Templates: various questions not worth their own thread

[ownedbycats]

Question:

Is there a proper way to tell Calibre to not show any icons in a specific column if a book matches a set of specific criteria, even if any following rules do match?

e.g. I added a "books I've read but haven't rated yet" subsearch to Cleanup, which results in those books getting added to the Cleanup VL. I have a rule to show a small broom in the title column when the VL is Cleanup. I want to hide the broom without actually setting an icon in the title column for it.

I found that making a non-composed advanced rule pointing to an invalid icon name works, but I'm not sure if I should be concerned about that causing issues.

(Alternately, this specific problem could likely be solved by modifying the "if VL is Cleanup" rule to exclude the need-to-rate books, but this may not work as well for all situations.)

EDIT: Would using a 1x1 transparent icon (non-composed) work?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Question:

Is there a proper way to tell Calibre to not show any icons in a specific column if a book matches a set of specific criteria, even if any following rules do match?

No, there is no 'official' way to stop rule processing without producing an icon.

I found that making a non-composed advanced rule pointing to an invalid icon name works, but I'm not sure if I should be concerned about that causing issues.

That works, but it will be slower because calibre will reevaluate the rule for each book then rediscover that the icon doesn't exist every time the icon rule succeeds. If the icon actually exists then it is cached and the rule isn't reevaluated.

EDIT: Would using a 1x1 transparent icon (non-composed) work?

Yes, but I think it would be a bit faster to use a 128x128 transparent image. That avoids some internal scaling.

BTW: You can use the same transparent icon when composing to have gaps in the displayed icons.

[ownedbycats]

I made a 128x128 transparent PNG and added it (I already had a rule to show an icon in my reading status column, so I just duplicated that and changed the column and icon). It works perfectly good.

[chaley]

@ownedbycats: This has nothing to do with the template language but is related to the first letter partitioning bug you submitted. Now that numeric collation (sorting numbers in strings as numbers, not text) has found its way into partitioning (tag browser and content server) I thought it worth moving the setting from a tweak to the GUI. It is now (in source) in Preferences / Behavior. Like the tweak it is a per-user setting, not a per-library setting.

[ownedbycats]

That's good thank you. Will the numeric_collation tweak automatically get removed or should I do that manually?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

That's good thank you. Will the numeric_collation tweak automatically get removed or should I do that manually?

The tweak is automatically copied to the new setting then removed.

[ownedbycats]

Question: Is there a template variable for "if this specified VL is currently active", or does the template language have no way to know that?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Question: Is there a template variable for "if this specified VL is currently active", or does the template language have no way to know that?

No, it doesn't.

What would you use it for? If it is for an action chain it might be best to add it there.

[ownedbycats]

Column icons.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Question: Is there a template variable for "if this specified VL is currently active", or does the template language have no way to know that?

The function current_virtual_library_name() is now in calibre source.

[ownedbycats]

Thank you.

[ownedbycats]

program:
	if
		current_virtual_library_name() != 'Loans' && approximate_formats() == 'OVERDRIVE'
	then
		'overdrive.png'
	fi

This shows an icon for loaned books unless I'm in the Loan VL.

[ownedbycats]

program:

	if
			$#currentlyreading 
		&& 
			approximate_formats()=='PAPERBOOK'
	then
		'invis.png'
	fi

Works only if PAPERBOOK is the only format. Should I be using formats_path() or something else instead?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

program:

	if
			$#currentlyread anding 
		&& 
			approximate_formats()=='PAPERBOOK'
	then
		'invis.png'
	fi

Works only if PAPERBOOK is the only format. Should I be using formats_path() or something else instead?

approximate_formats() returns a comma-separated list. Try

'^PAPERBOOK$' inlist approximate_formats()

[ownedbycats]

That works. Thank you