Custom tooltips in the book list view

[chaley]

One can use templates to define "custom tooltips" for columns in the book list. The tooltip can contain whatever you want as long as it can be generated by a template. Tooltips interpret HTML so you can construct complex displays. One test I did was to include in the tooltip the note for the value where the note contained a picture.

If you change the tooltip for "title" then the changed tooltip is used in the cover grid as well.

To define a column tooltip, right-click on the column header and choose "(Define|Edit) column tooltip ...". It is also available as a calibre action, which means it is in the All Actions menu, can be given a shortcut, and can be added to context menus, favorites, action chains, etc.

You can include the text that would have been used for the tooltip. See the help text when you first create a column tooltip template:

Notes:

• The template global variable "column_lookup_name" contains the column lookup name.
• The global variable "original_text" contains the original tooltip text.

This feature is in calibre 8.11.

[chaley]

This feature has a small bug in calibre 8.10.0 where the first time one defines a custom tooltip for a column, calibre must be restarted to "see" it. Subsequence edits of the tooltip for that column don't require the restart. The fix is in calibre 8.11.

Here is a basic example of using a custom tooltip: presenting a list of genres in a more readable fashion.

The standard tooltip looks like this. There are multiple genres per line with some of them broken across lines.


If I use this template to generate the tooltip

program: 
	res = 'Genres:';
	vals = list_sort($#genre, 0, ',');
	for t in vals:
		res = res & '<br>' & t
	rof;
	res

then I see


And yes, the genres don't make a lot of sense.

[Comfy.n]

I did a quick test with the Title column tooltip, in cover grid view.

It worked great with my Count Pages column {#pp} (default is #pages), thanks!

[chaley]

@Comfy.n: glad it works for you.

Another example: change the Series tooltip to show the number of books in the library with that series.

Result:


Template:

program:
	if $series then
		series_count = book_count('series:"""=' & $series & '"""', 0);
		return $series & ', book ' & $series_index & ' of ' & series_count
	fi;
	return 'This book is not in a series'

[dunhill]

very good idea!!

[thiago.eec]

Cool! Now I can add other collaborators to my authors column.

[thiago.eec]

Hi @chaley

Just noticed something weird with the HTML parser.
I added the translator info to the authors' tooltip using this template:

program:
	if $#translator  then
		tooltip = 'Autor: ' & $authors  & '<br/>' & 'Tradutor: ' & $#translator
	else
		tooltip = 'Autor: ' & $authors
	fi;
	tooltip

This made my tooltip's width to shrink.

Here it is without the <br/>:


Now, with the <br/>:

[chaley]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

Hi @chaley

Just noticed something weird with the HTML parser.
I added the translator info to the authors' tooltip using this template:

program:
	if $#translator  then
		tooltip = 'Autor: ' & $authors  & '<br/>' & 'Tradutor: ' & $#translator
	else
		tooltip = 'Autor: ' & $authors
	fi;
	tooltip

This made my tooltip's width to shrink.

Here it is without the <br/>:
Attachment 217982

Now, with the <br/>:
Attachment 217983

Qt's tooltip display will choose different box dimensions for HTML vs plain text. Unfortunately I can't do anything about it. Showing the authors 1 per line might give you results you prefer.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by chaley

Qt's tooltip display will choose different box dimensions for HTML vs plain text. Unfortunately I can't do anything about it. Showing the authors 1 per line might give you results you prefer.

I see. I've changed my template to one author per line and it worked.

P.S: I did this using Python Mode. I could not find a way to interpret the authors field as list in the regular Template Mode. What am I missing?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by thiago.eec

P.S: I did this using Python Mode. I could not find a way to interpret the authors field as list in the regular Template Mode. What am I missing?

Use a for loop, as in

program: 
	res = 'Authors:';
	for aut in "authors":
		res = res & '<br>' & aut
	rof;
	res

If a for loop is given the lookup name of a column it uses the separator for that column. If you have the list in a variable then the following works:

program: 
	res = 'Authors:';
	for aut in $authors separator '&':
		res = res & '<br>' & aut
	rof;
	res

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by chaley

Use a for loop, as in

program: 
	res = 'Authors:';
	for aut in "authors":
		res = res & '<br>' & aut
	rof;
	res

If a for loop is given the lookup name of a column it uses the separator for that column. If you have the list in a variable then the following works:

program: 
	res = 'Authors:';
	for aut in $authors separator '&':
		res = res & '<br>' & aut
	rof;
	res

Now I see my error. I was doing this:

for aut in $authors:

I didn't know about the 'separator' bit.

Thanks for your help!

[chaley]

Two changes:

• Bug fix: custom templates failed with an exception when used on non-text columns such as dates, integers, floats, and booleans.
• New feature: you can now open a book list/grid tooltip in a dlalog window. This helps people who prefer to use the keyboard instead of the mouse. It also supports copy-to-clipboard of arbitrary selections.
  
  Assign the feature a shortcut (it is "Show item tooltip in a dialog" in the "Column tooltips" section). Use that shortcut to show the tooltip of the currently selected cell in the booklist. Examples:
  
  
  This feature works with both standard and custom tooltips.

These changes are now in calibre source and will be in the next preview/release.

[chaley]

This template generates a tooltip showing the note for the publisher, if any. It also shows the count of books by that publisher and a link to search for the publisher in the current library.

Note: Links can be clicked only in the "dialog" version of the tooltip. If you want to be able to click links then I recommend you give that dialog a shortcut in Preferences / Shortcuts / Column tooltips / Show item tooltip in a dialog. You can also add "Column tooltips" to the tool bar, menu bar, or context menu.

The template:

program:
	if ! $publisher then
		# Nothing to do here
		return 'No publisher'
	fi;
	# Generate the HTML for the tooltip. First, the name of the publisher.
	tt = f_string("<div>Publisher: {$publisher}");

	# Generate the search string used to get the publisher count and to do the search
	search_for = f_string('publisher:"""={$publisher}"""');

	# Add the publisher count to the HTML
	tt = f_string("{tt}<br>Count of books published by {$publisher}: {book_count(search_for, 0)}");

	# Add the calibre search link to the HTML
	tt = f_string('{tt}<br><a href="calibre://search/_?eq={to_hex(search_for)}">' &
                  'Show books in this calibre library published by {$publisher}</a>');

	# Add the note if it exists to the HTML
	n = get_note("publisher", $publisher, "");
	if n then
		tt = f_string('{tt}<p><div>{n}</div></p>')
	fi;

	# Add the closing </div>
	tt = f_string('{tt}</div>');

	# Return the generated HTML
	tt

The result, shown in a dialog: