Help with template for custom column from tags

[africalass]

Hi

I would be eternally grateful if someone could give me a hand with the template for a custom column. I have been reading the page at Template Language - but as this is all so new to me I'm struggling a bit.

I would like to move whether I've read a book from 'Read' or 'NotRead' being a tag in the tags column to having its own custom column. I don't mind whether the new column has two values (tickbox yes/no), or whether it has three options (read, reading, not-read). I understand how to create a column that I could put this information in manually - but how can I extract this information from the tags?

On a slightly different issue, I have created a custom column of my tags (#tags). To do this I simply used the template {tags} when I created the column. I have done this because I would like to keep my own (limited) list of tags, but I would like to download other people's tags from the internet and keep the two separate. However, it continues to update the My Tags column when a new tag goes in the main Tags column. How can I stop it from updating - I want the custom column to be left as it is now. I would also like to be edit this custom column manually (ie treat it as the original Tags column). I have looked at threads like this one, but am afraid I haven't figured it out. Also I can't watch the video mentioned in the manual (I have a very slow internet connection).

Sorry for asking what is probably very basic for most people. Thanks for your time.

[chaley]

For problem 1: reading/not reading.

1. Create a custom column of the type you want (yes/no or text w/ or without/fixed set of values -- you choose)
2. Using the search box, find all books with the tag "Read"
3. Select all the found books. Press 'E' to bring up bulk metadata edit.
4. Go to the custom metadata tab (the middle one). Select the equivalent value for 'Read' for your newly made column.
5. Press OK.
6. Now use search to find all books with the notread tag. Repeat steps 3-5, using the correct value for notread.

For problem 2: copy of tags. You must have made a "column made from other columns." The behavior you describe is how these columns are supposed to work, immediately computing a new value based on the changes made in referred-to columns.

Instead, you want a copy of the tags. To do this:

1. make a "column containing text, like tags"
2. Select all books.
3. Press 'E' to go to bulk metadata edit
4. Go to the third tab, search & replace
5. Set the search mode to "regular expression"
6. Set the Search field to Tags
7. Set the destination field to #whatever_your_column is
8. Press OK

This will copy the current set of tags to the new column. From this point on, they are completely separate.

[africalass]

Have successfully managed both columns -thank you for the fabulous, straight-forward instructions.