Templates: various questions not worth their own thread

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kevn57

This is a repost as I posted in the wrong thread

I'm a complete nube in calibre template language.

I'm trying to take the output of the plugin Pagecount which is the number of words in a book and dividing that by 320 which is my words per minute reading rate and output the total number of minutes to read the book into my custom integer col "#minutes"

I don't know how to assign the product of divide(vals, 320); to my custom column #minutes.

program:
col = '#pagecount';
vals = from_selection(col);
'#minutes' = divide(vals, 320);

But I get this result EXCEPTION: Formatter: Expected end of program, found '=' near '#minutes' on line 4

Where do you want to use the template? I ask because you are using from_selection() that only works in action chains. If you want a composite column (built from other columns) with the lookup name '#minutes' then you would use this template for the column.

program:
    $$#pagecount / 320

If you don't want fractional minutes then use

program:
    floor($$#pagecount / 320)

or

program:
    round($$#pagecount / 320)

[kevn57]

capink, Thanks again for helping me out, I promise it won't be a daily occurrence.

Using your code a box popped up with the correct # of minutes, but I'd like to assign that number to my custom column #minutes is that possible?

Thanks Chaley
I went with round($$#pagecount / 320)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kevn57

capink, Thanks again for helping me out, I promise it won't be a daily occurrence.

Using your code a box popped up with the correct # of minutes, but I'd like to assign that number to my custom column #minutes is that possible?

Thanks Chaley
I went with round($$#pagecount / 320)

I am confused by your replies to capink and me. Did you solve your problem? If not, what exactly did you try?

[kevn57]

Sorry chaley, I have a custom column called Minutes, I'd like to assign the result of round($$#pagecount / 320) to that column.

In this particular case it 53062 / 320 the result of round($$#pagecount / 320) is 166.
Is there a way to put that number in my list view column #minutes. I can do it by hand but it'd be great to have it automatically inserted.

[ownedbycats]

There's two ways to do this: a composite or using Action Chains to populate the column. The first one means it'll automatically update, but can't be manually tweaked (there's also performance to think about, but that's for stuff far more complex than this). The latter you'll need to run the chain if you want to update it but if you want to change it to something else you can.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's two ways to do this: a composite or using Action Chains to populate the column. The first one means it'll automatically update, but can't be manually tweaked. The latter you'll need to run the chain if you want to update it.

The first is done using a custom column of type "Column built from other columns" that uses a template to compute the column's value. The value is computed whenever the column is looked at, either by you or by calibre for some reason. As ownedbycats said, you can't change it except by changing the underlying data for that book, or by changing the computation (which changes all books). Note that you can't change the type of an existing column. You would need to create a new column and probably delete the existing one.

For the second you need to ask in the Action Chains plugin thread. What you do depends on how and when you want it updated.

[kevn57]

Thank you all I went with Column built from other columns because I do not want the values to change I want it tied to Pagecount and it worked perfectly. Now I can see at a glance approximately how long it'll take to read the book

[ownedbycats]

Question: Is there any sort of template function that returns the count of how many books are currently marked? For Action Chain conditions (run "clear all marked books" if there's only 1 marked book).

[capink]

Try this:

program:
	marked = from_search('id', 'marked:true');
	count(marked, ',')

Edit: As rule, calibre templates only work per book (horizontally). If you want to get data that depends on more that one book, Action Chains functions (from_search & from_selection) should help by pulling data from multiple books (vertically).

[ownedbycats]

It works perfectly

[ownedbycats]

Question. Here's my "Update Kobo Path" template in my send-to-device chains:

program:

	if
		$#kobopath == ''
	then

# Returns 'Fanfiction.Fandom' for fanfics
		if $$#fanficcat then
			re(sublist($tags, 0, 1, ','), '\.', '/')

# Returns 'PDF' for PDFs
		elif $formats == 'PDF' then
			'PDF'

# Returns 'Loans' for Loans
		elif $#kobostatus == 'On Loan' then
			'Loans'

# Returns topmost tag for all other books
		else
			re(sublist($tags, 0, 1, ','), '^(.*?)($|\..*$)', '\1')
		fi
else
	$#kobopath
fi

I ran into a weird situation. I had a fanfiction with the @cleanup tag. I mistakenly ran send-to-device before removing the tag. #kobopath returned '@cleanup' instead of the expected Fanfiction.Fandom tag. What happened?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I ran into a weird situation. I had a fanfiction with the @cleanup tag. I mistakenly ran send-to-device before removing the tag. #kobopath returned '@cleanup' instead of the expected Fanfiction.Fandom tag. What happened?

The order of the tags is not guaranteed so you don't know the value of the first tag. In other words,

         sublist($tags, 0, 1, ',')

returns the first tag in the list, which could be any of the tags.

If order must be known then you need to sort the tags before the sublist. Or strip out the tags you don't want to return. Or do something else to get the tag you actually want.

[ownedbycats]

That makes sense. I think the easiest solution would to make it only run on tags starting with Fanfiction. (with the dot). Having a bit of trouble with the regex though.

program:

if $$#fanficcat then
			re(sublist($tags, 0, 1, ','), 'Fanfiction\.', 'Fanfiction/')

fi

didn't work (and it's a bit clumsy anyways)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

That makes sense. I think the easiest solution would to make it only run on tags starting with Fanfiction. (with the dot). Having a bit of trouble with the regex though.

program:

if $$#fanficcat then
			re(sublist($tags, 0, 1, ','), 'Fanfiction\.', 'Fanfiction/')

fi

didn't work (and it's a bit clumsy anyways)

What exactly are you trying to do? It looks like you want the word 'Fanfiction/' if the word 'Fanfiction.' is in tags. Right? If so then this works.

	if '^Fanfiction\.' inlist $tags then 'Fanfiction/' fi.

However, you might want 'Fanfiction.foo' to become 'Fanfiction/foo'. If so then this works:

	list_re($tags, ',', '^Fanfiction.(.*)$', 'Fanfiction/\1')

[ownedbycats]

Fanfiction.subtag-> Fanfiction/subtag is what I'm trying to do yes. I will try the second one