Last Accessed Column

[BetterRed]

Is there a way I can get Calibre to update a Custom Date column (Last Accessed) whenever I "do" anything to a book - i.e add it, add a format, remove a format, convert it, read it, update metadata, upload to a reader etc.

Thanks BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Is there a way I can get Calibre to update a Custom Date column (Last Accessed) whenever I "do" anything to a book - i.e add it, add a format, remove a format, convert it, read it, update metadata, upload to a reader etc.

Thanks BR

There is a column Already that comes close: last_modified
(it does not update for read only functions like View, Send...

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

There is a column Already that comes close: last_modified
(it does not update for read only functions like View, Send...

I've looked for Modified Date in Custom Columns & Book Details on more than one occasion, including just now, and I'm 99% sure it wasn't there. I've always been surprised, shocked even, not to find it, and I've been looking for it almost since the day I installed Calibre in February

But I just found it in the right click menu on the Columns Headings, I don't use that much. I don't recall ever looking in Show until just now.

When I selected Modified nothing happened, yes I scrolled over to the extreme right. So I restarted Calibre and there it was, on the extreme right where I expected it to be. And what's more its now in the Custom Columns and the Book Details Layout lists.

I'm sure it wasn't there before. If I had been looking for Last Accessed then I might have missed it, but I was looking for Modified because that's what I was expecting to find. I only thought of Last Accessed today when making this thread.

And before creating this thread I searched in the manual for 'Last Modified" the only meaningful result was in the FAQ section

You can also create “virtual columns” that contain combinations of the metadata from other columns. In the add column dialog use the Quick create links to easily create columns to show the book ISBN, formats or the time the book was last modified. For more details, see The calibre template language.

I interpret that as meaning Last Modified must be derived. For me that meant writing some win32 C to interrogate the properties of each file in a book folder to determine most recent Last Modified date and then figuring out how to call into the resultant dll from within The Calibre Template Language. That seemed bizarro to me

The default settings include the Date (Created) column, but not Date Modified, which strikes me as odd. Most (all ?) file based applications I've ever used (and IMO Calibre is primarily file based) put more emphasis on Modified Date than Create Date.

I'm happy to have discovered it was there all the time

But BR is very puzzled

[kiwidude]

It is nothing to do with the "last modified" value of the physical file. It can't possibly be that because of course you can have multiple book formats associated with a single book record. Instead the modified column represents "mostly" what you asked for in your first post, of a date when that book *record* was modified by editing of the metadata, adding/removing formats or conversions in calibre. However since the other things you mention like "last sent to device" or "last read" do not actually modify a book record then of course they will not result in that modified date changing.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

It is nothing to do with the "last modified" value of the physical file. It can't possibly be that because of course you can have multiple book formats associated with a single book record. Instead the modified column represents "mostly" what you asked for in your first post, of a date when that book *record* was modified by editing of the metadata, adding/removing formats or conversions in calibre. However since the other things you mention like "last sent to device" or "last read" do not actually modify a book record then of course they will not result in that modified date changing.

kiwidude, Did you read my most recent post mate - the issue is resolved, Now that I found Date Modified with a nudge from theducks.

I'm not going to regress back to February to find out why the Date Modified column went AWOL. The Last Accessed suggestion was my ideal given I couldn't find what I expected. The Date Modified is more than good enough, especially after 6 months of saying "I cant believe Kovid left this out"

The issue was exacerbated by ambiguities in the Manual.

BR