Merged Custom Column of Names

[Vaesse]

I have a library of comic books and graphic novels. I have created custom columns for all of the various artists that may be involved (Artist, Penciller, Inker, Colorist, Letterer, Cover) and am trying to create a different custom column (Art) that will take all of those columns and make one list of everyone involved in art for the comic.

I have figured out how to pull all the columns into Art:

{#artist}{#pencil:| & |}{#ink:| & |}{#color:| & |}{#letter:| & |}{#cover:| & |}

However, if there are multiple people in any one category, they are treated as one. I tried to use the "sublist" function, but it doesn't work the way I thought it did (never did manage to get it to actually separate items in the Art column). Also, if one artist fills more than one role, they'd be repeated in Art, which is less than ideal. And the separators aren't perfect, since if some but not all of the sub-columns are filled in, extra separators are likely to appear.

I think there's probably a better way to be doing what I'm doing, so I came here for help.

[BetterRed]

Try Preferences ->Searching->Group Searches

BR

[theducks]

I think something like this will work.
remember to repeat the capture in the source template (.+){1,}
target value \1 (optional description)
Append to the destination

Repeat for each source column
OH: I did this with Bulk mode S&R

[Vaesse]

Yeah, I really want it in a custom column, not a search or a replace.. :-/

I'll keep futzing at it, I guess, unless anyone else has other ideas.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Vaesse

Yeah, I really want it in a custom column, not a search or a replace.. :-/

I'll keep futzing at it, I guess, unless anyone else has other ideas.

You can use S&R to move/copy data to any column (of the correct type )
That is why it allows specifiy both Source and destination

[Vaesse]

Yeah, but it won't change dynamically. It's a solution, just not my preference.

[BetterRed]

Did you try group searches ?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Did you try group searches ?

If it doesn't do what you want, then if you tell us why not we might get a better idea of what might work for you. I use it for exactly what I think your trying to do.

BR

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Vaesse

I have a library of comic books and graphic novels. I have created custom columns for all of the various artists that may be involved (Artist, Penciller, Inker, Colorist, Letterer, Cover) and am trying to create a different custom column (Art) that will take all of those columns and make one list of everyone involved in art for the comic.

I have figured out how to pull all the columns into Art:

{#artist}{#pencil:| & |}{#ink:| & |}{#color:| & |}{#letter:| & |}{#cover:| & |}

However, if there are multiple people in any one category, they are treated as one. I tried to use the "sublist" function, but it doesn't work the way I thought it did (never did manage to get it to actually separate items in the Art column). Also, if one artist fills more than one role, they'd be repeated in Art, which is less than ideal. And the separators aren't perfect, since if some but not all of the sub-columns are filled in, extra separators are likely to appear.

I think there's probably a better way to be doing what I'm doing, so I came here for help.

Did you create these columns as "Comma separated text, like tags, shown in the tag browser" and selected the "Contains names" checkbox? And is the column you are now creating a "Column built from other column, behaves like tags"? If so, to combine two, you could use:

{#artist:'list_union($,"{#pencil}", " & ")'}

That will give you a list of all the unique names separated by an ampersand. For more than three columns, it looks something like:

{#artist:'list_union($,list_union(field("#pencil"),field("#ink")," & "), " & ")'}

And adding more columns means nesting more "list_union"s and I'd get lost in matching the parentheses and quotes. So, I'd use program mode for and get something like:

program:
     people = list_union(field('#artist'), field('#pencil'), " & ");
     people = list_union(people, field('#ink'), " & ");
     people = list_union(people, field('#color'), " & ");
     people = list_union(people, field('#letter'), " & ");
     people = list_union(people, field('#cover'), " & ");

I haven't tested the full version as I had to add a second column for names in my test library. But, it mostly works with two columns and the rest is extrapolation of that.

This does produce an ampersand separated list. It only has each name one. The tag browser show each name separately. But, the sorting is probably not correct. I don't see a way to have them treated as names. So, the sorting will be "FN LN" rather than "LN, FN" like it would for the authors column.

[Vaesse]

Sorting isn't an issue, nor is last first. This looks like EXACTLY what I wanted. I'll try it. Thanks!

[Vaesse]

Okay... tried this, only one thing didn't work... I have one place where instead of one colorist I have two. And they are still showing up as one list item (both names separated by an &).

[davidfor]

Sorry, that seemed to work here, but, looking again, I didn't look at all the possibilities.

Unfortunately, I can't see how to do this as an ampersand separated list like the authors. Best I can do is as a comma separated list. Then each name is shown in the tag browser as separate entries under the column.

The following should to work:

program:
     people = list_union(raw_list('#artist',','), raw_list('#pencil',','), ',');
     people = list_union(people, raw_list('#ink',','), ',');
     people = list_union(people, raw_list('#color',','), ',');
     people = list_union(people, raw_list('#letter',','), ',');
     people = list_union(people, raw_list('#cover',','), ',');

The column has to be defined as mentioned above.

To get the result treated as names, it would require a change in calibre.

[Vaesse]

That worked! Thank you again so much! I'm not overly worried about the difference between "tag" and "name" in this instance (though name would obviously be ideal), so this is absolutely perfect.