Widgets limited to 20 books - Beta 5.3.3.1 (371)

[peekpoke]

Somehow the Widgets are now limited to 20 books.

The setting for maximum number of books when you add a widget seems to have no effect.

I tried 50, but as soon as I add the 21st book, the last book disappears. If I remove a book from the widget the last book does not re-appear, instead I now have 19 books. Upsetting since I was adding a bunch of books to read next, and lost a few off the bottom. I seem to remember that internally CC used to keep an infinite (or huge) list of books added to widget, and the setting when adding a widget only specified how many from the internal list would be shown. Now, it's 20.

And speaking of widgets......

It would also be wonderful is there was some kind of shortcut to go from a widget to the listing in CC. Perhaps a long hold tap, like several seconds? Right now it's pretty painful to get to the listing for a book I've just finished reading, I have to look up the title, so a search, and so on.

So... would be great to have some kind of trick to get from the widget to the info page in CC!

If there really is no way to get from the widget to CC, maybe a way to view the list of books opened in the same order as widget shows. Perhaps a new Group?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by peekpoke

Somehow the Widgets are now limited to 20 books.

The setting for maximum number of books when you add a widget seems to have no effect.

I tried 50, but as soon as I add the 21st book, the last book disappears. If I remove a book from the widget the last book does not re-appear, instead I now have 19 books. Upsetting since I was adding a bunch of books to read next, and lost a few off the bottom. I seem to remember that internally CC used to keep an infinite (or huge) list of books added to widget, and the setting when adding a widget only specified how many from the internal list would be shown. Now, it's 20.

The maximum has always been 20. The bug is that the configuration dialog allows values more than 20, which serves no purpose. I will change the maximum to 50 to match the highest value allowed in a configuration dialog. Setting it higher doesn't seem worth it to me, given that the higher number costs memory and processing time.

And speaking of widgets......

It would also be wonderful is there was some kind of shortcut to go from a widget to the listing in CC. Perhaps a long hold tap, like several seconds? Right now it's pretty painful to get to the listing for a book I've just finished reading, I have to look up the title, so a search, and so on.

So... would be great to have some kind of trick to get from the widget to the info page in CC!

If there really is no way to get from the widget to CC, maybe a way to view the list of books opened in the same order as widget shows. Perhaps a new Group?

Doesn't sort by date read give you this order, assuming you allow CC to automatically update the internal CC date read field?

CC cannot treat sort/group values from the widgets for several technical reasons.

Unfortunately Android doesn't provide a long-press event for desktop widgets.

[peekpoke]

Originally Posted by chaley

The maximum has always been 20. The bug is that the configuration dialog allows values more than 20, which serves no purpose. I will change the maximum to 50 to match the highest value allowed in a configuration dialog. Setting it higher doesn't seem worth it to me, given that the higher number costs memory and processing time.

I can understand all the cover thumbnails and metadata taking memory/processing, but surely just the list of book indexes must be tiny, just a few bytes per book in the list?
I was pretty sure (had hoped) it kept a list of indexes far longer than the widget limit.

Originally Posted by chaley

Doesn't sort by date read give you this order, assuming you allow CC to automatically update the internal CC date read field?

CC cannot treat sort/group values from the widgets for several technical reasons.

Ahhh, but there is no way to set the CC date read field without first finding the book. Let me give some typical flow:

Browse a few books searching, add them to the widget, pick one to read, days later when finished reading it how do I mark it as read in CC?
I have to do a search on the author/title, and find the book in CC, then mark as read.

I've never found a way to mark a book as read without manually searching for it... again. That's why I was hoping for a shortcut from the widget to the CC view.

Originally Posted by chaley

Unfortunately Android doesn't provide a long-press event for desktop widgets.

It looks like you can catch a double tap on a widget, would this work in the CC widget to get to CC from a double tapping on a books icon?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...he-same-intent

[chaley]

Originally Posted by peekpoke

Ahhh, but there is no way to set the CC date read field without first finding the book. Let me give some typical flow:

Browse a few books searching, add them to the widget, pick one to read, days later when finished reading it how do I mark it as read in CC?
I have to do a search on the author/title, and find the book in CC, then mark as read.

I've never found a way to mark a book as read without manually searching for it... again. That's why I was hoping for a shortcut from the widget to the CC view.

Use Date Read. CC can update Date Read every time it launches a reader on a book. Tapping on a widget does exactly that -- causes CC to launch a reader. To turn this on, go to CC Settings / Marking books read and check the box "Update Date Read when read".

In CC, by default when you sort by Date Read you will see the books listed in the reverse order of the read date with the latest book on top. If you see them in the forward order then choose the sort again to invert it.

It looks like you can catch a double tap on a widget, would this work in the CC widget to get to CC from a double tapping on a books icon?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...he-same-intent

That example isn't a double-tap. It is catching tapping on different parts of the widget.

The underlying object, a RemoteView, does not signal anything other than a tap. Some people try to time and count clicks to simulate double-tap, for example like this, but that level of kludge isn't something I want to do.

[peekpoke]

Originally Posted by chaley

Use Date Read. CC can update Date Read every time it launches a reader on a book. Tapping on a widget does exactly that -- causes CC to launch a reader. To turn this on, go to CC Settings / Marking books read and check the box "Update Date Read when read".

In CC, by default when you sort by Date Read you will see the books listed in the reverse order of the read date with the latest book on top. If you see them in the forward order then choose the sort again to invert it.

Unfortunately, this has the side effect of wiping out my Date Read if I ever open a book to refer to it. Like if I open a book to see how it ended before starting the next in a series... months or years later, then suddenly my original date read will be lost forever.

Also if I sort in Calibre by date read, suddenly a bunch of books I have not read yet will be mixed into the list.

Perhaps we could have a "Date Opened" so we don't have to modify Date Read?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by peekpoke

Unfortunately, this has the side effect of wiping out my Date Read if I ever open a book to refer to it. Like if I open a book to see how it ended before starting the next in a series... months or years later, then suddenly my original date read will be lost forever.

Also if I sort in Calibre by date read, suddenly a bunch of books I have not read yet will be mixed into the list.

Perhaps we could have a "Date Opened" so we don't have to modify Date Read?

If you don't like the behavior of CC's date read then you could add a column that you manually update to contain the one-true date read. This seems to be a reasonable approach, given that for you date read seems to be arbitrary. This way you can use CC's Date Read as Date Opened, and you can use the new custom column however you wish.

TBH I am not interested in adding yet another date to CC that is used by 1 or 2 people. Been there and done that.

[chaley]

I have been thinking about this and perhaps have a solution.

There is currently a date in CC, "date accessed", that is set to when the CC main screens (list, grid) open book details for a book. The intent was (is) to recover context; to help find a way back to the last books looked at, which is really what you are looking for with your widget date request. Reading a book is very arguably an "access" of the metadata for that book. I have no problem updating the "date accessed" when CC opens a book in a reader in addition to when it is opened in book details. If I do this then if you sort the list by date accessed then the book you last read should be somewhere very near the top.

Does anyone who currently uses "date accessed" have a problem with this change?

[peekpoke]

Originally Posted by chaley

There is currently a date in CC, "date accessed", that is set to when the CC main screens (list, grid) open book details for a book. The intent was (is) to recover context; to help find a way back to the last books looked at, which is really what you are looking for with your widget date request. Reading a book is very arguably an "access" of the metadata for that book. I have no problem updating the "date accessed" when CC opens a book in a reader in addition to when it is opened in book details. If I do this then if you sort the list by date accessed then the book you last read should be somewhere very near the top.

Does anyone who currently uses "date accessed" have a problem with this change?

That would be fine for me, in fact that's kind of what I thought "data accessed" was! (but it never seemed to work, now I know why).

Also I can confirm new in the new beta, the widgets are not longer limited to 20 books. I just tested the book covers, and the detailed list, both showed 23 when I added a few books to test it beyond 20. Thanks!

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by chaley

I have been thinking about this and perhaps have a solution.

There is currently a date in CC, "date accessed", that is set to when the CC main screens (list, grid) open book details for a book. The intent was (is) to recover context; to help find a way back to the last books looked at, which is really what you are looking for with your widget date request. Reading a book is very arguably an "access" of the metadata for that book. I have no problem updating the "date accessed" when CC opens a book in a reader in addition to when it is opened in book details. If I do this then if you sort the list by date accessed then the book you last read should be somewhere very near the top.

Does anyone who currently uses "date accessed" have a problem with this change?

For me those two situations are virtually the same. Not a problem here!

Thanks for a great (and highly configurable) app!

[DoctorOhh]

Seems reasonable to me.

[chaley]

The date accessed change is in today's beta.