Calibre beta available that fully integrates custom fields

[speakingtohe]

I'm guessing no one has tried metadata downloading with the betas?

Seems to work for me in 7.904
Helen

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Released 0.7.906 with various bug fixes:

1) Fix a regression that broke the isbndb metadata download plugin for all the betas. I'm guessing no one has tried metadata downloading with the betas?

And so it goes...

Was this the cause of "page not found" I saw in the log?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by theducks

Was this the cause of "page not found" I saw in the log?

This only affected metadata downloads. And the error would not have included "Page not found"

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

This only affected metadata downloads. And the error would not have included "Page not found"

They must have been down (or it is because I have 0 account) then, because that was the log message when I fetched Metadata, the other returned data.

[Manichean]

Just tested 906, and everything seems to be working. Nice work.

[Manichean]

I have a remark concerning the UI design of the plugboard settings: Whenever I want to edit a plugboard, I initially try to select it in the list of plugboards only to realize that I can't and have to use the two dropdown fields. I don't know if it's possible or worth the effort if it is, but personally, I'd like it better if I were able to directly select the plugboard I want to edit out of the list.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Manichean

I have a remark concerning the UI design of the plugboard settings: Whenever I want to edit a plugboard, I initially try to select it in the list of plugboards only to realize that I can't and have to use the two dropdown fields. I don't know if it's possible or worth the effort if it is, but personally, I'd like it better if I were able to directly select the plugboard I want to edit out of the list.

So would I.

GUI work is never-ending. There is always a way to do it better/different/intuitively. It is also work I don't particularly enjoy. The right thing to do is to change from a text box to a list box, which would make selection straight-forward. Eventually I will get to it, unless someone else does it first.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by chaley

So would I.

GUI work is never-ending. There is always a way to do it better/different/intuitively. It is also work I don't particularly enjoy. The right thing to do is to change from a text box to a list box, which would make selection straight-forward. Eventually I will get to it, unless someone else does it first.

Ah, I see. Like I said, it's really minor- I can easily live with it as it is, as well. (And no, that implication might work for icons, but not for code- my Python-fu isn't strong enough yet )

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Ah, I see. Like I said, it's really minor- I can easily live with it as it is, as well. (And no, that implication might work for icons, but not for code- my Python-fu isn't strong enough yet )

Turned out using the listbox made it easy. The downside is that the info is more spread out vertically, but I can accept that.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by chaley

Turned out using the listbox made it easy. The downside is that the info is more spread out vertically, but I can accept that.

Cool, that's nice to hear.

[theducks]

chaley
There seems to be cat fur on your new plug-board icon, making it difficult to use

[Sweetpea]

I love that plugboard! I can now manage all my devices with it! I finally figured out how to make a folder device (as I'll need that for my WinCE devices, as Calibre apparently can't handle the ActiveSync ) and after making a plugboard rule, I got the perfect mobi metadata.

Thanks! The donation will come your way as soon as the beta goes live.

[kacir]

I really like the template language and conditional fields.

You might consider adding another example to the documentation

{author_sort}/{series}/{series}{series_index:0>3s|[|] - }{title} - {authors}

so the result would be

Asimov, Isaac/Foundation series/Foundation series[001] - The Foundation - Isaac Asimov

This example demonstrates that you can use conditional prefix, suffix with formatting of the series number
I was trying to test how some ... aehm ... not-very-obvious ... combinations in Templates work ;-)


Also, there seems to be a typo in documentation

If a particular book does not have a particular piece of metadata, the field in the template is automatically removed for that book. Consider, for example:

{author_sort}/{series}/{title} {series_index}

If a book has a series, the template will produce:

{Asimov, Isaac}/Foundation/Second Foundation - 3

and if a book does not have a series:

{Asimov, Isaac}/Second Foundation

(calibre automatically removes multiple slashes and leading or trailing spaces).

- extra {} around author in the result
- extra space dash space ' - ' in the result between 'Second foundation' and series number.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kacir

I really like the template language and conditional fields.

You might consider adding another example to the documentation

{author_sort}/{series}/{series}{series_index:0>3s|[|] - }{title} - {authors}

so the result would be

Asimov, Isaac/Foundation series/Foundation series[001] - The Foundation - Isaac Asimov

This example demonstrates that you can use conditional prefix, suffix with formatting of the series number
I was trying to test how some ... aehm ... not-very-obvious ... combinations in Templates work ;-)

I have already added the example:

For example, assume you want to use the template::

        {series} - {series_index} - {title}

If the book has no series, the answer will be ``- - title``. Many people would rather the result be simply ``title``, without the hyphens. To do this,
use the extended syntax ``{field:|prefix_text|suffix_text}``. When you use this syntax, if field has the value SERIES then the result will be 
``prefix_textSERIESsuffix_text``. If field has no value, then the result will be the empty string (nothing); the prefix and suffix are ignored. The prefix and 
suffix can contain blanks.

Using this syntax, we can solve the above series problem with the template::

        {series}{series_index:| - | - }{title}

The hyphens will be included only if the book has a series index, which it will have only if it has a series.

That seems to demonstrate what you are suggesting.

Also, there seems to be a typo in documentation

- extra {} around author in the result
- extra space dash space ' - ' in the result between 'Second foundation' and series number.

Thanks. Fixed.

FYI: In the next release, you will be able to use both formatting specifications and functions. Using this, the following will work to ensure that zero values are printed. The relevant doc section is

Now, about using functions and formatting in the same field. Suppose you have an integer custom column called ``#myint`` 
that you want to see with leading zeros, as in ``003``. To do this, you would use a format of ``0>3s``. However, by default, if a number (integer 
or float) equals zero then the field produces the empty value, so zero values will produce nothing, not ``000``. If you really want to see ``000`` values, 
then you use both the format string and the ``ifempty`` function to change the empty value back to a zero. The field reference would be::

    {#myint:0>3s:ifempty(0)}
    
Note that you can use the prefix and suffix as well. If you want the number to appear as ``[003]`` or ``[000]``, then use the field::

    {#myint:0>3s:ifempty(0)|[|]}

[kacir]

Originally Posted by chaley

I have already added the example:
That seems to demonstrate what you are suggesting.

I was suggesting
{series_index:0>3s|[|] - }
index formating PLUS prefix and suffix.
You do have {series_index:0>3s} and {series_index:|[|] - } example but not those two combined.
It is obvious to you, to me, to other people that program for a living, but it might not be obvious to the average Calibre user.

EDIT:
I think that the more useful and usable examples you use in the documentation, the better chance that an average user will try out those extremely cool features.
We are thinking like programmers, hackers, tinkerers but an average user might not.