Q: Metadata Bulk Edit and Replace

[phossler]

I have 100+ books with titles similar to

"Doctor Who - Target Novelisations - 001 - The Abominable Snowmen"

I wanted to use bulk edit / search & replace to split the title into other fields

Title = "The Abominable Snowmen"
Series = "Doctor Who"
Number = 1

The Series part is easy since the Basic Metadata tab has a place

Is it possible?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by phossler

I have 100+ books with titles similar to

"Doctor Who - Target Novelisations - 001 - The Abominable Snowmen"

I wanted to use bulk edit / search & replace to split the title into other fields

Title = "The Abominable Snowmen"
Series = "Doctor Who"
Number = 1

The Series part is easy since the Basic Metadata tab has a place

Is it possible?

When you select more than 1 book, the tap 'E" (Metadata edit), you get BULK MODE. That has a Search and replace tab that makes what you want to do easy.
The Gotcha.
You really want to use REGEX for more powerful stuff
Select books that you want to do the exact or similar pattern actions at the same time. The test column will show if your template is doing close to what you want.
BACKUP YOUR LIBRARY. There is no UNDO if you do it wrong.

[phossler]

Already tried that - no joy

To experiment, I tried several variations of this, just to pull out the series number

So I'm thinking I'm missing something

[theducks]

Originally Posted by phossler

Already tried that - no joy

To experiment, I tried several variations of this, just to pull out the series number

So I'm thinking I'm missing something

A) you have no 'Replace with' specified
B) I've always found I had to account for the full source string for it to work reliably

This was a previously SAVED S&R (image) that I had
BTW you need a Series Name before you can add a Series Index

[phossler]

Thanks - I think I got it

A - \1 was one of many things I tried

B - that was what I was missing

BTW - I added a Series and that helped

Now for my next project ...

"Doctor Who - Target Novelisations - 001 - The Abominable Snowmen"

a RegEx of

(.*) \- (.*) \- (.*) \- (.*)

should allow me to put

\1 into Series
\3 into Series Index
\4 into Title