Tags and not alphabetizing

[BookJunkieLI]

I know this has been discussed before, and the answer is usually no. I'm just kind of hoping that a new tweak or workaround has been developed that I don't know about.

Basically I need some way for Calibre to not alphabetize the tags when they're imported in. Certain archives, like Archive Of Our Own aka AO3, list the relationship tags in order of importance, not alphabet. I'd really like to be able to keep that order so that I can properly label my stories.

Thanks.

[BetterRed]

@BookJunkieLI - the only thing that comes to my mind is to use hierarchical tags, see ==>> Managing subgroups of books, for example “genre”

I guess what you're after is a) a tweak to designate tags to be kept in the order that they're entered and/or b) an ordering feature (up/down green arrows) in the Tag Editor->Applied Tags list.

Slightly I would also like a tweak that would pop the Tag Editor dialogue when a Tags cell is edited from the Book list (a'la the Comments Editor) rather than the current simple text edit box.

BR

[BookJunkieLI]

@BetterRed - the hierarchical tag system isn't really what I'm looking for but thanks for the suggestion. I'm also wondering at what point the alphabetizing is occurring during the import process. I'm using the FFDL plugin but I can't say for sure that it's a Calibre issue or a FFDL issue. I just tried importing the tags into a long text, comments style column and once again all the tags were alphabetized. I wouldn't think that comment column would alphabetize anything which leads me to believe it has something to do with how the information is being called in the first place. Sigh. I suspect for the project I have in mind I'm going to have to do this hard way, which also means the really long way. Meh.

I agree having the Tag Editor popup from the Books List would be nice.

[davidfor]

Calibre does seem to keep the order. While the details pane shows them in alphabetical order, the metadata editor still shows them in the order they were entered or read from the epub.

The Tag editor popup also sorts them. Saving from there does change the order.

[theducks]

While you see tags as a comma list in the spreadsheet view. In reality they are individual Master records (1 to Many), with DB links from the book record

[davidfor]

Correct, but the user only sees the list of text values. That is displayed in ways. In alphabetical order on the book details panel or the order they were added in the metadata editor. I would like the option to use latter in the book details panel.

I have looked at the database for this before, but checked my memory. There is no order information for the tags within a book. The list of tag ids is probably just coming back in the physical database order which matches the order they were added in.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Calibre does seem to keep the order. While the details pane shows them in alphabetical order, the metadata editor still shows them in the order they were entered or read from the epub.

The Tag editor popup also sorts them. Saving from there does change the order.

@davidfor - Yes good point, even if the tags are left untouched (no additions or removals) and one clicks OK then the book/tag data is resequenced, see attachments.

Added : I think that disproves you last hypothesis, added a screen shot of the Tag table.

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@davidfor - Yes good point, even if the tags are left untouched (no additions or removals) and one clicks OK then the book/tag data is resequenced, see attachments.

Added : I think that disproves you last hypothesis

BR

I suspect they will change again when you run Library Maintenance.
The First pass compresses the db (reloads tables from dumps?)

[kovidgoyal]

If you want a tags like column in which order is preserved you can create a custom column in Preferences->Add your own columns (check the box that says 'Contains names'). IIRC, order is preserved for tags like columns containing names, just like it is for the authors column, you will have to use & instead of , as the separator, however.

@davidfor: Order information for all many-many columns is stored in the link table, the order in which the entries for a particular book appear in that table is significant.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

I suspect they will change again when you run Library Maintenance.
The First pass compresses the db (reloads tables from dumps?)

Yes, you're probably right, you'd have to devise a scheme for maintaining the order in the metadata.opf file, I guess one could rely on relative position, but one would probably prefer not to do that.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

If you want a tags like column in which order is preserved you can create a custom column in Preferences->Add your own columns (check the box that says 'Contains names'). IIRC, order is preserved for tags like columns containing names, just like it is for the authors column, you will have to use & instead of, as the separator, however.

If Contains names is checked on a custom tags column and '&' is used they seem to get reordered when you add & remove values in the metadata editor custom column.

But no matter how hard I try, I cannot get that to happen with the Author column - i.e. the order I put them in is always preserved

BR

[kovidgoyal]

That's because there is no such thing as a metadata editor for authors. If you wish order to always be preserved, simply dont use that editor for your custom column.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

If you want a tags like column in which order is preserved you can create a custom column in Preferences->Add your own columns (check the box that says 'Contains names'). IIRC, order is preserved for tags like columns containing names, just like it is for the authors column, you will have to use & instead of , as the separator, however.

@davidfor: Order information for all many-many columns is stored in the link table, the order in which the entries for a particular book appear in that table is significant.

Oops. I didn't look at the actual structure, just viewed the data. The viewer I was using can display a rowid as the first column. I read the "id" column as that number.

That order was what I was referring to. But, as I hadn't noticed that the primary key was the id, I assumed it was just the row creation order. The id does give a sequence for the tags in the book. I can see similar things happening with all the link tables.

For the tags, there is some inconsistency in the display. In the metadata edit screen, they in the id order. Everywhere else they are in alphabetical order. The OP, and I agree, feels that tag order is important. Having them displayed in this order would be good.

Of course, I think I know the answer: "Patches are welcome"

[kovidgoyal]

Tags being displayed alphabetically is a design choice in calibre. For many-many columns with order preserving properties, use the name like custom columns, as I posted before.

Changing tags to preserve order will require a fair bit of changes, in various places ranging from metadata storage/retrieval to UI widgets like the tag editor and so on. And since there is a case to be made for both approaches, alphabetical vs. entry order (I personally prefer alphabetical, it allows me to find a tag in a list of book's tags easily) and there is a way to have an order preserving many-many column, this is not something I am willing to change.

[davidfor]

So, the one inconsistency in the display of tags is the one I like the most

We obviously are looking at these differently. If I'm scrolling through the list, I'm just looking at the start of the tags. It only when I stop on a book that I go deeper and read through them. Or I use the tag browser to find all the books for a tag.

Using a custom column for tags isn't very convenient. It won't get populated by the metadata download so there would be some copy and paste afterwards.