Comment column?

[halloleo]

Each book in calibre has a comment field which can be edited in the Metdata dialog.

So far so good. But is there a way t see the comments in a column of the book list?

ps: I am starting to really love calibre! It's great to have all books in one place! Thanks to all contributors for this fantastic tool!

[BetterRed]

Short answer is no, but see JobSpy and CalibreSpy plugins

I show an icon on the Title cell if Comments aren't empty:



BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by halloleo

Each book in calibre has a comment field which can be edited in the Metdata dialog.

So far so good. But is there a way t see the comments in a column of the book list?

ps: I am starting to really love calibre! It's great to have all books in one place! Thanks to all contributors for this fantastic tool!

Comments is the DETAILS pane (bottom or side) when exposed using the book Icon at the BOTTOM RIGHT. It can contain too much to be useful in a column.

search comments: false to see whic books have no entries there

[Chrystalline]

I, too, wish there were a way to display the Comments as a column. What I've been doing up to now is copying the Comments over to a Custom Column I named Description (Long text, like comments, not shown in the Tag browser) using the Search/Replace function (with help from my brother, because RegEx makes no sense to me):
Right click the selected books and choose "Edit metadata in bulk"
Choose the third tab "Search and replace"
Search field comments
Search for (.+)
Replace with \1
Destination field #desc
Mode Replace Field
Split result checked yes

What I've run into lately is that my newer Portable version of Calibre (kept up to date) no longer has the Destination Field option that my older Desktop version (Win7 Calibre 4.3) had. I don't know if it's a difference between Desktop vs Portable, or older vs newer. If you're running the newer Desktop version and it still has the Destination field option, then it's the Desktop vs Portable. I've been copying my libraries back and forth to do the column copy and then go back to using the up-to-date Portable Calibre for everything else.

[theducks]

AFAIK It is the same Code base for Portable.
You forgot to set Search Mode (on the right) to REGEX

The field is not available in Character mode

Decoding you (brothers) REGEX
( start capture area
.+ wild card for any character repeated to infinity
) end the capture area


\1 Put the contents of the first capture area here

[Chrystalline]

Oh! That works, thank you! My saved search/replace on the desktop version has the search mode blank/unselected, so when I copied all settings exactly, I didn't have that information noted down. I guess it defaulted to RegEx if nothing was chosen, but now it doesn't do blank.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Chrystalline

Oh! That works, thank you! My saved search/replace on the desktop version has the search mode blank/unselected, so when I copied all settings exactly, I didn't have that information noted down. I guess it defaulted to RegEx if nothing was chosen, but now it doesn't do blank.

No need to note down, you can save the S&R parameters; here's mine:



What "doesn't do blank" ?

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

No need to note down, you can save the S&R parameters; here's mine:

Attachment 178164

What "doesn't do blank" ?

BR

Search mode in Bulk mode S&R
Allowing (initial) blank was probably a bug that we never saw because we either set it or the new user installer regressed

[halloleo]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Short answer is no, but see JobSpy and CalibreSpy plugins

I show an icon on the Title cell if Comments aren't empty:

Attachment 178160

BR

This sounds cool. Thanks! Where do I find this icon rules dialog? Do I need one of the plugins?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by halloleo

This sounds cool. Thanks! Where do I find this icon rules dialog? Do I need one of the plugins?

Sheesh, I already told you that, see post 2 IN THIS THREAD.

BR

[halloleo]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Sheesh, I already told you that, see post 2 IN THIS THREAD.

BR

Sorry, BetterRed to have annoyed you. For me it wasn't clear that your screen shot related to the plugins.

Now I have downloaded JobSpy and can see they have icon stuff in there. :-)

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by halloleo

Sorry, BetterRed to have annoyed you. For me it wasn't clear that your screen shot related to the plugins.

Now I have downloaded JobSpy and can see they have icon stuff in there. :-)

You don't need jobspy to put an icon on a column, it's baked into the core,

The screen shot in post 2 is at Preferences->Look and feel->Column icons (tab)->Add rule

What it does is to put the page.png icon (attached) beside the Title value if the Comments have anything in them (is set).

You can add the icons in Add Rule dialogue, at the top, on the right

BR

[halloleo]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

The screen shot in post 2 is at Preferences->Look and feel->Column icons (tab)->Add rule

What it does is to put the page.png icon (attached) beside the Title value if the Comments have anything in them (is set).
BR

Thanks a lot, BetterRed! I tried it out - and it works beautifully!

(Side note: I did check the calibre documenation for icon rule stuff, couldn't find anything - that's why I though it might be a plugin thing...)

[halloleo]

Also for anybody new here, I found a way to get the Comments automagically into a column:



This is very straight forward, but has the disadvantage (as somebody here already had pointed out) that long comments never fit in the column width.