Simplifying Tags

katmarsc · 04-14-2011, 12:14 PM

Was wondering if someone could help me with tags. When I download the metadata I get all kinds of tags all within the same "family". I go thru and delete what I don't need but now it is just messy with so many "tags". For example, I get Historical, History, historical fiction, historical romance and etc. Is there a way to group those and not rename them all the time to the same name?

philandjan · 04-14-2011, 12:37 PM

Whenever I download metadata I immediately go to Manage Tabs (right click Tabs tab in left hand margin) and delete most of the new ones that have just been added.

I try to keep no more than 80 tabs and am looking to reduce the number even further.

I think that you need to decide what tabs you want and how much you will use them.

For instance, I am quite happy to have one tab for Detective & Mystery, and do away with all sub-genres such as murders, psychopaths, police, police procedures, New York, New York police, New York procedures....ad infinitum and ad nauseum

It all gets a bit tedious though.

I shall be watching other comments with interest.

And Welcome to the Forum. If you are like me, you will learn a great deal, wonder why other people have problems and watch some topics go straight over your head and disappear into the ether of geekland!

Starson17 · 04-14-2011, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by philandjan

It all gets a bit tedious though.
I shall be watching other comments with interest.

Personally, I just keep all tags and use them as a grab bag of data about the books in my library that I can search through. It's way too much trouble to organize them, and I hate throwing away data.

If you are into the OCD of perfect control over your tags, I'd suggest putting copies of the tags you want into a custom column #my_tags. Limit the tags in #my_tags and leave tags alone. Then your personal tags won't get polluted every time you fetch metadata from the web. You can combine "tags" and "#my_tags" into a single searchable virtual field, if you wish.

drMerry · 04-14-2011, 03:10 PM

I have this problem to.
I'm dealing with it in this way:

Right click on a tag you want to remove. rename it: TODELETE
Do this for all tags you want to remove.
At last, click on TODELETE
Select all books (ctrl+a)
Press E (edit all)
Put TODELETE into the tags to remove field

Not a perfect way, but it is the fastest way I know.

theducks · 04-14-2011, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drMerry

I have this problem to.
I'm dealing with it in this way:

Right click on a tag you want to remove. rename it: TODELETE
Do this for all tags you want to remove.
At last, click on TODELETE
Select all books (ctrl+a)
Press E (edit all)
Put TODELETE into the tags to remove field

Not a perfect way, but it is the fastest way I know.

Easier
Open the Metadata editor
on the 'Tags line', Right side: click the button.
Now highlight the undesired tags in the list and use the button on the LEFT.

The problem with this: It just removes tags. It does not 'adjust' or consolidate them

Another (and IMHO, better) way is open the Tag Browser, And rename it to whatever: Even if the destination Tag already exists.
Presto

Consolidated

Noughty · 04-14-2011, 04:24 PM

Thats the same way I do. I just check all the tags I don't want and delete them. But I was wondering if it is possible to make it that History and Historical would be the same tag. Like grouping of tags. Maybe making a custom column? Tried do do it for my tags and downloaded tags, but only my tags get shown. How the template should look to merge two columns?
I don't want to delete History tag I just want to change it to Historical. And now I do it manually but that is a pain. Since adding a new book means you need to redo it again. Maybe someone can fill me in on how to make custom columns?

DoctorOhh · 04-14-2011, 11:13 PM

I may be wrong, but I think I heard that 0.8.xx might allow setting user defined mappings for tags. So you can map multiple variants of incoming tags to a single version in calibre.

Sci fi, Sci-fi, Science-fiction Sy-Fy could be set to map to a single Science Fiction tag in your library.

I minimize my tags and I still have 900.

philandjan · 04-15-2011, 09:54 AM

I think that I may be guilty, as are a number of other people, of confusing "genres" with "tags".

For the most part, I am not interested in tags. It is genres that hold the key for me.

For example, Pinocchio would be in the genre "Children's Fiction", but it would have tags such as "puppet, big nose, liar, carpenter, Jimminy Cricket, etc".

Does anybody know of a site where you can obtain genres in the same way that downloading metadata bombards you with multi-millions of tags?

Starson17 · 04-15-2011, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by philandjan

I think that I may be guilty, as are a number of other people, of confusing "genres" with "tags".

For the most part, I am not interested in tags. It is genres that hold the key for me.

For example, Pinocchio would be in the genre "Children's Fiction", but it would have tags such as "puppet, big nose, liar, carpenter, Jimminy Cricket, etc".

Does anybody know of a site where you can obtain genres in the same way that downloading metadata bombards you with multi-millions of tags?

For me, genres are tags, and the tags you get include genres. The problem is using the tags when different tags are used for the same genre (SciFi, Science Fiction,. etc.) and when there are so many tags it's hard to find what you want in the browser. Many people keep a separate custom column for genres. That's the same solution I recommended above, except that the name of the custom column is #genres, not #my_tags.

As to your question, you're asking for more tags, but focused on genres. Yes, I've seen such sites, but they have limited coverage. The broad coverage sites include genres in the tags already.

I've got some saved searches I use for genres. I search the comments and tags for Science Fiction, ScienceFiction, SF, Black Holes, etc, then exclude all that have my normal SciFi tag. Any that show up that are SciFi, I just add the SciFi tag to globally, and they never show up again. Others would probably add SciFi to their #genres custom column.

ldolse · 04-15-2011, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by philandjan

I think that I may be guilty, as are a number of other people, of confusing "genres" with "tags".

For the most part, I am not interested in tags. It is genres that hold the key for me.

For example, Pinocchio would be in the genre "Children's Fiction", but it would have tags such as "puppet, big nose, liar, carpenter, Jimminy Cricket, etc".

Does anybody know of a site where you can obtain genres in the same way that downloading metadata bombards you with multi-millions of tags?

I'm not sure if the feature dwanthny mentions will be in .8, but Overdrive will likely be a metadata source at that point, and they keep a strict list of Genres. I've got it working locally on my machine for metadata, but due to the way Metadata download works in the .7.x series it will need to wait until .8.

By the way, those of you looking for simple ways to delete the tags, there is an easier way. Open up the Tag Browser panel, then right click on the top level of 'tags'. Select 'Manage Tags', and you can delete/rename to your heart's content.

kiwidude · 04-15-2011, 10:18 AM

@philandjan - you also might want to try using the Goodreads metadata download plugin. It will populate your tags column only with only genres.

The Goodreads metadata plugin uses a mapping process which was originally designed to turn "popular shelf" names for a book into genre tags. Recently with Goodreads changes to their website, a lot of the need for this mapping is gone as they now do this themselves. So a book will have a genre displayed of "Science Fiction" on the Goodreads website, rather than "sci-fi", "science-fiction" etc from popular shelves of users.

The mappings between Goodreads shelves and Calibre tags still takes place after their website changes (just with some different mappings). There are still certain shelf names that appear as Genres I want to exclude. However they are far simpler. You can see them in the spoiler on the front page of that plugin thread.

I think perhaps what dwanthny is mentioning above is the changes I have planned for Calibre 0.8. The mappings I mention above are currently all hard-coded into the plugin - so if you preferred some slightly different combinations, tag names etc then you either have to change the code or ask me. I am going to have to rewrite the plugin anyway for Calibre 0.8 because of the new way metadata download will work. As part of that I propose to allow users in the plugin configuration dialog to modify the default set of mappings I provide to add/remove their own. So for instance if you want "Paranormal > Romance" genre from Goodreads to be "Paranomal.Romance" in Calibre for a nested hierarchy of tags you will be able to do that etc.

DoctorOhh · 04-15-2011, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwidude

I think perhaps what dwanthny is mentioning above is the changes I have planned for Calibre 0.8.

That's most likely what was floating in my brain. Of course after .8 and you perfect the user controlled mapping it will be hard for Kovid to resist incorporating this feature into the main calibre program.

Janette55 · 04-15-2011, 10:01 PM

me, I like it plain and simple. I mainly just highlight the tags in the line and delete them. Then add a couple of plain simple ones. Mystery, then go Am or Brit or His to identify type. Romance, well, that I can do as PN romance, His romance, Com romance. Time Travel can be future or past and that covers it.

I know that a lot wants to clarify better what is in it, but if Iwent that route I would go overboard and have fifty tags for a book, so I am trying to make it as simple as possible.

' "For example, Pinocchio would be in the genre "Children's Fiction", but it would have tags such as "puppet, big nose, liar, carpenter, Jimminy Cricket, etc".' if definitely a good example of how I could go overboard in giving tags.

What I think works best if find ones that work for you. For me, PNR vamp or PNR weres, would work to let me know it is a paranormal romance with vampires or with weres, whatever type they are. HisBrit MR lets me know it is a historical murder mystery based in England.
Of course, that only works if the only person involved is me. If I had to share my reader, or Calibre with someone else, it would be a whole other story.

The Goodreads is a good way to go to help keep things straight. I think they have too many shelves, but that is me.

04-14-2011, 12:14 PM	#1
katmarsc Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2011 Device: kindle	Simplifying Tags Was wondering if someone could help me with tags. When I download the metadata I get all kinds of tags all within the same "family". I go thru and delete what I don't need but now it is just messy with so many "tags". For example, I get Historical, History, historical fiction, historical romance and etc. Is there a way to group those and not rename them all the time to the same name? Last edited by katmarsc; 04-14-2011 at 12:26 PM.

04-14-2011, 04:24 PM	#6
Noughty Addict Posts: 352 Karma: 103850 Join Date: Apr 2011 Device: Kindle NT	Thats the same way I do. I just check all the tags I don't want and delete them. But I was wondering if it is possible to make it that History and Historical would be the same tag. Like grouping of tags. Maybe making a custom column? Tried do do it for my tags and downloaded tags, but only my tags get shown. How the template should look to merge two columns? I don't want to delete History tag I just want to change it to Historical. And now I do it manually but that is a pain. Since adding a new book means you need to redo it again. Maybe someone can fill me in on how to make custom columns? Last edited by Noughty; 04-14-2011 at 04:26 PM.

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04-14-2011, 12:37 PM	#2
philandjan Trainee Old Git Posts: 78 Karma: 162 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Dégagnac, France Device: Kindle	Whenever I download metadata I immediately go to Manage Tabs (right click Tabs tab in left hand margin) and delete most of the new ones that have just been added. I try to keep no more than 80 tabs and am looking to reduce the number even further. I think that you need to decide what tabs you want and how much you will use them. For instance, I am quite happy to have one tab for Detective & Mystery, and do away with all sub-genres such as murders, psychopaths, police, police procedures, New York, New York police, New York procedures....ad infinitum and ad nauseum It all gets a bit tedious though. I shall be watching other comments with interest. And Welcome to the Forum. If you are like me, you will learn a great deal, wonder why other people have problems and watch some topics go straight over your head and disappear into the ether of geekland!

04-14-2011, 03:10 PM	#4
drMerry Addict Posts: 293 Karma: 21022 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: NL Device: Sony PRS-650	I have this problem to. I'm dealing with it in this way: Right click on a tag you want to remove. rename it: TODELETE Do this for all tags you want to remove. At last, click on TODELETE Select all books (ctrl+a) Press E (edit all) Put TODELETE into the tags to remove field Not a perfect way, but it is the fastest way I know.

04-14-2011, 11:13 PM	#7
DoctorOhh US Navy, Retired Posts: 9,894 Karma: 13806776 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: North Carolina Device: Icarus Illumina XL HD, Kindle PaperWhite SE 11th Gen	I may be wrong, but I think I heard that 0.8.xx might allow setting user defined mappings for tags. So you can map multiple variants of incoming tags to a single version in calibre. Sci fi, Sci-fi, Science-fiction Sy-Fy could be set to map to a single Science Fiction tag in your library. I minimize my tags and I still have 900.

04-15-2011, 09:54 AM	#8
philandjan Trainee Old Git Posts: 78 Karma: 162 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Dégagnac, France Device: Kindle	I think that I may be guilty, as are a number of other people, of confusing "genres" with "tags". For the most part, I am not interested in tags. It is genres that hold the key for me. For example, Pinocchio would be in the genre "Children's Fiction", but it would have tags such as "puppet, big nose, liar, carpenter, Jimminy Cricket, etc". Does anybody know of a site where you can obtain genres in the same way that downloading metadata bombards you with multi-millions of tags?

04-15-2011, 10:18 AM	#11
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,726 Karma: 2197770 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	@philandjan - you also might want to try using the Goodreads metadata download plugin. It will populate your tags column only with only genres. The Goodreads metadata plugin uses a mapping process which was originally designed to turn "popular shelf" names for a book into genre tags. Recently with Goodreads changes to their website, a lot of the need for this mapping is gone as they now do this themselves. So a book will have a genre displayed of "Science Fiction" on the Goodreads website, rather than "sci-fi", "science-fiction" etc from popular shelves of users. The mappings between Goodreads shelves and Calibre tags still takes place after their website changes (just with some different mappings). There are still certain shelf names that appear as Genres I want to exclude. However they are far simpler. You can see them in the spoiler on the front page of that plugin thread. I think perhaps what dwanthny is mentioning above is the changes I have planned for Calibre 0.8. The mappings I mention above are currently all hard-coded into the plugin - so if you preferred some slightly different combinations, tag names etc then you either have to change the code or ask me. I am going to have to rewrite the plugin anyway for Calibre 0.8 because of the new way metadata download will work. As part of that I propose to allow users in the plugin configuration dialog to modify the default set of mappings I provide to add/remove their own. So for instance if you want "Paranormal > Romance" genre from Goodreads to be "Paranomal.Romance" in Calibre for a nested hierarchy of tags you will be able to do that etc.

04-15-2011, 10:01 PM	#13
Janette55 Connoisseur Posts: 88 Karma: 2056 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Ohio Device: Sony 900	me, I like it plain and simple. I mainly just highlight the tags in the line and delete them. Then add a couple of plain simple ones. Mystery, then go Am or Brit or His to identify type. Romance, well, that I can do as PN romance, His romance, Com romance. Time Travel can be future or past and that covers it. I know that a lot wants to clarify better what is in it, but if Iwent that route I would go overboard and have fifty tags for a book, so I am trying to make it as simple as possible. ' "For example, Pinocchio would be in the genre "Children's Fiction", but it would have tags such as "puppet, big nose, liar, carpenter, Jimminy Cricket, etc".' if definitely a good example of how I could go overboard in giving tags. What I think works best if find ones that work for you. For me, PNR vamp or PNR weres, would work to let me know it is a paranormal romance with vampires or with weres, whatever type they are. HisBrit MR lets me know it is a historical murder mystery based in England. Of course, that only works if the only person involved is me. If I had to share my reader, or Calibre with someone else, it would be a whole other story. The Goodreads is a good way to go to help keep things straight. I think they have too many shelves, but that is me.

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