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Old 09-20-2012, 02:16 PM   #1
Coronach
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Searching and Search Updates

So, I'm not sure if this is possible in Calibre. But I've been searching for a ebook manager with this functionality. Given I have a TON of ebooks, I definitely need a manager. The thing is...the searching on them always tends to fall short.

Here's an example.

I'm in the mood to read a spy book today. So offhand, I know a couple authors who deal in this. Let's say I'm going for Tom Clancy.

I start the search using the Author category, and select Tom Clancy. And say 20 or 30 books pop up.

Most would be happy with that. But maybe sometimes the mood is for a bit more thorough search.

Here is where the tricky part comes in. The field on the left of Calibre, with Authors, Languages, Series, etc, doesn't seem to update. In fact, on most of the managers I've tried, this area tends to remain fixed.

What exactly am I looking for, you might be asking yourself. Well it's like this.

If I have Authors, Series, Tags on that area. When I click Tom Clancy, I want it to be able to update, so the excess information in those areas is removed.

So I'm gonna try to lay it out here as best I know how.

--Authors--
Tom Clancy (30 books)
Terry Brooks (10 books)

--Series--
Jack Ryan (10 books)
Net Force (10 books)
Shannara (10 books)

--Tags--
Dwarves (4)
Elves (1)
Magic (10)
Cyber Crime (10)
Russia (4)
China (2)

Now, when I mean update, I mean to say the list above changes based on your search.

If I do a search for Tom Clancy, Authors should change to only have Tom Clancy on there. If there are other authors attached to any of those books, their name would be on the list as well.

But more importantly is what happens in Series and Tags.

Series would only now show Jack Ryan and Net Force, because Tom Clancy isn't associated with the Shannara books.

Tags would show Russia, China, and Cyber Crime. Dwarves, Elves, and Magic would be removed.

So I could then continue to narrow my search down to find only books I would be interested in reading in at that given time.

This is less important with Authors, and moreso with Tags or Custom Categories.

If it's possible in Calibre, that is great. Could someone tell me how to accomplish it.

I realize that if I wanted books containing Dragons and Elves, I could just do a tag+tag search for those two terms, and come up with all books that have both in their tag structure. But what about when you -don't- know what you want to read.

Say I want a book on Dragons, so I do the tag search for that. And it gets me say....60 books total. If the tag list updated to show all tags associated with just those 60, I could then narrow things. Granted, tags show up in the main tree, if you have the column wide enough to reveal all, or if you hover over it. But that still has you going down a long list of books.

I just think it might be easier if the Tags category was able to update, and go from say..30+ tags, to only the 10 or so applicable to the particular books shown.
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Old 09-20-2012, 02:27 PM   #2
kovidgoyal
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The feature you';re looking for is called search restrictions in calibre. A bit of googling should show you how to use it.
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Old 09-20-2012, 02:30 PM   #3
Coronach
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That example is kind of...disjointed I guess.

A better one would be in mimicry of Winamp's Media Library. It's broken into panes. As you update one pane, the next pane in line alters as well.

My setup is like this: 1. Genre -> 2. Category -> 3. Album -> 4. MP3s.

So in Genre I click Video Game. This updates Category to only categories available to the Genre "Video Game". (Meaning basically "Genre = Video Game" and "Category = <this>"

In Category, I can then select "Castlevania". Now pane 3 is updated again. The albums shown all have this in common -> "Genre = Video Game" and "Category = Castlevania".

I can select the album -> Lament of Innocence OST, to update the bottom pane, which shows my mp3s, in this case, now only the mp3s of the Lament of Innocent OST.

It may seem complicated to some, but to me it's the most logical and easy way to sort and search my mp3s, and I'd really love similar functionality for searching and sorting through my ebooks.
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Old 09-20-2012, 02:31 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coronach View Post
So, I'm not sure if this is possible in Calibre. But I've been searching for a ebook manager with this functionality. Given I have a TON of ebooks, I definitely need a manager. The thing is...the searching on them always tends to fall short.

Here's an example.

I'm in the mood to read a spy book today. So offhand, I know a couple authors who deal in this. Let's say I'm going for Tom Clancy.

I start the search using the Author category, and select Tom Clancy. And say 20 or 30 books pop up.

Most would be happy with that. But maybe sometimes the mood is for a bit more thorough search.

Here is where the tricky part comes in. The field on the left of Calibre, with Authors, Languages, Series, etc, doesn't seem to update. In fact, on most of the managers I've tried, this area tends to remain fixed.

What exactly am I looking for, you might be asking yourself. Well it's like this.

If I have Authors, Series, Tags on that area. When I click Tom Clancy, I want it to be able to update, so the excess information in those areas is removed.

So I'm gonna try to lay it out here as best I know how.

--Authors--
Tom Clancy (30 books)
Terry Brooks (10 books)

--Series--
Jack Ryan (10 books)
Net Force (10 books)
Shannara (10 books)

--Tags--
Dwarves (4)
Elves (1)
Magic (10)
Cyber Crime (10)
Russia (4)
China (2)

Now, when I mean update, I mean to say the list above changes based on your search.

If I do a search for Tom Clancy, Authors should change to only have Tom Clancy on there. If there are other authors attached to any of those books, their name would be on the list as well.

But more importantly is what happens in Series and Tags.

Series would only now show Jack Ryan and Net Force, because Tom Clancy isn't associated with the Shannara books.

Tags would show Russia, China, and Cyber Crime. Dwarves, Elves, and Magic would be removed.

So I could then continue to narrow my search down to find only books I would be interested in reading in at that given time.

This is less important with Authors, and moreso with Tags or Custom Categories.

If it's possible in Calibre, that is great. Could someone tell me how to accomplish it.

I realize that if I wanted books containing Dragons and Elves, I could just do a tag+tag search for those two terms, and come up with all books that have both in their tag structure. But what about when you -don't- know what you want to read.

Say I want a book on Dragons, so I do the tag search for that. And it gets me say....60 books total. If the tag list updated to show all tags associated with just those 60, I could then narrow things. Granted, tags show up in the main tree, if you have the column wide enough to reveal all, or if you hover over it. But that still has you going down a long list of books.

I just think it might be easier if the Tags category was able to update, and go from say..30+ tags, to only the 10 or so applicable to the particular books shown.
(saved) Filters works your way, but was not intended to use (dynamically) as you want. You would save a basic search as a filter (those thing at the left of the search box), now all you see is those in the tags.
I have one for Format:EPUB and #edited:false (EPUB Books that I have not marked as getting my custom 'edit')
Now the tag relate to that filter and I can pick which to do next by any criteria (or combination) in the Tags
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Old 09-20-2012, 02:44 PM   #5
Coronach
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theducks:

YES! That is exactly what I wanted. It's a bit bulky in creating a new search filter each time, if different ones are desired. But it does update the list for me.

I suppose until a better method is presented, I can use this. Just take one search for the first filter, then select an option from those presented to further the filter.

It'll be a pain of having a bunch of filters to clean out regularly, but at least it is semi-possible.

With luck, this type of feature will be implemented in the future, in a more user-friendly manner. I dearly love my Winamp for it's Media Library, and wouldn't consider using anything else because of it.
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Old 09-20-2012, 07:56 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coronach View Post
theducks:

YES! That is exactly what I wanted. It's a bit bulky in creating a new search filter each time, if different ones are desired. But it does update the list for me.

I suppose until a better method is presented, I can use this. Just take one search for the first filter, then select an option from those presented to further the filter.

It'll be a pain of having a bunch of filters to clean out regularly, but at least it is semi-possible.

With luck, this type of feature will be implemented in the future, in a more user-friendly manner. I dearly love my Winamp for it's Media Library, and wouldn't consider using anything else because of it.
Depending how you set the settings in the 'Alter Tag Browser' button (any or All).
You can select the first tag browser item, then hold the CTRL key and select additional items. The list is still 'all possible for the Library'
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