[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[Tanjamuse]

I have a bunch of old stories which no longer exists on the websites (FFnet and AO3) they are all downloaded before I added the wonderful saved metadata column. I was hoping for a tool that would let me create or update the saved metadata column based on a title page, whether it's in txt form or epub.

Attached is an example in txt-format.

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by Tanjamuse

I have a bunch of old stories which no longer exists on the websites (FFnet and AO3) they are all downloaded before I added the wonderful saved metadata column. I was hoping for a tool that would let me create or update the saved metadata column based on a title page, whether it's in txt form or epub.

Attached is an example in txt-format.

I think that you already do something similar with the MultiColumn Search plugin's full-text search Tab with regex search and subsequent regex text extraction via a 2nd regex to update a custom column.

Show Tooltip

[Tanjamuse]

I wouldn't mind a guide on the how-to. I can send you an example of how the saved metadata column looks?

[JimmXinu]

I'm most of the way done with implementing an "update existing epub title page" feature. But I'm debating about how it should be offered to the user:

1. As a new Update Option? After "Update Calibre Metadata from Saved Metadata Column" on the list, "Update EPUB Title Page from Saved Metadata Column"?
2. As an add-on optional update feature, like the existing "Update EPUB Cover" checkbox? IE, to be applied after updating epub and Calibre columns.
3. As a separate action, similar to 'Remove "New" Chapter Marks from Selected books'?

Opinions?

(unrelated reply)

@Tanjamuse, given that title_page is extremely configurable--and even the default appearance has changed over the years--it's pretty complex to parse it. I might have considered it anyway for epub, but txt files adds yet another layer of complexity. Especially for a feature that's very limited in scope--only useful for deleted stories collected without saved column.

So I'm not interested in implementing that.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2019-05-06
- Fix for series contain 'collection from' adapter_storiesonlinenet.
- Fix for anthology titles (and generate cover settings) not needing encode() anymore.

[ILB]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

I'm most of the way done with implementing an "update existing epub title page" feature. But I'm debating about how it should be offered to the user:

1. As a new Update Option? After "Update Calibre Metadata from Saved Metadata Column" on the list, "Update EPUB Title Page from Saved Metadata Column"?
2. As an add-on optional update feature, like the existing "Update EPUB Cover" checkbox? IE, to be applied after updating epub and Calibre columns.
3. As a separate action, similar to 'Remove "New" Chapter Marks from Selected books'?

Opinions?

Does it make a big difference: which option is easier to integrate and maintain?
Basically, I would be happy with each of these options.

But as I would use it to update the title page on single books before sending it to my reader I would prefer Option 3.
Another advantage: it could also be used via a shortcut.

Otherwise option 1 sounds good.

As for option 2: I think that´s not necessary as an optional update feature. Most of the update modes already update the title page while downloading – if there are changes or I use "overwrite always"
And if checked – would it always update the title page? Regardless of whether the epub is updated or not? Or only if no changes are made to the epub otherwise? With which update mode should it be combined to use?
It could lead to confusion as it provides different possible combinations.


General questions about it:
- Does it only use Saved Metadata Columns? Or also costum columns?
- How does option 2 fare if the original story has been deleted from the site?

[JimmXinu]

There are ups and downs to each approach in implementation.

Option 1 can leverage existing code for reporting possible issues and optionally marking updated/failed books, and can fall back to 'Update CalMeta from Web site' if there's no saved column data.

Option 2 is similar with the bonus that you could use calibre_std/cust_colname in title_page and they would be populated on new download. You would also have to mark (using 'New Only'/n flags) columns you want to manage manually, but that's already the case.

I mention option two because I suspect that about 10 minutes after releasing the feature, someone will ask for it to run automatically on new downloads when they realize their manually-managed custom columns aren't in the title page until after an epub update or title page update. OTOH, users that truly manage those columns themselves and don't pre-populate them from FFF metadata with 'New Only' won't care.

Option 3 keeps the new feature isolated from the update code path, which should preclude introducing new bugs into update--a not insignificant consideration--but requires either a reporting mechanism added (compared to UnNew), failure notices (when needed) by individual book, or silent failures.

[ownedbycats]

Searched the thread but didn't see: Is there a way to avoid downloading tags on new fics? Some authors get just a bit over-enthusiastic with them.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Searched the thread but didn't see: Is there a way to avoid downloading tags on new fics? Some authors get just a bit over-enthusiastic with them.

Since you specifically mention new fics, I assume you already found the 'New Only' checkbox next to Tags on the Standard Columns tab in FFF config. That will prevent Tags being set on updates, there isn't a simple 'checkbox' way on new fics.

But it can be done. How FFF populates Calibre's Tags is a bit odd for historical reasons. The INI setting include_subject_tags controls what is populated in Calibre's Tags column. (It started out as the control for what <dc:subject> tags end up in the epub format.)

In personal.ini, you can set include_subject_tags. The default.ini value is:

include_subject_tags: extratags, genre, category, characters, ships, status

You can get rid of tags in general[1] by clearing include_subject_tags in your personal.ini with:

[defaults] 
# add to existing [defaults] section
include_subject_tags:

Or you might set it to a subset of the normal values for just one site:

[archiveofourown.org]
# may need to add [archiveofourown.org] section.
include_subject_tags: extratags, status

(extratags is usually 'FanFiction' for most sites.)

[1] - While thinking about this I realized that some of the default.ini settings make it more difficult to remove all include_subject_tags settings for a few sites (the base_xenforoforum sites and potionsandsnitches.org specifically). I'll be fixing that before the next release.

[ownedbycats]

That worked. Thank you.

While at it: Is there a way to set the tag to Fanfiction.[category]?

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

That worked. Thank you.

While at it: Is there a way to set the tag to Fanfiction.[category]?

You can change every category to have 'Fanfiction' at the start with replace_metadata:

replace_metadata:
 category=>^(.*)$=>Fanfiction.\1

[ownedbycats]

Seems to work, except now I'm getting redundant FanFiction and Fanfiction.[category] tags for new fics. Not sure what I mucked up:

EDIT: Never mind, adding a blank extratags worked.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2019-05-08
- base_xenforoforum: include forumtags in genre and tagsfromtitle in category instead of including both in subject_tags.
- Don't hardcode extratags into subject tags--it's in include_subject_tags in defaults.ini.
- Refactor base_xenforoforum for upcoming XenForo2 update for SV.

[Tanjamuse]

Could you add an option where I can update the metadata-column based on the CC's in calibre instead of the other way around?

[JimmXinu]

@Tanjamuse - Unlikely. Saved Metadata is a copy of the metadata before replace_metadata, include/exclude, etc. Reversing all that is prohibitively complex.

Your request did make me realize something else, though.

I've been working on implementing Title Page update as a separate feature, but it's not going to do what many users will expect.

Specifically, it occurred to me that the first thing a new user is likely to try with it is changing the Title in Calibre, doing 'Refresh Title Page' and then not understanding why their changed title doesn't appear in the title page.

I'm starting to feel the 'correct' answer, if you want to put Calibre metadata/columns into your ebooks, is to use Calibre's built-in metadata jacket.

Admittedly, I haven't explored the idea any further than, "yes, metadata jacket is customizable", but it offers some clear advantages--most prominently that can be used on ebooks from other sources and other formats(than epub).