Changing the name of a Genre

[Berzelius]

I have started looking at Genres and so far I have created a single Genre, History, and a number of sub-genres in it.

I can easily change the name of any sub-genre by right clicking on it and choosing Rename. However, there is no Rename option when I right click on the the Genre itself (History). The only work around I can find is to individually rename all the sub-genres, either by right clicking each one or, slightly easier, renaming each sub-genre in Manage Genre.

Is there an easier way to change a Genre name?

[Berzelius]

An update. It would seem that the only names you can alter are those of the lowest sub-genres.

I have just created a genre called Crime and in it I have created a number of sub-genres, one of which is called Police Detective Series. In this I have have a number of sub-sub-genres with names such as Inspector Morse, Inspector Wexford etc. Now, if I right click on these lowest levels, such as Inspector Morse or Inspector Wexford, I get the option to change the name. However, if I right click on the higher levels, namely Police Detective Series or Crime, there is no option to change the names.

Am I missing something here or have I found a limitation?

[chaley]

Telling calibre that an item such as genre is hierarchical only changes how it is displayed. It does not change the "name" of the item. For example, "Police Detective.Inspector Wexford" is a single item, not two. The same for "Police Detective.Inspector Morse". In this case there is no item named "Police Detective" that you can rename, which is why you are not offered the rename option when you click on "Police Detective". When you rename a lowest-level item you can change any part of the name including any parts before dots.

If you wish to rename all genres that begin with "Police Detective" to something else then you should use bulk metadata edit / search & replace. That will let you change all genres that begin with "Police Detective" to whatever you want.

[Berzelius]

Thanks for your reply. Having taking in your comment about parts of names not actually existing and having done some more experimenting I now realise that the anything you work with must involve books (in fact, one of the error messages I came across was that no books were chosen). I think I now know how to find my way around Genres.

One final point. I noted the warning in Search and replace about the risk of nuking your library. In fact, whilst experimenting I did manage to force Calibre to close a couple of times - fortunately without any lasting damage. However I've decided to play safe in future and only work with the lowest levels. Despite it being allowable I don't intend to put books in higher levels. I'd say that an important thing, before starting to create your system, is to look very carefully at all the books that will be involved and to think long and hard about the structure. Oh, and avoid any spelling mistakes.

And why persevere with Genres? Quite simple - having a structured tree is vastly superior to having a flat Tags system.