MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Custom column returns value based on value of another custom column?

calvin-c · 09-14-2013, 12:25 PM

I'm trying to expand the ratings. Rather than 1-5 stars I want text representing 0-10 values:
0=Unread (Blank also indicates unread)
1=Started but so bad I didn't finish reading it
2=Poor, but finished reading it
3=Almost OK
4=OK
5=Better than OK
6=Almost good
7=Good
8=Better than good
9=Almost great
10=Great

As I see it I'll need 2 columns, a numerical column for sorting & a text column to display the text ratings. I'm pretty sure the text column will be what Calibre help calls a composite column but I can't figure out the formula. I think it will be some variation of the lookup function but I'm not sure what.

Basically I'm unsatisfied with the built-in ratings because each increment seems, to me, to be a significant change from the previous/next-and I often have trouble deciding. Expanding it allows overlap-it doesn't really matter whether I rate a book 8 or 9 as the meanings are close. That makes it easier for me plus I simply prefer text values to numeric (even when numeric is expressed in number of stars it's still numeric).

In a spreadsheet I can do this easily. The problem is that I'm not very familiar with either Python or RegEx. I'm trying to learn but it's going slowly. Maybe it would go faster if I had more time to spend on it but time is what it is-so I'm asking for help. Thanks.

09-14-2013, 12:25 PM	#1
calvin-c Guru Posts: 787 Karma: 1575310 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: Moon+ Pro	Custom column returns value based on value of another custom column? I'm trying to expand the ratings. Rather than 1-5 stars I want text representing 0-10 values: 0=Unread (Blank also indicates unread) 1=Started but so bad I didn't finish reading it 2=Poor, but finished reading it 3=Almost OK 4=OK 5=Better than OK 6=Almost good 7=Good 8=Better than good 9=Almost great 10=Great As I see it I'll need 2 columns, a numerical column for sorting & a text column to display the text ratings. I'm pretty sure the text column will be what Calibre help calls a composite column but I can't figure out the formula. I think it will be some variation of the lookup function but I'm not sure what. Basically I'm unsatisfied with the built-in ratings because each increment seems, to me, to be a significant change from the previous/next-and I often have trouble deciding. Expanding it allows overlap-it doesn't really matter whether I rate a book 8 or 9 as the meanings are close. That makes it easier for me plus I simply prefer text values to numeric (even when numeric is expressed in number of stars it's still numeric). In a spreadsheet I can do this easily. The problem is that I'm not very familiar with either Python or RegEx. I'm trying to learn but it's going slowly. Maybe it would go faster if I had more time to spend on it but time is what it is-so I'm asking for help. Thanks.