Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd
Hmm, I seem to recall there might be a plugin that copies the contents of a composite column to custom column when you quit Calibre or something if the values have changed. You might want to look into that.
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You would use a "Library Closed" plugin, which would have full access to calibre's database. If I were doing it I wouldn't bother with the composite column, instead calculating the value in the plugin then storing that value into an "contains names" column.
Two examples of library closed plugins:
Save Composite Custom Columns and
Save Virtual Libraries To Column
Quote:
Originally Posted by masp
Thanks: I'll look into it. It is a shame that composite columns can't share the "contains names" feature along with the "comma-separated text like tags" columns: that would be perfect! I wonder if it's a code limitation or a philosophical limitation?
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Both.
Both the Author columns and "Contains names" columns enforce ordering, ensuring that the authors always appear in the order they were originally listed. When custom columns were developed, comma-separated lists did not enforce order; a fetched list could have a different order from the originally stored list. As of calibre 3, all multiple fields enforce order, but no changes were made (see next issue).
More to the philosophical side: compatibility. Adding & as a separator would break anything that processes the list as text or constructs text from the list. For me, the benefit does not justify the pain.