Calibre Companion Suggestions

[kaufman]

Hi. I just found the program yesterday, but I have to say that it is fantastic. Best app I have found in a very long time.

I have three small suggestions/requests and a possible bug. I sent them to you in an email, but I thought this might be a better forum for them:

1) You can drag from left to right to open the grouping drawer, but it might be nice if there was a simple way to close it as well. Three possibilities that I though of are
a) Drag right to left
b) double tap in the drawer
c) Automatically close it when a leaf of the grouping tree is selecting (letter for title,
author name, series name, etc).

2) When you select a series in the grouping, and then go back to the main screen, it shows:

Series: XXXX.... [] [] []

Which isn't really useful, because you can't ever see much of the series name. It might be nice to have an option to hide the view-type/sorting/connect buttons. Perhaps if these function appeared in the menu, it wouldn't be necessary to have them on the main screen.

3) Would it be possible to add an option to hide grouping methods that are not desired. For example, I only ever group by title, author, series, and #shelfname (a calibre custom column). I would love to hide tags, publisher and rating. Others might have different ones.


Lastly, I don't think the "Show grouping drawer buttons" does anything. Checked or not, everything seems to look the same.

Does anyone else have any opinions about these things?

[jackie_w]

Re: point #1 - 1a) works for me on my Samsung phone. Tapping the top left icon (pile of books) also opens/closes the sliding drawer.

I only own the one android device, so I'm not sure whether it always works the same.

Edit: That's weird. The post I just replied to has disappeared - better ignore this response then.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Re: point #1 - 1a) works for me on my Samsung phone. Tapping the top left icon (pile of books) also opens/closes the sliding drawer.

I only own the one android device, so I'm not sure whether it always works the same.

That works for me too, but in the same way you can drag left-to-right to open the drawer from anywhere on the screen, I would like to be able to drag right to left from anywhere to close it again.

I have a large phone, and this would allow me to bounce around my library with one hand.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kaufman

1) You can drag from left to right to open the grouping drawer, but it might be nice if there was a simple way to close it as well. Three possibilities that I though of are
a) Drag right to left
b) double tap in the drawer
c) Automatically close it when a leaf of the grouping tree is selecting (letter for title, author name, series name, etc).

Drag from right to left already closes the drawer. Also clicking the drawer description at the top left also opens and closes the drawer.

Originally Posted by kaufman

2) When you select a series in the grouping, and then go back to the main screen, it shows:

Series: XXXX.... [] [] []

Which isn't really useful, because you can't ever see much of the series name. It might be nice to have an option to hide the view-type/sorting/connect buttons. Perhaps if these function appeared in the menu, it wouldn't be necessary to have them on the main screen.

It is interesting that you can't see much of your series name. I guess I am fortunate, on my Nexus 7 I can see approximately 21 characters of the series name. Which means the vast majority of my series are easily read.

Good luck with your request.

Originally Posted by kaufman

Lastly, I don't think the "Show grouping drawer buttons" does anything. Checked or not, everything seems to look the same.

If you check it then exit CC completely (including the swiping from the task switcher) when you restart you will see a bar at the top that says >>>slide for grouping drawer>>>.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kaufman

That works for me too, but in the same way you can drag left-to-right to open the drawer from anywhere on the screen, I would like to be able to drag right to left from anywhere to close it again.

I have a large phone, and this would allow me to bounce around my library with one hand.

You're right swiping inside the drawer from right to left doesn't work but swiping outside the drawer from right to left does work.

Good suggestion swiping within the drawer does work for gmail.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

It is interesting that you can't see much of your series name. I guess I am fortunate, on my Nexus 7 I can see approximately 21 characters of the series name. Which means the vast majority of my series are easily read.

Which is fine for people on a tablet, but on a phone, you get 4 characters, which is not really that useful.

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

If you check it then exit CC completely (including the swiping from the task switcher) when you restart you will see a bar at the top that says >>>slide for grouping drawer>>>.

Ahh, got it. That worked. Thanks.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

Hi. I just found the program yesterday, but I have to say that it is fantastic. Best app I have found in a very long time.

I have three small suggestions/requests and a possible bug. I sent them to you in an email, but I thought this might be a better forum for them:

1) You can drag from left to right to open the grouping drawer, but it might be nice if there was a simple way to close it as well. Three possibilities that I though of are
a) Drag right to left

this is already there. Drag from the vestigial book view.

b) double tap in the drawer
c) Automatically close it when a leaf of the grouping tree is selecting (letter for title,
author name, series name, etc).

I will think about these. I am not sure about the double tap, because it could easily Get confused by someone tapping quickly to navigate.

Note that you can tap the drawer icon in the upper left corner to open and close the drawer.

2) When you select a series in the grouping, and then go back to the main screen, it shows:

Series: XXXX.... [] [] []

Which isn't really useful, because you can't ever see much of the series name. It might be nice to have an option to hide the view-type/sorting/connect buttons. Perhaps if these function appeared in the menu, it wouldn't be necessary to have them on the main screen.

you must be using a phone.

This might be possible. The major issue is that every option costs us support time, something that became very apparent with some of the options I added early on but perhaps shouldn't. We need to be sure that any new option is fully justified.

3) Would it be possible to add an option to hide grouping methods that are not desired. For example, I only ever group by title, author, series, and #shelfname (a calibre custom column). I would love to hide tags, publisher and rating. Others might have different ones.

Again, We will need to think about the pros and cons.

Lastly, I don't think the "Show grouping drawer buttons" does anything. Checked or not, everything seems to look the same.

There is a bug. The preference change isn't taken into account until the app is restarted.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

this is already there. Drag from the vestigial book view. I will think about these. I am not sure about the double tap, because it could easily Get confused by someone tapping quickly to navigate.

Note that you can tap the drawer icon in the upper left corner to open and close the drawer.

This is true. What I am hoping for is a way to do it one handed. I can't reach the vestigial book view with my thumb.

In the same way that you have added code (drag left to right anywhere on the screen) to open the grouping drawer with one hand, I would love to see an option to close it with one hand. I think option C might be the least support cost for you, as well as making sense form a user perspective. When you pick the thing you want to see, the program closes the drawer and shows it to you.

Originally Posted by chaley

you must be using a phone.

This might be possible. The major issue is that every option costs us support time, something that became very apparent with some of the options I added early on but perhaps shouldn't. We need to be sure that any new option is fully justified. Again, We will need to think about the pros and cons.

I am using a phone (Galaxy Note 3), and on a phone, there is no point in showing the Group value. for Publisher, you get one character after the word Publisher, and for Authors you get 3. Not really much value.

I can certainly understand keeping down the number of things you have to support. How about (as a compromise) you just add an option to not show the whole words Authors, Title, Series, etc. You could perhaps just show the first letter. That would be a minimal change that would greatly benefit your users on phones. Perhaps also make the font smaller. If you only showed the first letter of the group type and used the same font size you use on the connect button, you could get a lot more text in there.

You can ignore request 3. I can't think of a simple way to minimize this effort and its really only of minor value anyhow.

Again, thanks for a phenomenal program.