Mouse drag-and-drop sorting

[marcb81]

A lot of people would like the possibility to sort books via drag and drop with the mouse from the bookshelf view.
Anybody can implement this feature?
How this can be done?
Any prototyping sample code?
Thanks
Marc

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by marcb81

A lot of people would like the possibility to sort books via drag and drop with the mouse from the bookshelf view.

Have you considered the View Manager plugin?

BR

[kovidgoyal]

Sorting of books in calibre is done based on metadata. I dont see how sorting by drag and drop would possibly fit into that. If you want to sort books based on some arbitrary criteria, create a custom column in Preferences->Add your own columns containing a number and assign numbers to that.

[marcb81]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sorting of books in calibre is done based on metadata. I dont see how sorting by drag and drop would possibly fit into that. If you want to sort books based on some arbitrary criteria, create a custom column in Preferences->Add your own columns containing a number and assign numbers to that.

Hi Kovidgoyal,
I think there are a lot of people that would like to have this feature i.e. to be able to sort via drag-and-drop with the mouse on some arbitrary criteria mimicking what happen when you rearrange the books on the shelf.
May be in Calibre should come with a built-in column named for example
"arbitrary sorting" that will be automatically set to a number each time you manually sort books with the mouse.
It is up to the user to choose this "arbitrary sorting" column or any other metadata column to sort the books.

Could you please give some suggestions/sample code on hiw to implement this feature?
What programming language you have to use?
Thanks
Marc

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by marcb81

Hi Kovidgoyal,
I think there are a lot of people that would like to have this feature i.e. to be able to sort via drag-and-drop with the mouse on some arbitrary criteria mimicking what happen when you rearrange the books on the shelf.
May be in Calibre should come with a built-in column named for example
"arbitrary sorting" that will be automatically set to a number each time you manually sort books with the mouse.
It is up to the user to choose this "arbitrary sorting" column or any other metadata column to sort the books.

Could you please give some suggestions/sample code on hiw to implement this feature?
What programming language you have to use?

There are are approximately 3 million active users of calibre. I've been a member here for almost 6 years, and yours is the first request for this feature I've seen. So I'm curious as to the evidence on which you base your assertion "... there are a lot of people that would like to have this feature ...".

Most people would order physical books on shelves by author within genre.

Re which language etc see ==>> Setting up a calibre development environment

BR

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Most people would order physical books on shelves by author within genre.

I'd think that sorting by series (within author) would be among the more universally used sorts, probably even more common than genre. I definitely want:

• The Hobbit
• The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Two Towers
• The Return of the King
• The Silmarillion

rather than:

• The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Hobbit
• The Return of the King
• The Silmarillion
• The Two Towers

I also usually split things into a few virtual libraries (Fiction / Nonfiction / Children's / Manuals), akin to how the libraries I grew up using split children's, fiction, and non-fiction into separate areas. I make sure every new book is tagged with one of Fiction / Nonfiction, and manuals and children's books are tagged as such, and then set up the virtual libraries based on those tags.

When viewing withing a virtual library, I sort by series and then author.

*Whenever I get a new device or appliance, I download a PDF of the manual from the manufacturer and add it to the library so I don't have to accumulate all the paper ones and keep track of them.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sjfan

I'd think that sorting by series (within author) would be among the more universally used sorts, probably even more common than genre.

I would have to agree with BetterRed in that you are the only person I've seen requesting that feature. If nothing else, with my library sizes, I can't see all the books on screen at once so sorting by drag and drop is a bit useless. Sorting by series then author works well enough though that generally involves scrolling through multiple screen so I generally search (author, series, custom tags) to reduce the number of screens and then sort the results. If you really enjoy the effort, you could generate a custom field and sort on that but that, to me, comes under the insufficient returns for the work involved label.

[BetterRed]

@sjfan - the OP wrote

Originally Posted by marcb81

... mimicking what happen when you rearrange the books on the shelf ...

I took that to mean moving paper books around on wooden or metal shelves, hence I wrote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Most people would order physical books on shelves by author within genre.

Which infers most people (i.e those that like a bit of order in their lives) wouldn't order them arbitrarily - unless they only had a few books, or they bought them by the yard for decorative reasons

BR

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@sjfan - the OP wrote



I took that to mean moving paper books around on wooden or metal shelves, hence I wrote:



Which infers most people (i.e those that like a bit of order in their lives) wouldn't order them arbitrarily - unless they only had a few books, or they bought them by the yard for decorative reasons

BR

Yeah, I mostly agree that people tend not to order things arbitrarily, I'm just adding that series is one of the critical fields people sort by (with physical books as well as ebooks).

OTOH I have seen a few people sort their physical bookshelves by size/color and other odd choices, to make the room look prettier. And physical constraints (e.g. tall books have to go on the bottom shelf) often impact things—but e-books should thankfully be immune to that.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by marcb81

Hi Kovidgoyal,
I think there are a lot of people that would like to have this feature i.e. to be able to sort via drag-and-drop with the mouse on some arbitrary criteria mimicking what happen when you rearrange the books on the shelf.
May be in Calibre should come with a built-in column named for example
"arbitrary sorting" that will be automatically set to a number each time you manually sort books with the mouse.
It is up to the user to choose this "arbitrary sorting" column or any other metadata column to sort the books.

Could you please give some suggestions/sample code on hiw to implement this feature?
What programming language you have to use?

I have to agree with the others. Most of my shelves were organised by author and then title. But, there was one which was effectively random as new books, or recently finished books were put there until I shelved the properly. On set of shelves is about 3M tall, so I would occasionally get a ladder out to shelve them properly.

To achieve what I think you want, you try the Reading List plugin. With this, you create a list, add books to it and order them how you want. The ordering isn't drag-and-drop, but select and push some arrows. I think it will come close to what you want.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by sjfan

OTOH I have seen a few people sort their physical bookshelves by size/color and other odd choices, to make the room look prettier. And physical constraints (e.g. tall books have to go on the bottom shelf) often impact things—but e-books should thankfully be immune to that.

I used to do the size thing (but those were still by author) because I set the shelf spacing for the majority of my books.
Regular and Oversized
The really huge books were left flat and became a sleeping platform for the cat

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by davidfor

With this, you create a list, add books to it and order them how you want. The ordering isn't drag-and-drop, but select and push some arrows. I think it will come close to what you want.

- there's always something to learn about calibre and its plugins.

I use RL most every day, but I rarely use Edit and I never noticed the green arrows.

So, both the the content of a list and its order can be arbitrary; which makes sense when you think about the PIs raison d'être.

BR