Original filename and colorcoded numbers

travger · 10-13-2010, 06:18 AM

Hi
I wonder if it is possible to save somewhere the original filename? I added a folder to the library, and after renaming books (so that all exemplars of the same book are grouped together) I have now hard time to tell them apart. Like, if I have 4 pdf-s, convert one and like the result; now I want to delete others from original folder also. (Or in case I decide that one of them is definately not acceptable). If there is a filename to check, there would be no need to open them all.

And another idea - there is a nice column that's used just for numbers and nothing else. Maybe it's possible to add color?
I would be happy with green/red/gray and use it to mark books as perfect/need work/have not looked, somebody else could want read/want to read or whatever else, so maybe colors could be user-defined.
Of course I can use special coloumn, but there's only so much space and here's already whole coloumn right at front and practically unused.

Of course, all this could be very hard or impossible to achieve, or there could already be some easier way. Please forgive me if it happens to be so.

chaley · 10-13-2010, 06:56 AM

It seems that you want to keep the original filenames for what calibre calls formats, not books. Even if calibre kept such a thing, there wouldn't be a convenient place to show it, because there would be one per format. That aside, you can get some of what you want by creating a comments-type custom column and pasting the original paths for a book's formats into that.

What column are you referring to when you say 'numbers'? It that the rating? If you don't want to see it, you can hide it.

As for color, I will leave that to Kovid. My guess is that it isn't trivial.

Asking politely for features isn't something you need to be forgiven for.

Lady Fitzgerald · 10-13-2010, 07:12 AM

Please, please, DO NOT even think of color coding. Colorblindness afflicts a significant percentage of the population (roughly 10%).

chaley · 10-13-2010, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Please, please, DO NOT even think of color coding. Colorblindness afflicts a significant percentage of the population (roughly 10%).

The OP is asking for a way to color a cell according to some specification that s/he dreams up. That is a reasonable request for a feature that would be useful for those who are not color challenged (as I am, but apparently less than you are).

Nothing would be color coded by default, if indeed anything happens at all.

travger · 10-13-2010, 07:56 AM

Numbers - very first coloumn before the name of the book.

Yes, I'm talking about formats. Original filename is something that is important only when I need it. Special coloumn would be always under my eyes (with little scrolling), and I still have to open each pdf before paste to tell them apart. Also, it is not important enough to see in book info panel or anywhere without specially asking for it. What I had in mind was maybe right-click option or note in metadata window - but visible only there.
Calibre copies file to the library and changes filename. Maybe it could paste original name into metadata also? I know exactly where the original is, difficulty is in which one it is. Maybe on the third tab could be stored info that you can see only if you go looking for it?

I tried custom column and it added everything into book details. With 3-4 formats, it's quite a lot of junk.

travger · 10-13-2010, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaley

The OP is asking for a way to color a cell according to some specification that s/he dreams up.

Nothing would be color coded by default, if indeed anything happens at all.

Of course it should be up to user to use.

kovidgoyal · 10-13-2010, 12:30 PM

I really dislike the idea of color coding personally (I think list of entries in different colors look horrible), so I am not motivated to implement it. But if someone else wants to implement it as an optional feature, I wont refuse the patch.

chaley · 10-13-2010, 01:15 PM

FWIW, I won't be doing the color-coded field change. I wouldn't use it, and it is the kind of thing that would be forever generating UI 'change requests' that aren't fun to deal with.

If someone wants to take the project on, then a new custom column type (or a variant of the integer type) is one path that be worth consideration.

travger · 10-13-2010, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I really dislike the idea of color coding personally (I think list of entries in different colors look horrible).

I totally agree, that's why I asked to color code only one coloumn of cells - and the narrowest one.

IzzyMad · 11-01-2010, 06:14 AM

This may be a little off topic but is there a way of stopping or changing the format Calibre uses when adding books, at the moment it's title-author and I was wondering if it was possible to leave the file names as is in my case 00~000 Title

Thanks Izzy

chaley · 11-01-2010, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IzzyMad

This may be a little off topic but is there a way of stopping or changing the format Calibre uses when adding books, at the moment it's title-author and I was wondering if it was possible to leave the file names as is in my case 00~000 Title

If you are talking about the folder & file names in calibre's library, then no, there is no way to change it.

Perkin · 11-01-2010, 07:22 AM

If your files have the 00~000 in the filename, when importing, you can get the title from just the filename and as long as the import template is set up for those filenames, then calibre's book titles will store that info as well. (you may have problem getting metadata though)

Worldwalker · 11-01-2010, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IzzyMad

This may be a little off topic but is there a way of stopping or changing the format Calibre uses when adding books, at the moment it's title-author and I was wondering if it was possible to leave the file names as is in my case 00~000 Title

Your imported books are exactly as you left them in the directories you imported them from. You can export books however you like. You can't change how calibre's internal file system works, and shouldn't mess with it.

And once you've seen all the ways calibre gives you to organize your books (see my .sig) you won't want to.

IzzyMad · 11-01-2010, 09:43 AM

What I'm trying to do is when I import books that i have formated and save as say "02~001 The Colour of Magic" then Calibre changes it to "The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett" and I wonder if it was possible to leave the imported files as "02~001 The Colour of Magic"

I want to do this as when I load them onto my ebook reader they some times go out of order and if I can then look at the original file I will know which order they are meant to be read in as My code system is just the Author(first 2 digits) Then the series(Third Digit) then the position within that series(last 2 digits) not different categories or genres

"Filesystems manage files. Calibre manages books. Let calibre do what it's there for, and don't go peeking up its skirt. It'll slap you. ~ ~ (explanation here)"

I realise that Calibre is very good at what it does but I just want it to leave my original File names alone then I wouldn't need to have two copies lying around and I could just use Calibre and let it do all the work. where as at the moment I have to have two different copies of everything.
Thanks

Manichean · 11-01-2010, 09:57 AM

You won't get it to leave the original filename, however, you can get it to import the original filename as title. For that, in the adding books- preferences, change the regular expression (assuming that "02~001 The Colour of Magic" is your filename and should be your title) for reading metadata to

Code:

(?P<title>.*)

Then set Calibre to read metadata from filenames instead of content.
The downside of this is that you won't get any author or other metadata, unless that metadata is encoded in the path and you adjust the regular expression accordingly.

10-13-2010, 06:18 AM	#1
travger Evangelist Posts: 480 Karma: 270594 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: palm tx, Windows7, Galaxy A5	Original filename and colorcoded numbers Hi I wonder if it is possible to save somewhere the original filename? I added a folder to the library, and after renaming books (so that all exemplars of the same book are grouped together) I have now hard time to tell them apart. Like, if I have 4 pdf-s, convert one and like the result; now I want to delete others from original folder also. (Or in case I decide that one of them is definately not acceptable). If there is a filename to check, there would be no need to open them all. And another idea - there is a nice column that's used just for numbers and nothing else. Maybe it's possible to add color? I would be happy with green/red/gray and use it to mark books as perfect/need work/have not looked, somebody else could want read/want to read or whatever else, so maybe colors could be user-defined. Of course I can use special coloumn, but there's only so much space and here's already whole coloumn right at front and practically unused. Of course, all this could be very hard or impossible to achieve, or there could already be some easier way. Please forgive me if it happens to be so.

11-01-2010, 09:43 AM	#14
IzzyMad Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: UK Device: PRS-505	What I'm trying to do is when I import books that i have formated and save as say "02~001 The Colour of Magic" then Calibre changes it to "The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett" and I wonder if it was possible to leave the imported files as "02~001 The Colour of Magic" I want to do this as when I load them onto my ebook reader they some times go out of order and if I can then look at the original file I will know which order they are meant to be read in as My code system is just the Author(first 2 digits) Then the series(Third Digit) then the position within that series(last 2 digits) not different categories or genres "Filesystems manage files. Calibre manages books. Let calibre do what it's there for, and don't go peeking up its skirt. It'll slap you. ~ ~ (explanation here)" I realise that Calibre is very good at what it does but I just want it to leave my original File names alone then I wouldn't need to have two copies lying around and I could just use Calibre and let it do all the work. where as at the moment I have to have two different copies of everything. Thanks Last edited by IzzyMad; 11-01-2010 at 09:58 AM.

11-01-2010, 09:57 AM	#15
Manichean Wizard Posts: 3,130 Karma: 91256 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Germany Device: Cybook Gen3	You won't get it to leave the original filename, however, you can get it to import the original filename as title. For that, in the adding books- preferences, change the regular expression (assuming that "02~001 The Colour of Magic" is your filename and should be your title) for reading metadata to Code: (?P<title>.*) Then set Calibre to read metadata from filenames instead of content. The downside of this is that you won't get any author or other metadata, unless that metadata is encoded in the path and you adjust the regular expression accordingly.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Preserve original filename of files loaded from device	enn	Calibre	0	10-02-2010 10:46 PM
Metadata in Title/filename	mezme	Calibre	0	08-18-2010 03:08 AM
Filename for Display?	camgee	Ectaco jetBook	10	05-12-2010 05:06 PM
Need help with metadata by filename	artbatista	Calibre	17	12-19-2009 07:51 AM
txt filename?	fishcube	Sony Reader	1	10-19-2007 12:56 AM

10-13-2010, 06:56 AM	#2
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,741 Karma: 6997045 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	It seems that you want to keep the original filenames for what calibre calls formats, not books. Even if calibre kept such a thing, there wouldn't be a convenient place to show it, because there would be one per format. That aside, you can get some of what you want by creating a comments-type custom column and pasting the original paths for a book's formats into that. What column are you referring to when you say 'numbers'? It that the rating? If you don't want to see it, you can hide it. As for color, I will leave that to Kovid. My guess is that it isn't trivial. Asking politely for features isn't something you need to be forgiven for.

10-13-2010, 07:12 AM	#3
Lady Fitzgerald Wizard Posts: 2,013 Karma: 251649 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Tempe, AZ, USA, Earth Device: JetBook Lite (away from home) + 1 spare, 32" TV (at home)	Please, please, DO NOT even think of color coding. Colorblindness afflicts a significant percentage of the population (roughly 10%).

10-13-2010, 07:56 AM	#5
travger Evangelist Posts: 480 Karma: 270594 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: palm tx, Windows7, Galaxy A5	Numbers - very first coloumn before the name of the book. Yes, I'm talking about formats. Original filename is something that is important only when I need it. Special coloumn would be always under my eyes (with little scrolling), and I still have to open each pdf before paste to tell them apart. Also, it is not important enough to see in book info panel or anywhere without specially asking for it. What I had in mind was maybe right-click option or note in metadata window - but visible only there. Calibre copies file to the library and changes filename. Maybe it could paste original name into metadata also? I know exactly where the original is, difficulty is in which one it is. Maybe on the third tab could be stored info that you can see only if you go looking for it? I tried custom column and it added everything into book details. With 3-4 formats, it's quite a lot of junk.

10-13-2010, 12:30 PM	#7
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	I really dislike the idea of color coding personally (I think list of entries in different colors look horrible), so I am not motivated to implement it. But if someone else wants to implement it as an optional feature, I wont refuse the patch.

10-13-2010, 01:15 PM	#8
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,741 Karma: 6997045 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	FWIW, I won't be doing the color-coded field change. I wouldn't use it, and it is the kind of thing that would be forever generating UI 'change requests' that aren't fun to deal with. If someone wants to take the project on, then a new custom column type (or a variant of the integer type) is one path that be worth consideration.

11-01-2010, 06:14 AM	#10
IzzyMad Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: UK Device: PRS-505	This may be a little off topic but is there a way of stopping or changing the format Calibre uses when adding books, at the moment it's title-author and I was wondering if it was possible to leave the file names as is in my case 00~000 Title Thanks Izzy

11-01-2010, 07:22 AM	#12
Perkin Guru Posts: 655 Karma: 64171 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Kent, England, Sol 3, ZZ9 plural Z Alpha Device: Sony PRS-300, Kobo Aura HD, iPad (Marvin)	If your files have the 00~000 in the filename, when importing, you can get the title from just the filename and as long as the import template is set up for those filenames, then calibre's book titles will store that info as well. (you may have problem getting metadata though)

Advert

Advert