[chaley]

Originally Posted by ander111

Also, while I appreciate your explanation of the tag browser, I was lucky enough to know the tags I wanted to exclude. The books I've imported have such a crazy number of tags, my Tag Browser is an overwhelming, pointless cascade of detail. I suppose if one had the time and the OCD tendencies, one could hack through all of one's books and impose some kind of order. Perhaps in another life... E:?|

The point was to provide a way to build the queries so you could see how calibre does it.

(Note: Calibre calls everything a "search"—even though in a case like this, where we're excluding stuff rather than looking for it, it would normally be called a "filter".)

One of those semantic differences. Search expressions can contain both positive and negative criteria, making the distinction between a search and a filter difficult. What kind of thing is "A and not (B or C)"? In any event, even positive criteria "filter" the list, showing only those items that match the criteria.

(Notice how each exclusion must be separated by a comma and space. If you're excluding just one tag, the comma isn't necessary.)

The comma is never necessary, and in some situations can be an error. An example: 'tags:=xx,' will want to find a comma in the tag (which it will never find), while with 'tags:"=xx",' the comma is ignored.

To cancel your search (that is, filter) and show all books again, delete your search's text from the Search box (or toggle it off in your Saved Searches, as described above).

Or push the reset search button next to the "Go!" button on the search toolbar.