[Inukami]

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

Unfortunately no, there's no way to have the same app installed twice. iOS (and Android) apps have an identifier in the app which is unique across all apps on the Appstore or Google Play, and two instances of the same identifier can't be installed.

Thanks for that information. I think I meant more if you had two apps each with a unique identifier. Marvin for example must have this for its normal version and the Marvin SS version. They are actually separate apps so would have different identifiers but are basically the same app. You can have a different library potentially in each app. Does that make sense? That is different to what you are suggesting about trying to install the same app twice. Sorry if my subject line didn't explain that well.

Originally Posted by Steve_Haley

As for the other question, chaley has given a fairly detailed answer already! Grouping and sorting on iOS works in a very similar manner to Android, so his advice should work. Actually, I think iOS allows to group/filter on multiple categories at once, whereas Android only allows one.

Yes. You and Chaley are correct. Didn't realise it had that feature until Chaley pointed it out, even though I thought I had read most in your FAQ (I guess it is sort of hidden with other information, so didn't see it as easily). iOS does allow you to group/filter on multiple categories.

Originally Posted by chaley

I am not the developer of iOS CC so I can't answer that sort of question. In fact, I don't own any Apple equipment and I have never used iOS CC, which is why my answers about iOS CC are often oblique. You can get more information about iOS CC development here.
Android has supported multiple users since Lollipop (Android 5). See this article and this article. For example, I have accounts on my phone for both my wife and me because she often doesn't carry her own phone when we are out together.

My understanding after asking Uncle Google is that iOS does not support multiple users.

That is correct. iOS doesn't have this feature. I think if you wanted to get anywhere close, you would have to sign out and sign in with another account which would be time consuming, not to mention annoying, and then not even sure if the app would still be there / allow a different user to use it differently.

Originally Posted by chaley

Again using Android CC (aCC) as my benchmark, sorting is always multi-level, where "multi-" is "3". If you sort by author then by tag you end up with a list of authors within tags. Once you have sorted 4 times the earliest level is dropped away.

However, I am not talking about sorting but am instead talking about searching. In aCC, if you long-press on an value in the grouping drawer, for example "Comic", aCC will restrict what you see to books with "Comic" in that column. You can subsequently sort the list however you want, group by other values in other columns, etc. This is very close to calibre's virtual library feature. The big difference is that in aCC you cannot search while you have restricted what you see (but you can "group").

I am not sure if we are using "sort" and "search" in the same way. To directly answer your question: yes, you can search after sorting, but I don't think this is really what you want. As I noted above, I think you want to restrict what you see in CC to books with a particular value in some column (e.g., a virtual library). in aCC, once you do that by long-pressing on a value (e.g., Comic) you can sort and group, but you cannot search. The reason: the restriction uses the search facility to do its business.

The above notwithstanding, grouping is very close to searching. For example, if you restrict (using long-press) to "Comic" then you can group on a tag or a language, further restricting the displayed books to that language, in effect "searching" for that value.

If your virtual libraries are defined by a single value in one custom column then there is no effective difference between the two. The virtual library column will contain the same values as the other custom column. However, if your virtual libraries are more complex then the two aren't the same. For example, you might have virtual libraries for Comics that include some sub-genre, which probably means that the calibre virtual library "search expression" references multiple columns. In this case the virtual library column will contain the results of the search, allowing that result to be used in CC.

So are you suggesting I just use the custom column (#library with Books & Comics) instead to sort my library as a virtual library wouldn't be very complex and because I only want to restrict what I see in CC to books with a particular value (Books or Comics) in some column? For example my first decision when I'm going to read something, is whether I'm going to read a book or comic, so I would need to sort into those two groups (?) first? And then after that I could search or sort further where needed.

I'm assuming if I just used this custom column method only, it would be just as easy to sort or search in Calibre as well? Or would it be easier if I had the comic and book virtual libraries in Calibre as I could change between the two like if I had two separate libraries?

Inukami