[GRiker]

Moderator Notice
This post specifically discusses changes to catalog generation in 0.8.68. For general information about calibre's Catalog feature, refer to the Creating catalogs: Start here sticky.

Catalog generation has been enhanced in 0.8.68 with the following new features:

• Changed the layout of the Generate catalog dialog.
• Excluded genres now features a live preview, so you can see which tags will be excluded as a result of the regex.
• Added an option to use an existing cover, for example covers created by the Generate cover plugin.
• Added a Help button, which opens an overview in calibre's online manual.

1. Included sections (changed layout)
   • Authors - all books, sorted by author, presented in a list
   • Titles - all books, sorted by title, presented in a list
   • Series - all series books, sorted by series, presented in a list
   • Genres - all enabled genres, with individual genres presented in a list sorted by Author and Series
   • Recently Added - all included books sorted in reverse chronological order by date added to your library over the last 30 days, plus a month-by-month listing of added books. Presented in a list.
   • Descriptions - detailed descriptions of each book, including a cover thumbnail and Comments. Description pages are sorted by author, with regular titles followed by series titles.
2. Prefixes (no changes)
   Each rule specifies a matching criteria and prefix.
   The checkbox in the first column enables the rule.
   Name is a rule name that you provide indicating the purpose of the rule. Field is either Tags or a custom column. Value is the content of Field to match. When an enabled rule is satisfied, the book will be marked with the prefix from the Prefix column.
   Three exclusion rules have been specified in the example above:
   • Rule #1, 'Read book', specifies that a book with any date in a custom column 'Last read' will be prefixed with a checkmark.
   • Rule #2, 'Wishlist item', specifies that any book with a 'Wishlist' tag will be prefixed with an X.
   • Rule #3, 'Library books', specifies that any book with a value of True (or Yes) in a custom column 'Available in Library' will be prefixed with a double arrow.
   If a book matches more than one prefix rule, the first matching rule supplies the prefix. Only one prefix is used. Disabled or incomplete rules are ignored.
   
3. Excluded books (no changes)
   Exclusion rules specify criteria for books that will not be included in the generated catalog.
   The checkbox in the first column enables the rule.
   Name is a rule name that you provide indicating the purpose of the rule. Field is either Tags or a custom column. Value is the content of Field to match. When an enabled rule is satisfied, the book will be excluded from the generated catalog.
   Two exclusion rules have been specified in the example above:
   • Rule #1, 'Catalogs' specifies that any book with a 'Catalog' tag will be excluded from the generated catalog.
   • Rule #2, 'Archived books', specifies that any book with a value of 'Archived' in the custom column 'Status' will be excluded from the generated catalog.
   All rules are evaluated when deciding to exclude books. Disabled or incomplete rules are ignored.
   
4. Excluded genres (added Results of regex feature)
   A regex pattern describing tags to exclude as genres.
   Tags are used to create the genre sections in your catalog. You may be using certain tags that you don't want included as genres in the catalog. For example, you might use a tag [Amazon freebie], but you don't want that tag included as a genre in your catalog. The default exclusion pattern \[.+]]|\+ excludes any tags of the form [tag] as genres, as well as excluding +, the default tag for read books.
   The recycle button resets the regex pattern to the default value.
   Results of regex shows which tags will be excluded as genres.
   
5. Other options (added Catalog cover option)
   • Catalog cover specifies whether to generate a new cover or use an existing cover.
   • Extra Description note specifies a custom column's contents to be inserted into the Description header, opposite the cover. For example, you might want to display the date you last read a book using a Last Read custom column described earlier. For advanced use of the Description note feature, see this post.
   • Thumb width specifies a width preference for cover thumbnails included in the Descriptions section. The catalog generator caches these thumbnails for performance reasons; changing this value invalidates the cache. If you want to experiment with different widths, try building a catalog with just a few books until you've found your optimal width, then build your entire catalog. The first time a catalog is generated with a new thumbnail width will be slower, but subsequent builds will take advantage of the cache.
   • Merge with Comments specifies a custom column whose content will be non-destructively merged with the Comments field during catalog generation. For example, you might have a custom colum Author Bio that you'd like to append to the Comments section. You can choose to insert the custom column contents before or after the Comments section, and optionally separate the appended content with a horizontal rule. Eligible custom column types include text, comments, and composite.

Questions, comments, feedback specific to the new features in 0.8.68 should be posted to this thread.