[chaley]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

Thanks so much, chaley! One of the reasons for this odd search is that it makes it easier to preview distinct author notes in the Book Details pane, which I have on the right side of the UI.

Now I'm thinking I could use a trimmed Comments custom column to be displayed above the Bio. So I would need one more tip: what template should I use to display a trimmed comments field above the author bio in BD, displaying only the first 300 characters from the Comments built in column?

I gather from this thread that I could use something like:

{comments:shorten(300,...,0)}
Is that correct?

That works fine. You could also do it in GPM using

program: shorten($comments, 300, '...', 0)

I don't think that the performance of the two will be significantly different, especially if the shortened column is displayed only in book details.

Would a PTM template be more suitable performace-wise?

Performance isn't an issue if the column is displayed only in book details. And in any event, for something this simple I don't think the difference between any of the modes will be significant.