Tag and author field limit problem....

[jecilop]

So, is there a tweak available to increase the capacity of the tag field (and author field)?

BOTTOM Line: SO......I think it's not about count as much as the "database field" that the GUI is filling in. I'm thinking it has a field size or character limit to it.

Any input?

WHAT happened:

At first I thought it was a count limit to the author field. Not all of my author entries will show. Let me point out that this is an attempt to get ALL of my authors in the author field. I promise there are good reasons outside the other search abilities of what Calibre already has.

However, when adding authors in a custom tag field last evening trying to "start over", I noticed it actually cut a name off and accepted part of it. After removing some of the last tags and trying again using a different variation of names at the end, the same thing happened.

Ex: John Mockingbird cuts off as John Mocki
The same thing would happen with another one when I deleted some from the end (using tag editor) and tried others.....sometimes the last name it accepted would cut off in some way.

What I do in order to add all authors is copy them to a tag style column for authors, then I use the tag style button for adding to the field and go through all of them. Then I would copy/paste them from the custom field to my default authors field. This is when I first discovered that there appeared to be a limit in the default authors field. I kept trying to add the authors that didn't make it, but it would not work. You can type them. They don't stay.

I decided to start over having edited my authors adding more and such.....when trying to group them all in the custom field styled as tags, it left a lot of them out ...Yes, I can click to add, but after OK they never make it in. Then I noticed that when I went back to the tag style list, the last author that made it was "cut off" as noted above.

SO......I think it's not about count as much as the "database field" that the GUI is filling in. I'm thinking it has a field size or character limit to it.

Any input?
I really don't want to have to create 2 entries to split all the authors.

[theducks]

Home and End work to see the edges. (the field does need to be in edit mode if looking at the Spreadsheet) The data is still there.

Hover also shows more of the contents

You can resize columns (within screen limits)

[jecilop]

@JustDuckies...I think you misunderstand the problem...It's not about what I can view.

It's literally that I can't add any more authors in the author field or tags in a custom field set to act like tags.
I can type them or pull them from the pull down or (in the case of tag style columns) click them to add, but after the Enter or OK...they still aren't there. In the case of the tags style column ,you can go back to add more and see them back in the left column.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jecilop

@JustDuckies...I think you misunderstand the problem...It's not about what I can view.

It's literally that I can't add any more authors in the author field or tags in a custom field set to act like tags.
I can type them or pull them from the pull down or (in the case of tag style columns) click them to add, but after the Enter or OK...they still aren't there. In the case of the tags style column ,you can go back to add more and see them back in the left column.

Did you add a & before trying to choose the next Author? That is the flag (and separator) to do another lookup.

(Comma has that function in Tags)
I have a Author-like field wher I list the authors in anthologies / collections and have never hit a limit

[jecilop]

Originally Posted by theducks

Did you add a & before trying to choose the next Author? That is the flag (and separator) to do another lookup.

(Comma has that function in Tags)
I have a Author-like field wher I list the authors in anthologies / collections and have never hit a limit

Yes, ...I promise I'm not new to the basics of Calibre :-)

And note...I tried BOTH methods and hit limits...
One field is the standard author field.....no more authors are accepted.
The other field is the custom column tag style...I can no longer click the tag options and successfully add them to that field.

[jecilop]

To be clear, I have over 1770 entries I've attempted to fit into the author field and my custom tag field based on authors as described above...

Anthologies work fine even if an unusually large number is applied.

I've trying to include all unique author entries and put into ONE field.... it hits a limit as described that may be count but seems more likely capacity as if it's a field for which you actually have basic character limits where the comma or ampersand are read as breaks for values....but you can still only function with so many characters in the field.

That's what it appears to be doing.

[jecilop]

I can add that on another test of this, the custom tag field (which looks just like the default author field to allow a simple copy/paste from one to another) is allowing for 3 (and a half so to speak) more names than the default author field. I copy/pasted the names exactly the same way into each. In both cases, I was "cut off" from adding more....I can type on the keyboard all I want to click available names, and nothing adds. Again, in the case of the tag style field, it took a name like Sylvia and cut it off so Sy literally creating a new name tag if I hit enter.

In the case of the author field, if it matters, that's 1644 names accepted. I can vary it to get 1646, but it still will cut off a name ...no more can be typed or pasted.

[kovidgoyal]

the db has no such limits, it doesnt even store authors/tags in fields, they are stored in normalized relational tables. You are most likely hitting limits of the Qt line editing widget. You can probably work around it by using the calibredb commnad line tool to set the field.