[GUI Plugin] Action Chains

[capink]

I am afraid you will have to write the code for that. I don't know much about calibre editor. The plugin was designed to access some calibre interface action —through Calibre Actions— in the main calibre program only.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by capink

I am afraid you will have to write the code for that. I don't know much about calibre editor. The plugin was designed to access some calibre interface action —through Calibre Actions— in the main calibre program only.

Thank you. You have saved me a lot of head scratching and time trying to work out how to get the plugin to do things it is not designed to do.

I have an easy alternate way of doing what I wanted using some third party software, so no biggy.

[capink]

The new event manager gives the user the ability to make chains run automatically in response to events. Events can be either builtin or user-defined. See example below for how to write custom events.

The plugin currently ships with these builtin events:

• Library Changed
• Location Selected
• Device Connected
• Device Disconnected
• Book List Double Clicked
• Book List Enter Pressed
• Calibre Initialized
• Timer
• Shutting Down
• VL Tab Changed
  
  
  

  N.B This timer is activated every 5 minutes (can be configured by: Preferences > Plugins > Action Chains > Customize Plugin) for chains that should do automatic tasks at regular intervals.

This new event manager was made possible by the introduction of the conditions dialog, because running chains in response to events without reining them with conditions would have been impractical. See this post for more on how to set conditions for chains.

Events can pass arguments that are stored in a chain variable called _event_args. Currently only these Events pass arguments:

• Book List Double Clicked: book_id, column_name
• Book List Enter Pressed: book_id, column_name
• VL Tab Changed: current_vl, previous_vl

Here is an example of how to add extra events using the plugin's module editor, you do it by returning the signal associated with the event.

from calibre_plugins.action_chains.events import ChainEvent

class SearchChanged(ChainEvent):

    # replace with the name of your event
    name = 'Search Changed'

    def get_event_signal(self):
        return self.gui.search.changed

Note1: Be careful with what events you are adding, events that repeat so often (e.g selections changes) are not good candidate for linking to action chains.

Note2: The event manager does not respond to any events that happen when chains or other events are running.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Thank you. You have saved me a lot of head scratching and time trying to work out how to get the plugin to do things it is not designed to do.

I have an easy alternate way of doing what I wanted using some third party software, so no biggy.

If you're on Windows, look into Pulover's Macro Creator.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

If you're on Windows, look into Pulover's Macro Creator.

Thank you.

I know about Pulover's Macro Creator and have used it in the past. I have problems with it, although it is very powerful. Also it would be overkill for what I want to do so I am trying out MiniMouse.

[ownedbycats]

I created a one-action chain to switch to my custom "on device" view in View Manager. I set Events Manager to run it when a device gets connected. It works.

Small typo in the dialog: "Validate chains before runnig..."

[capink]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I created a one-action chain to switch to my custom "on device" view in View Manager. I set Events Manager to run it when a device gets connected. It works.

Small typo in the dialog: "Validate chains before runnig..."

You certainly have a use for every feature

[compurandom]

How would you set up an event for adding a book.... and how would it handle multiple books imported at once... would this make sense?

[capink]

You will have to look in calibre code for signals associated with these events, and add them as action chains events.

As for import, if you are using something like Import List plugin, a better approach is to create a chain with Import List as the first action, followed by whatever actions you want after that. This cannot be done for adding books, as the action for adding books starts on a separate thread without blocking the main thread, which does not work with action chains sequential nature. Hence, it was removed.

[compurandom]

This is not something I'd ever likely use. I just import books with a tag marking them as needing attention and then manually process them. But someone asked a question that this might be a solution for.

Originally Posted by capink

This cannot be done for adding books, as the action for adding books starts on a separate thread without blocking the main thread, which does not work with action chains sequential nature.

I'm thinking that if this was to be implemented, it would be something like, wait for everything to settle and then run the chain with all the newly added books marked or selected or something.

Maybe it'd just be easier to run it by hand and rely on the tag that marks newly imported books.

[capink]

This just needs someone to wrap the adding action into a function that calls it and blocks the main thread until all books are added (most a probably there is signal or something that can be used to check using qtimer), and then return control. After that you can select all added books with the selection modifier (books modified by last action).

I am not interested in this myself, so I have not looked on how it could be implemented.

[ownedbycats]

One thing that would be easy to chain I'd think is adding the same file to multiple book records as long as the file path stayed the same. A bit useless for most situations though—the only use I can think of is to add a dummy.paperbook file to records of physical books.

[ownedbycats]

Small idea:

I can see several uses for an "add/remove specified amount" to Single Field Edit > Integer-type, e.g. a column tracking how many times the book's been read. Possibly can already done via template though.

I'm not planning anything requiring its use in the near future, but something to consider.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Small idea:

I can see several uses for an "add/remove specified amount" to Single Field Edit > Integer-type, e.g. a column tracking how many times the book's been read. Possibly can already done via template though.

I'm not planning anything requiring its use in the near future, but something to consider.

Rereads

[jbacelar]

Until this version everything is fine. I think the screenshot explains it clearly.