Calibre Catalog Published Date

[OldSoldier]

I finally figured out that the date showing in the calibre catalog (right after the book title) is coming from the date published field. Is there any way to change that?

I'd really like to use my custom field "date written" since it is of much more interest to me and my book group as to when a book was written rather than when the current version was published.

I did search for help on this but couldn't seem to find anything. Of course, it might be that I'm terrible at searching <g>.

[BetterRed]

@OldSoldier - You should see your Date Written column in the Generate Catalogue->E-Book options>Extra Description note pull down menu. Its in Other Options, at the bottom of the dialogue box, you may have to scroll down to see it.

BR

[OldSoldier]

Thank you for your reply, BetterRed. That seems to generate the full descriptions as well which is much more information than I want. All I want to do is generate the simple list of authors and titles but, instead of having the publishing year showing after each title, I want to have the "written" year showing.

I did learn something new from your reply, though, even if it doesn't do what I need right now.

[BetterRed]

@OldSoldier - Aaah, if its just a simple list you're after then use the CSV format, you select the columns you want in the CSV Options tab. It will create a CSV file that you can read with MS Excel or Open Office Calc, Google Docs etc

BR

[OldSoldier]

I guess I should have provided the background for my question. I keep all of my books on the PC (managed by Calibre). Those that I have yet to read are the only books I keep on my iPad in iBooks. What I was trying to do was generate an ePub listing of the books I have which was easy enough. But then I noticed the date on the listing and was trying to figure out a way to change from the publication year (which is what shows) to a custom date or else a way to remove the date. A .csv file would certainly accomplish showing the custom date but would be less convenient for use. For now I guess I'll just live with it. Maybe the programmers will add a customizable feature for this in the future.

I do thank you for your responses, BR. I have been on the Internet since the mid-80's and yet I am still pleasantly surprised at how many nice people I encounter when asking questions.

[BetterRed]

@OldSoldier - it can be done, you need to copy the folder ..\Calibre2\resources\catalog from the calibre install directory to the \resources directory in the calibre configuration directory.

On my setup that's copy C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\catalog into E:\CalibreData\calibre\resources (yes, I moved the config data out of %APPDATA%)

In the catalog folder you'll find a file template.xhtml. In there you can tailor the catalog to your requirements - eg replace the pubdate column with your #datewritten column. You'll probably want to format the date, you can do that via the template, see format_date in the template tutorial ==>> The calibre template language

The way the 'resources' folder seems to work is that calibre looks for things in the config folder first, and if its not there, it uses the default in the install folder. Very simple, and effective solution.

BR

[OldSoldier]

I copied my template.xhtml file to my
%UserID%/AppData/Roaming/caliber/resources/catalog directory. I then edited the template.xhtml file to show:

<td class="date">{written}</td> instead of <td class="date">{pubyear}</td>.

I ran Calibre and created a catalog and it is still showing the year published instead of the contents of the "written" field. I know nothing of .xhtml and was just trying a simple substitution. I did try {#written} as well (remembering to close and reopen caliber) but with no effect.

Am I changing the right portion of the template? Should I be changing something else? FWIW, my "written" field is a text field so that I can enter dates like "1308-1321" for "The Divine Comedy" or "1962, 1964" for an omnibus edition of two novels.

Thank you again for your assistance.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by OldSoldier

I copied my template.xhtml file to my
%UserID%/AppData/Roaming/caliber/resources/catalog directory. I then edited the template.xhtml file to show:

<td class="date">{written}</td> instead of <td class="date">{pubyear}</td>.

I ran Calibre and created a catalog and it is still showing the year published instead of the contents of the "written" field. I know nothing of .xhtml and was just trying a simple substitution. I did try {#written} as well (remembering to close and reopen caliber) but with no effect.

Am I changing the right portion of the template? Should I be changing something else? FWIW, my "written" field is a text field so that I can enter dates like "1308-1321" for "The Divine Comedy" or "1962, 1964" for an omnibus edition of two novels.

Thank you again for your assistance.

1) I am not sure if you can use custom fields
2) You might have a datatype clash if you use a text field and it expects a datetype

[OldSoldier]

TD, I thought the second issue might be a problem and it seems as if #1 is true too. I guess I can always kludge it by copying the year written into the publication year and just not bothering with an entry for an omnibus (or else just using the date for the first novel in the collection).

Thanks for the reply.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

1) I am not sure if you can use custom fields
2) You might have a datatype clash if you use a text field and it expects a datetype

You're right of course - what's in the resources is global, whereas custom columns are library specific. Thus the only columns that one can use in that file are the 'standard columns'

But you can edit that file to remove the columns you don't want (eg I've removed the thumbnail, ratings & comments) and then use the Generate Catalogue->E-Book options>Extra Description note pull down menu to add one extra column, in the OP's case his #datewritten column.

BR