Provide a Toolbar/menu item for Manage Authors, Tags, etc

[BetterRed]

I'm referring to this:



I've wanted this as a toolbar/menu item for 'ever'. The reason I'm late in asking is that I am always puzzled that its not there already. I've looked for it countless times, and when I don't find it I convince myself I've missed it

I appreciate there are other paths to get to Manage category panels. But, only if you have the Tag Browser or Book Details panels shown - I normally have them hidden. Today I must have opened and closed the TB at least a 100 times - just to get at Manage Authors, Manage Publishers etc.

I have this sinking feeling someone is going to tell me its in xxxxxx

BR

[kovidgoyal]

No, I dont think it's there anywhere else. At least not that I recall but I'm not a big user of it.

[theducks]

Hmmm
I also wondered why I always had to open the Tag browser to use Manage.

I also wondered why Manage <item> did not have a Merge (combine. would work like the one in main books. )

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No, I dont think it's there anywhere else. At least not that I recall but I'm not a big user of it.

Originally Posted by theducks

Hmmm
I also wondered why I always had to open the Tag browser to use Manage.

Well, that's a relief, good to know that its not just me.

I guess it could be done with a plugin - but that seems like overkill to me - here's an icon that could be used for the toolbar item:



BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I guess it could be done with a plugin - but that seems like overkill to me - here's an icon that could be used for the toolbar item:

Attachment 177190

BR

YES!

[kovidgoyal]

Well I have nothing against having such an action addable to the toolbars/menus, but I am also not particularly keen to write the code for it. Patches are welcome.

[BetterRed]

Then I'm assuming its not a five line change; given I've lived without it this long…

BTW: I've worn out Ctrl+Alt+D, not the key caps, the functionality - it's sending a '2'

BR

[kovidgoyal]

Its not really a change one basically has to implement the equivalent of a plugin within calibre. And this plugin would be complicated by the fact of having to deal with multiple books being selected and how to act on a book with multiple authors/tags/whatever.

[BetterRed]

No worries

Sometimes I see 5 line changes and go "Wow! that was easy", other times I see 100 line changes and go "Wow! all that just for that"

Maybe, I should retract:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I guess it could be done with a plugin - but that seems like overkill to me

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Its not really a change one basically has to implement the equivalent of a plugin within calibre. And this plugin would be complicated by the fact of having to deal with multiple books being selected and how to act on a book with multiple authors/tags/whatever.

FTR: if you access a Manage <category> via the Tab Browser Configuration option (as per my earlier screenshot) the current book's metadata, current booklist search, and current virtual library have no apparent influence on what's shown. The cursor is in the Search box, the most recently used item highlighted, and the complete list is shown. The number of books selected seems to be irrelevant, including none.

If you select Manage <category> from the context menu of a specific item (e.g. an Author in the Tag Browser or a Publisher in Book Details) the specific item is highlighted, but the rest is the same.

BR

[Rev. Bob]

This is similar to a feature I’ve been wanting for a while: the ability to set the values of custom fields upon adding a book to the library. For instance, I have a Y/N column that tells me whether I’ve downloaded a book’s metadata or not, and another column that I use to keep track of books which are new or have been changed in some way since I last backed up my library. It’d be nice to be able to tell calibre to automatically set both of those columns to the proper values for incoming books.

For that matter, when creating a new custom column, it’d be really swell if I could define its starting value for existing books, rather than have it always default to empty/undefined.

We can already tell calibre to autoconvert books from one format to another, or to set specific tags, during the import process. This would seem to be a natural extension of that module.

[BetterRed]

@Rev. Bob - the Job Spy plugin has a couple of features that might help:

• Keyboard Shortcuts for [up to 4] Custom Column Auto-Fill?
• Apply Default Values [up to 3 Y/N Custom Columns on Autoadd]

BR