using a special column called "missing".
Seems to me quite a few people have a number of reasons for wanting an author table. |
05-24-2013, 10:42 PM | #8 | |
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05-24-2013, 11:37 PM | #9 |
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After further thought….
There seems to be an author-level table now, for Author and Author-Sort. Let's say fields are added to that table for author level tags, link, bio, whatever. How would that best be displayed? How conveniently access/edit it and switch between library view booklist and author data? Last edited by unboggling; 05-24-2013 at 11:39 PM. |
05-25-2013, 12:25 AM | #10 | |
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05-25-2013, 02:44 PM | #11 |
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Oh, how wonderful it would be to have one place where to keep all kinds of stuff about the author and which is linked to the author's name!
I can already see how I toggle between Book Details and Author Details But adding only one kind of info to the author can be done with colors or icons. For example, simple circle with cut-out segments to note how much of the author's books are in the library. |
05-25-2013, 06:07 PM | #12 |
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BTW, I just noticed there is already a link field in the author, author-sort table. I haven't used it.
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05-25-2013, 07:00 PM | #13 | |
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However, it doesn't and I never got an answer to my "why not, and if not... " question. You can enter a value in Alter Tag Browser->Manage Authors, Tags etc->Manage Authors -- but I cannot find any reference to the field in the manual, nor any place where you can make use of it. I would have put in a file link to my author folder where I keep author specific data. So my question still stands :- Why is the link I put in the Manage Authors not used for the link behind the author name in Book Details, and if that's not what it's there for, then what is it there for, then... ? BR |
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05-25-2013, 07:46 PM | #14 | |
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I also tried it with the link file:///c:/windows/. Clicking on this link opened a file explorer. |
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05-25-2013, 08:37 PM | #15 |
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Thanks @chaley
yes http links work for me, I assume they did back when I discovered the field, but I can't recall trying - I think I only tried folder links But I still cant get folder or file links to work - even a cut and paste of your link to the windows folder still gives the wikipedia entry If I enter a website address, eg http://www.charlierose.com/, it works, but if I enter file:///E:/_Sandpit/CharlieRose/ I get Charlie Rose's wikipedia entry Yet if I put the same folder links (via paste from clipboard) into book comments it works fine There must be either something 'blocking it' or I'm missing something obvious - I suspect the latter - I shall try a bit harder. Update : I tried a restart. By gosh, the Charlie Rose folder link worked. So I tried another author (Stiglitz) on another book, didn't work - went back down to the Charlie Rose book, still working phew. Went back up to the Stiglitz book - working. After entering the Author link, if the current book is from that Author you have to 'refresh' Book details before the link will work - how on earth did I miss that It must resolve the link when the page is displayed, not when its clicked - that's cool, its the way this stupid thing called the Web works - its not as dynamic as they like to make us think it is. Now, the question is - can I update Author Links from the CLI, I can't see anything, @chaley, can you confirm that I should put my folder links in to the author.link column in metadata.db - I can write a powershell script to do that. That'll teach me to when a question falls into the bit bucket BR Last edited by BetterRed; 05-25-2013 at 09:08 PM. |
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