Creating Catalogs (Archived)

[clayw1pi]

The catalog feature is a great idea. I really like it.

[Mickey330]

First off: Be gentle. I only just discovered I can create a catalog that lists only the books on my "To Be Read" pile and not all the books in my library. I love the catalog function 'cause it makes it easy to read the synopsis of the book I'm starting to read (hey, when you pick up a freebie six months ago - ya kinda forget what it was about, y'know?).

Anyway.

My question is, what am I missing to make book titles be the main sorted part of the catalog (in the front part of the TOC), versus the authors?

Here are some screenshots that'll [hopefully] show you what I mean - and what I am trying to do.

Pic#1: Shows the TOC when I first open it. Note how it is in alphabetical by author.

Pic#2: Shows what I get when I select a book. This is what I go to the catalog for, the synopsis.

Pic#3: Shows the second part of the TOC - the beginning of author/title lists

Pic#4: Breaks down authors and titles

Pic#5: What I get when I select 'Titles Beginning with A'

What I want is what I get in pictures 1 & 2, but with the books sorted by title instead of the author. I actually don't need the remaining part of the TOC (but, since I can ignore it - not a biggy).

So, what button am I not clicking correctly to create this catalog? I've sorted the books (in Calibre) on title and I've looked at every option when creating a catalog.

In short: What am I missing/doing wrong? Is this something I can do - or am I going to just have to remember the author's name (versus the book title) when I go to the catalog?

Oh, and if this question is confusing - sorry, and please ask for more clarification.

Thanks.

Marilyn

[GRiker]

The catalog currently sorts books by author. If you want to create a feature request, see the 'If you have problems' section of first post in this thread for instructions.

G

[jackie_w]

Hi Mickey,

I hope you don't mind me making a comment.

I can't help you with your sequencing wishes but the epub catalogues look much better if you open them with AdobeViewer rather than FBReader on the PB360.

Just a personal opinion

[Mickey330]

Originally Posted by GRiker

The catalog currently sorts books by author. If you want to create a feature request, see the 'If you have problems' section of first post in this thread for instructions.G

I was afraid someone was going to say that title sort was not a feature. Guess that's why I couldn't find a way to do it through Calibre, right?. That's all right, I'll just remember the author's name - it's not important enough to submit a request... Thanks for responding, though, GRiker.

jackie_w: Thanks for the tip about viewing the catalog in Adobe. It does look better in Adobe (!). Far from minding you made a comment - I thank you very much as I also get cover views in the catalog with Adobe! Cool.

Again, my thanks to all.

Marilyn

[mcrmama]

First, this is great! I am really enjoying calibre. I do have a question though.

I have tags named [Jodi's books] and [Jeff's books]. They are included as genre in my catalog. Anyone know why? Did I enter the regex code incorrectly or did I do something wrong formatting the tag name? I had to type the code back in since I have one catalogue with no genres and the default didn't come back when I went to regenerate this catalogue but I did copy and paste it and don't see the error. Here is my job detail for this section:

Generate catalog
Catalog_EPUB_MOBI(): Generating epub for cybook_opus in GUI environment
book count: 11
Sections: Descriptions, Authors, Titles, Genres
opts:
authorClip: 100
catalog_title: Jodi's Book Catalogue
connected_kindle: False
descriptionClip: 380
exclude_genre: \[[\w ]*\]
exclude_tags: ~,Catalog
note_tag: *
numbers_as_text: False
read_tag: +
search_text: None
sort_by: None
sort_descriptions_by_author: True
sync: False
Begin catalog source generation
26 genre tags in database (excluding genres matching \[[\w ]*\]):
Adventure, Businesswomen, Catalog, Childbirth, Classics, Domestic fiction,
Epic, Fiction, Globe and Mail, Library books, Magic, Magic Kingdom of Landover,
Midwives, Natural living, News, Sagas, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Spiritual & Religion,
Star Trek, Star Wars, Unicorns, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Wizards,
[Jeff's books], [Jodi's books]
Genre summary: 15 active genre tags used in generating catalog with 11 titles
Adventure: 4 titles
Businesswomen: 6 titles
Childbirth: 1 title
Domestic fiction: 6 titles
Epic: 4 titles
Fiction: 11 titles
Magic: 2 titles
Magic Kingdom of Landover: 2 titles
Midwives: 1 title
Natural living: 1 title
Sagas: 6 titles
Science Fiction & Fantasy: 4 titles
Unicorns: 1 title
Wizards: 4 titles
[Jodi's books]: 11 titles
Completed catalog source generation

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by mcrmama

I have tags named [Jodi's books] and [Jeff's books]. They are included as genre in my catalog. Anyone know why? Did I enter the regex code incorrectly or did I do something wrong formatting the tag name? I had to type the code back in since I have one catalogue with no genres and the default didn't come back when I went to regenerate this catalogue but I did copy and paste it and don't see the error. Here is my job detail for this section:

This appears to be a bug in the catalog code related to the presence of the apostrophe within the tag. I will fix this when I get back to the catalog code, in the meantime you could get around it by using a bracketed tag without the apostrophe, like [Jeff] and [Jodi].

G

[mcrmama]

Thanks! I just updated my tags and saved searches for the new names and am generating the catalogue now. I don't have many books yet but trying to get everything set up nicely so that it will continue to work nicely when I do. Thanks so much!

[mcrmama]

Just to update, that worked great. Thanks!

[buckm56]

I've read through much of the post here and can't find a simple answer to what I'm looking for, at least not one my brain can handle.

I would like to create short catalogs (not too many titles) for example a catalog of books of a series. But instead of having the description information appear as first thing on my Kindle 3 I'd like to see a title list which is only the titles, no beginning with A, B, etc.

Is there a simple change somewhere in Calibre that will accomplish this. I still want the descriptions, but as mentioned the list appearing 1st with links to the descriptions to follow.

Thanks

[GRiker]

@buckm56:
The catalog generation code was revised in 0.7.18 to put the indexes before the descriptions by default.

A minimal catalog includes index of authors plus the descriptions. You can add an index of titles to that by selecting the appropriate options as described in the first post in this thread.

G

[jjansen]

When I want to search for books that I have read I use #jackie:"=Read". Is there some way to use this when I generate the catalog instead of the default + tag? My husband and I each have our own columns (my mother as well - family affair). I tried a few things but if it is possible my guessing at the exact syntax didn't work. Thanks.............Jackie

[buckm56]

I thought I was on the latest version but found I was on .7.17, so once upgraded the Kindle options take care of most of what I wanted.

One small thing I wish I could control is to eliminate the indexing A,B,C sections on the list. This isn't a problem for Series catalogs, but one catalog I'd like to make has a number of different authors, and I'd still rather the A,B,C index be eliminated.

Actually what I'd like for this catalog is a alphabetical title list with the author following the title on the same line.

But I'm probably being too picky.

Thanks

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by jjansen

When I want to search for books that I have read I use #jackie:"=Read". Is there some way to use this when I generate the catalog instead of the default + tag? My husband and I each have our own columns (my mother as well - family affair). I tried a few things but if it is possible my guessing at the exact syntax didn't work. Thanks.............Jackie

Not possible currently, but it is on my to-do list.

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by buckm56

I thought I was on the latest version but found I was on .7.17, so once upgraded the Kindle options take care of most of what I wanted.

One small thing I wish I could control is to eliminate the indexing A,B,C sections on the list. This isn't a problem for Series catalogs, but one catalog I'd like to make has a number of different authors, and I'd still rather the A,B,C index be eliminated.

Actually what I'd like for this catalog is a alphabetical title list with the author following the title on the same line.

But I'm probably being too picky.

Thanks

The descriptions are always sorted by author, then by series. This evolved as the preferred sorting order as it made sense to page through series in order. As a result, the 'Authors' section is always included at a minimum, along with the optional sections.

If you want to experiment with customized catalogs, you can try outputting a csv file, then running macros (in excel, for example) to generate a txt file. Import that into calibre, and create a mobi version of your custom content.

G