MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - How to shorten device filename with series info?

kiwidude · 01-05-2012, 07:35 AM

@Larla - I think you are perhaps crossing wires between Sweetpea and me, since Sweetpea supplied the Harry Potter example.

Why don't *you* provide an exact example of one of your titles, and how you would like it to look when copied to your device?

At the end of the day pretty much anything is possible but it depends on how much work you want to have to do to get there. What is "non-negotiable" is trying to find a way to fiddle the title field in calibre directly and then expecting everything else to work. I won't harp on about it again, I promise

Sweatpea has shown an example of the "highest flexibility but most work" end of the spectrum. There are a number of interim positions you can take towards that.

Personally I operate at the other end of the range - I don't care about long book names if the series name is long, because all I care about is reading the books in series order, and could care less what the actual name of the individual book is while on my Kindle. The more you strip out, the more you might regret it later if you want to use search capability on your device too. Given that for me the proportion of time spent on my Kindle browsing through titles vs actually reading is about 0.001% it is a total non-issue for me.

With that said, I do however sometimes shorten my series names manually if the default metadata that comes back from Goodreads/FantasticFiction has them stupidly long, but that is because I don't want my series column in calibre to have to take up too much space. So for that I usually use my "Manage Series" plugin just to bulk rename the series names in that column for that set of books, or if only a couple of titles just edit the series name. Of course doing so means that over time when I get another book in the series I have to rename the series for that one too, but since that is an exception rather than the norm I can happily live with that, and prevents the need for extra custom columns.

Now if you insist on wanting a shorter name when sent to the device, no problem. In which case you have a number of options, such as:

like I mentioned above, manually abbreviating the name you put in the series column in calibre e.g. Harry Potter [1] could become HP [1]
Adding a new custom column for a derived series name which automatically is calculated based on the initials. The template for doing this is in the plugboard sticky thread. You would then use this column in your send to device template rather than your standard series column. This has the advantage of keeping your nicely readable original series column in calibre, but giving you an abbreviated one for the device.
A variant of this as chaley mentions is to do a similar series custom column, but instead use a formula which takes a certain number of characters from the series name column.
Another variant is to have a manually edited custom series name column, that you type your own preferred series name into. That is part of what Sweetpea has suggested. This gives you complete cusotmisation, but obviously requires you to type it in and maintain it.
And the final variant I will mention is to also have a custom column which contains a manually abbreviated title, which once again is used in your send to device template rather than the regular calibre title. Again in combination with the point above this represents the complete Sweetpea option. As mentioned it offers the greatest flexibility but is also the most work to have to maintain.

Them's your options basically...

01-05-2012, 07:35 AM	#11
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,726 Karma: 2197770 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	@Larla - I think you are perhaps crossing wires between Sweetpea and me, since Sweetpea supplied the Harry Potter example. Why don't you provide an exact example of one of your titles, and how you would like it to look when copied to your device? At the end of the day pretty much anything is possible but it depends on how much work you want to have to do to get there. What is "non-negotiable" is trying to find a way to fiddle the title field in calibre directly and then expecting everything else to work. I won't harp on about it again, I promise Sweatpea has shown an example of the "highest flexibility but most work" end of the spectrum. There are a number of interim positions you can take towards that. Personally I operate at the other end of the range - I don't care about long book names if the series name is long, because all I care about is reading the books in series order, and could care less what the actual name of the individual book is while on my Kindle. The more you strip out, the more you might regret it later if you want to use search capability on your device too. Given that for me the proportion of time spent on my Kindle browsing through titles vs actually reading is about 0.001% it is a total non-issue for me. With that said, I do however sometimes shorten my series names manually if the default metadata that comes back from Goodreads/FantasticFiction has them stupidly long, but that is because I don't want my series column in calibre to have to take up too much space. So for that I usually use my "Manage Series" plugin just to bulk rename the series names in that column for that set of books, or if only a couple of titles just edit the series name. Of course doing so means that over time when I get another book in the series I have to rename the series for that one too, but since that is an exception rather than the norm I can happily live with that, and prevents the need for extra custom columns. Now if you insist on wanting a shorter name when sent to the device, no problem. In which case you have a number of options, such as: like I mentioned above, manually abbreviating the name you put in the series column in calibre e.g. Harry Potter [1] could become HP [1] Adding a new custom column for a derived series name which automatically is calculated based on the initials. The template for doing this is in the plugboard sticky thread. You would then use this column in your send to device template rather than your standard series column. This has the advantage of keeping your nicely readable original series column in calibre, but giving you an abbreviated one for the device. A variant of this as chaley mentions is to do a similar series custom column, but instead use a formula which takes a certain number of characters from the series name column. Another variant is to have a manually edited custom series name column, that you type your own preferred series name into. That is part of what Sweetpea has suggested. This gives you complete cusotmisation, but obviously requires you to type it in and maintain it. And the final variant I will mention is to also have a custom column which contains a manually abbreviated title, which once again is used in your send to device template rather than the regular calibre title. Again in combination with the point above this represents the complete Sweetpea option. As mentioned it offers the greatest flexibility but is also the most work to have to maintain. Them's your options basically...