After thinking about the comments and what I was doing, I decided to change focus. I wasn't building a 'real' authors database and I was creating more problems than I solved. That prototype went into the trash can.
However, (and
) I did like the idea where I could select a book and quickly get a cross-reference of the values of some category item (authors, tags, publisher, series, etc) against the books that have that item. (Kiwidude, this is the function you said you wouldn't use
). I used bits of my prototype and implemented it.
When the window is open, clicking on a column for a book will display the cross-reference for that item. This works for all items that appear in the tag browser (category items). For example, clicking on the tags cell for a book will show the tags for that book, select the first tag, and show the books with that tag. Clicking on a different tag in the displayed list shows the books with that tag. Double-clicking on a book selects that book in the library view, scrolling if necessary.
Without disturbing the content (e.g., the books found by the last search), the position (what books are currently visible) or layout (horizontal scroll) of the library view, I can use this box to get fast answers to questions like "what other books:
- have one of the tags in this book?
- are written by an author of this book?
- do I own in this series?
- have some value in a custom column?
The contents of the display box follows the selected book in the library.
If not used, it takes no space and no time. It requires no modification of the DB, and creates no backup problems.
It does what I wanted to begin with, so I am much happier with it.