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CarstenF · 09-02-2015, 03:43 PM

Dear Kovid,

many thanks for your reply!
I guess that I'll just go then with Goodreads as my single metadata provider.

I really admire both the amount of ideas and the amount of work effort that you've put into calibre. calibre is really overwhelming both in features and flexibility, but also in options, setting and dialogs.

Being still a relatively new user, please allow me to reiterate on an outline / vision / suggestion how I imagine that metadata downloads from multiple sources could much be simplified, both for single and many books:

Metadata from multiple sources could be presented in a spreadsheet-like table. That table would quasi be a generalization of the existing "Review downloaded metadata" dialog that we can see after a bulk download:

Each field would correspond to one row,
the first column would show all locally existing values,
each downloaded metadata result would correspond to one column each,
- either each result of each provider had its own column (probably too many), or
- multiple results per provider could get merged into a single result (similar as today, but merges would consider results only of the same, common provider).

Then, for each row (field), the user could select/click/highlight the column whose value he/she wishes to overtake:

the default selection is "all cells of the first column" (the existing values, meaning: "no change"),
once done, the user's selection is saved for re-use with the next book -- the user will very likely use the same or similar settings again, so the last selection becomes the new default selection,
multiple selections per row would be possible, meaning to "merge" or "concatenate" the selected values for this field,
all this works for all kinds of field, including title page (although multi-selection is not possible for fields such as title page, rating, etc.).

Advantages:

This is very simple: For the user, it is really intuitive and easy to understand what's going on.
Full flexibility is preserved as is now.
No need to discriminate between single book and bulk metadata downloads -- they are the same (needs prev/next pages as in the single book "Edit Metadata" dialog).
It would no longer be necessary to have checkmarks with each provider that tell which fields should be loaded -- just load them all, always. The user can still ignore the related spreadsheet cells.

Disadvantages:

Needs relatively much screen space, both in width and height. Like a spreadsheet, this might require horz./vert. scrolling.

What do you think?

09-02-2015, 03:43 PM	#9
CarstenF Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Germany Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Dear Kovid, many thanks for your reply! I guess that I'll just go then with Goodreads as my single metadata provider. I really admire both the amount of ideas and the amount of work effort that you've put into calibre. calibre is really overwhelming both in features and flexibility, but also in options, setting and dialogs. Being still a relatively new user, please allow me to reiterate on an outline / vision / suggestion how I imagine that metadata downloads from multiple sources could much be simplified, both for single and many books: Metadata from multiple sources could be presented in a spreadsheet-like table. That table would quasi be a generalization of the existing "Review downloaded metadata" dialog that we can see after a bulk download: Each field would correspond to one row, the first column would show all locally existing values, each downloaded metadata result would correspond to one column each, either each result of each provider had its own column (probably too many), or multiple results per provider could get merged into a single result (similar as today, but merges would consider results only of the same, common provider). Then, for each row (field), the user could select/click/highlight the column whose value he/she wishes to overtake: the default selection is "all cells of the first column" (the existing values, meaning: "no change"), once done, the user's selection is saved for re-use with the next book -- the user will very likely use the same or similar settings again, so the last selection becomes the new default selection, multiple selections per row would be possible, meaning to "merge" or "concatenate" the selected values for this field, all this works for all kinds of field, including title page (although multi-selection is not possible for fields such as title page, rating, etc.). Advantages: This is very simple: For the user, it is really intuitive and easy to understand what's going on. Full flexibility is preserved as is now. No need to discriminate between single book and bulk metadata downloads -- they are the same (needs prev/next pages as in the single book "Edit Metadata" dialog). It would no longer be necessary to have checkmarks with each provider that tell which fields should be loaded -- just load them all, always. The user can still ignore the related spreadsheet cells. Disadvantages: Needs relatively much screen space, both in width and height. Like a spreadsheet, this might require horz./vert. scrolling. What do you think?