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sweth · 06-03-2015, 04:07 PM

While I'm suggesting things (to an already great plugin--thanks again for this!): it would be amazing if the plugin could support groupings of providers that could be acted on independently, including having info stored in different DB fields.

As one use case: I track audiobook and regular ebook versions of books in separate records in Calibre, and am now using the availability search to show the shortest number of weeks' wait among the libraries I have access to; right now, I either have to only track library availability of one or the other, track both in one record but then manually figure out which version's wait time is showing, or configure a provider for ebooks and another for audiobooks and then manually switch them on/off before updating one or the other set of records. If I could do the different-provider solution but just run one set or the other as needed, that would be much easier.

As another: I also prefer Overdrive versions of ebooks to ones from Open Library or Project Gutenberg; if I could easily search in OD libraries first and then fall back to OL/PG, that would be great.

Ideally, something like that could be implemented by just adding another column to the configuration tab for "grouping prefix", and then basically doing everything else identically but storing the results in fields named with the grouping prefix if set and if a corresponding custom column exists. The UI would have to be tweaked a bit as well, to allow some way to select doing searches against all providers vs. running the searches for a particular group.

So, for example, someone could configure one set of providers that only search eBook formats, and another set that only searches audiobooks, and the latter could have a grouping prefix of "audio"; if custom columns "audio_identifiers" and "audio_ol_wait_weeks" exist, then the second set of providers would store their output in those column instead of the usual "identifiers" and "ol_wait_weeks". Similarly, a grouping of "gutenberg" and one of "openlib" could be used to store availability in "gutenberg_identifiers" and "openlib_identifiers", etc.

(Thanks again for the plugin, even if something like this can't be added!)

06-03-2015, 04:07 PM	#476
sweth Connoisseur Posts: 68 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2015 Device: Kindle Fire 7 (7G), Kindle PW (2G), Kindle Scribe	Provider groupings? While I'm suggesting things (to an already great plugin--thanks again for this!): it would be amazing if the plugin could support groupings of providers that could be acted on independently, including having info stored in different DB fields. As one use case: I track audiobook and regular ebook versions of books in separate records in Calibre, and am now using the availability search to show the shortest number of weeks' wait among the libraries I have access to; right now, I either have to only track library availability of one or the other, track both in one record but then manually figure out which version's wait time is showing, or configure a provider for ebooks and another for audiobooks and then manually switch them on/off before updating one or the other set of records. If I could do the different-provider solution but just run one set or the other as needed, that would be much easier. As another: I also prefer Overdrive versions of ebooks to ones from Open Library or Project Gutenberg; if I could easily search in OD libraries first and then fall back to OL/PG, that would be great. Ideally, something like that could be implemented by just adding another column to the configuration tab for "grouping prefix", and then basically doing everything else identically but storing the results in fields named with the grouping prefix if set and if a corresponding custom column exists. The UI would have to be tweaked a bit as well, to allow some way to select doing searches against all providers vs. running the searches for a particular group. So, for example, someone could configure one set of providers that only search eBook formats, and another set that only searches audiobooks, and the latter could have a grouping prefix of "audio"; if custom columns "audio_identifiers" and "audio_ol_wait_weeks" exist, then the second set of providers would store their output in those column instead of the usual "identifiers" and "ol_wait_weeks". Similarly, a grouping of "gutenberg" and one of "openlib" could be used to store availability in "gutenberg_identifiers" and "openlib_identifiers", etc. (Thanks again for the plugin, even if something like this can't be added!)