How 2 Clean Up Tags : Denizens of the cyberspace bit-bucket

[Mark Lee]

Currently (in my opinion), there is an unfortunate trend to create overly complicated tags. That being said, I should hasten to say that some are very useful, but that the vast majority of them should be consigned permanently to the bit-bucket. As a result, I ask, is there a way in which to edit the tag list? I do not wish to remove them all, but there are many that are totally useless that I want to edit out. Thanks.

Mark Lee

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Mark Lee

Currently (in my opinion), there is an unfortunate trend to create overly complicated tags. That being said, I should hasten to say that some are very useful, but that the vast majority of them should be consigned permanently to the bit-bucket. As a result, I ask, is there a way in which to edit the tag list? I do not wish to remove them all, but there are many that are totally useless that I want to edit out. Thanks.

Mark Lee

In the Tag Browser: (Tag Section) Right-click: Manage
You can rename (they will merge if the tag exists elsewhere), or Delete

[BetterRed]

@Mark Lee - please use meaningful thread names, so that they show up in Search.

BR

[Mark Lee]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Mark Lee - please use meaningful thread names, so that they show up in Search.

BR

BR;
Sorry, the vagueness was intentional. I was hoping to incite curiosity and responses. I shall refrain from doing it again.

Mark Lee

Originally Posted by theducks

In the Tag Browser: (Tag Section) Right-click: Manage
You can rename (they will merge if the tag exists elsewhere), or Delete

the ducks

The Ducks;
Thanks. After the initial deletions that require no thought, I shall be stuck considering the validity of individual tags, or their edited replacements. Do you know if there is a way to display, or copy the entire list for a complete review at once? Thanks

Mark Lee

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Mark Lee

BR;
Sorry, the vagueness was intentional. I was hoping to incite curiosity and responses. I shall refrain from doing it again.

Mark Lee



The Ducks;
Thanks. After the initial deletions that require no thought, I shall be stuck considering the validity of individual tags, or their edited replacements. Do you know if there is a way to display, or copy the entire list for a complete review at once? Thanks

Mark Lee

Maybe
SQL spy? (DANGER make no changes using this tool. Use only Calibre to make changes or orphans can happen) Export the Tags table as CSV

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

Maybe
SQL spy? (DANGER make no changes using this tool. Use only Calibre to make changes or orphans can happen) Export the Tags table as CSV

Are you sure SQL Spy can handle SQLite, I thought it was MS SQL Server only.

FWIW: I use SQLite DB Browser and/or SQLLite Expert.

@MarkLee - from me at least, rather than curiosity, cute thread titles are more likely to elicit a reaction of '%$#&* more Spam', then '$#^%&! idiot' as I change it But the main reason is search.

It would be rare that a new thread in any calibre forum doesn't get a response within a couple of hours or half a day at most. There are several moderators, plugin developers, and many others who are active on a daily basis - and most importantly Kovid Goyal (post count 31K+).

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Are you sure SQL Spy can handle SQLite, I thought it was MS SQL Server only.

I use SQLiteSpy. Works fine.

[Mark Lee]

Originally Posted by theducks

In the Tag Browser: (Tag Section) Right-click: Manage
You can rename (they will merge if the tag exists elsewhere), or Delete

the ducks

the ducks;

There are two problems. The first is what is the name of the file which needs to be converted to a CSV format? The second problem is a hugely larger obstacle that obliterates the importance of the first hassle. Calibre's export feature is not an option that is available to me. I receive this error message when I seek to export:

"calibre, version 3.4.0
ERROR: Cannot export/import: You are running calibre portable, all calibre data is already in the calibre portable folder. Export/import is unavailable."

That is likely just as well, because it has been years (literally) since I edited a raw database table. I would be prone to screw it up to the point of being unusable, so your warning served its purpose well. I will just stick to using the built-in tag editor.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@MarkLee - from me at least, rather than curiosity, cute thread titles are more likely to elicit a reaction of '%$#&* more Spam', then '$#^%&! idiot' as I change it But the main reason is search.

It would be rare that a new thread in any calibre forum doesn't get a response within a couple of hours or half a day at most. There are several moderators, plugin developers, and many others who are active on a daily basis - and most importantly Kovid Goyal (post count 31K+).

BR

BR;

I bow to your superior knowledge of the workings of this discussion list. In my own defense, however, I have belonged to other discussion lists (yes, plural) where postings have been deliberately ignored, usually for a tin-pot god political reason, but ignored none-the-less.

Originally Posted by chaley

I use SQLiteSpy. Works fine.

Chaley;
Thanks for sharing that. If I ever return to a hard-drive installation of Calibre, I will remember that.

Mark Lee

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Mark Lee

"calibre, version 3.4.0
ERROR: Cannot export/import: You are running calibre portable, all calibre data is already in the calibre portable folder. Export/import is unavailable."

The export/import feature has a very specific purpose - to facilitate moving all calibre data (config and libraries) from one computer to another.

Getting a CSV for a table from DB Browser for SQLLite or SQLite Expert is pretty simple and I'm sure the same would be true for SQLite Spy. And most importantly the names calibre uses for tables etc are easy to comprehend (e.g. authors, books, tags etc).

FX to get a CSV of Tags from DB Browser for SQLLite, Open a metadata.db file in a calibre library folder, and then use File->Export->Table(s) as CSV :



BR

[Mark Lee]

BR;
Actually, I found an alternative way to more easily review tags for later editing or removal using the Tag Browser. (For me, safer also). In the extreme left-hand column (just under the Virtual Libraries button) are listed a number of aspects regarding the entire collection - one of the entries is Tags. If one right clicks on the Tag category and then chooses the Expand All Children option an alphabetical listing of all tags appear that can be repeatedly scrolled up or down for review.

Mark Lee

[Krazykiwi]

You can also clean them up with the tag mapper. The main purpose is to create rules so that frequent offenders from metadata downloads are corrected and/or merged into another tag on download, but it also works on existing books.

You can make rules to remove extraneous tags, add tags to all books, or replace tags with another like
Replace the tag if it is one of: Dumb tag, Other dumb tag, Really dumb tag
With: Much better tag

You can find the tag mapper from the Download metadata dialog, or add it directly to a toolbar which works better on an existing library. When you press ok, it'll apply the current rules to all selected books, so once you're happy with your set of rules, just ctrl-a in the library and open tag mapper and press ok. And it'll apply the same rules to future metadata downloads, at least until you tell it not to.

I even use it as a cheap macro expander sometimes (you can load and save different rulesets on the fly). It's a vastly underused tool IMO. (But calibre is full of those).