[Android] Wish List

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I would also like to see an Auto-sort when no group is chosen. I removed an auto sort from one grouping because I always had to change it when I was done looking at that grouping, and I also realized I didn't need that auto sort anyway.

So how are the kittens doing?

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Made kitten discussion into a separate thread

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

• Optionally not show the <<>> (empty item) in the grouping drawer.

Do you think this item is going to be coming up soon, or is it one of those "lots of work, might not be worth it" kind of things?

No pressure, just curious.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

• Optionally not show the <<>> (empty item) in the grouping drawer.

Do you think this item is going to be coming up soon, or is it one of those "lots of work, might not be worth it" kind of things?

No pressure, just curious.

I haven't yet convinced myself that it is a good idea. Without it there is no (quick) way to search for items without a value. Calibre solves that problem with the +/- on the group line (the category) but I don't have that choice. I could play games with long presses on groups, but that is undiscoverable (just like long press on items). Yes, the person who turns it off is expressing that they don't want to search for items with no value, but I have seen too many cases of people choosing an option, forgetting they did so, and coming to ask "what happened to ...".

On the other hand, now that we have changed our support email to an auto-responder telling them to come here, I can have you answer them.

[jackie_w]

On the pretext that "you don't quite know what you want till you don't quite get it" I'm going to raise this here as it may be impossible/quite a lot of work.

Whilst alpha-testing I decided to try out custom column #pages (integer) as a Groupable item.

With 'Group by first letters' checked the results are:

<<>> [1 #pages, 3 books]
0 [113 #pages, 134 books]

With 'Group by first letters' unchecked the results are:

<<>> [1 #pages, 3 books]
... ...
99 [1 book]
...
nnn [1 book] x a very long list

Unfortunately, neither of which is ideal. What I'd really like for Grouped integer custom columns is something like:

0-99 [n books]
100-149 [n books]
150-199 [n books] etc. etc.

Might such an option be doable in a future release?

[kaufman]

I think this option is important, because right now pressing on any group except Tags shows the same list of books. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the subset related to that grouping show?

Originally Posted by chaley

Without it there is no (quick) way to search for items without a value. Calibre solves that problem with the +/- on the group line (the category) but I don't have that choice. I could play games with long presses on groups, but that is undiscoverable (just like long press on items).

Four things:

1) Long press on the group name is exactly what I was going to suggest. You beat me to it.

2) As you point out, it is no more difficult to discover than long press on the blank items. It was actually several months before I noticed that.

3) Whether or not you do this function (hide blank items) I think the long press on group names giving you the chance to only show books with or without that field would be nice to have. And it is certainly more useful than just popping up a message saying it doesn't do anything.

4) Most important: Currently pressing on the blank item pops up the "Cannot long press on a group name message". The fact that no one has complained about this not working any more might be a sign that people don't use it very often.

Originally Posted by chaley

On the other hand, now that we have changed our support email to an auto-responder telling them to come here, I can have you answer them.

If I have shown anything in the last year on the forum, its that I never get tired of talking about CC. My wife will attest that my enthusiasm for it knows no bounds, so send them to me.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

On the pretext that "you don't quite know what you want till you don't quite get it" I'm going to raise this here as it may be impossible/quite a lot of work.

Whilst alpha-testing I decided to try out custom column #pages (integer) as a Groupable item.

With 'Group by first letters' checked the results are:

<<>> [1 #pages, 3 books]
0 [113 #pages, 134 books]

With 'Group by first letters' unchecked the results are:

<<>> [1 #pages, 3 books]
... ...
99 [1 book]
...
nnn [1 book] x a very long list

Unfortunately, neither of which is ideal. What I'd really like for Grouped integer custom columns is something like:

0-99 [n books]
100-149 [n books]
150-199 [n books] etc. etc.

Might such an option be doable in a future release?

I will look at this. I remember when I allowed grouping on numbers that I took the easy way out. I need to go back over how it works. I do suspect that doing ranges isn't going to be straight-forward.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by chaley

I will look at this. I remember when I allowed grouping on numbers that I took the easy way out. I need to go back over how it works. I do suspect that doing ranges isn't going to be straight-forward.

Thank you for looking No pressure, no rush and no expectations.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

I think this option is important, because right now pressing on any group except Tags shows the same list of books. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the subset related to that grouping show?

I don't understand what you are saying.

Four things:

3) Whether or not you do this function (hide blank items) I think the long press on group names giving you the chance to only show books with or without that field would be nice to have. And it is certainly more useful than just popping up a message saying it doesn't do anything.

But you are asking that it do something very different from long-pressing on an item. Long-pressing an item does the equivalent of a virtual library. Tapping an item simply shows those items but does not affect tapping on some other item.

4) Most important: Currently pressing on the blank item pops up the "Cannot long press on a group name message". The fact that no one has complained about this not working any more might be a sign that people don't use it very often.

You mean "long-pressing on a blank item", not "tapping on a blank item". Tapping does exactly what it should, showing the books that do not have that item (series, publisher, what-have-you) set.

If I have shown anything in the last year on the forum, its that I never get tired of talking about CC. My wife will attest that my enthusiasm for it knows no bounds, so send them to me.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by kaufman

I think this option is important, because right now pressing on any group except Tags shows the same list of books. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the subset related to that grouping show?

Originally Posted by chaley

I don't understand what you are saying.

If you don't select a grouping and close the grouping drawer, it shows you a list that contains all of the book in your library.

If you select the tags grouping and then close the grouping drawer without selecting a tag, it shows you a subset of your library that only contains the books that have a tag.

If you select any other grouping and close the grouping drawer, it shows you a list that contains all of the book in your library whether they are a member of that grouping or not.

To me, the behavior for tags makes more sense. If I have shown interest in a grouping, the thing I want to see by default is the books that belong to that grouping. Currently, the default when I select a grouping is to show me all the books in my library, whether they are relevant to that grouping or not.

Originally Posted by kaufman

3) Whether or not you do this function (hide blank items) I think the long press on group names giving you the chance to only show books with or without that field would be nice to have. And it is certainly more useful than just popping up a message saying it doesn't do anything.

Originally Posted by chaley

But you are asking that it do something very different from long-pressing on an item. Long-pressing an item does the equivalent of a virtual library. Tapping an item simply shows those items but does not affect tapping on some other item.

I think I just didn't say it very well. I think that a long press on a grouping should pop up the same dialog box that currently pops up for a search on a sub-grouping within a grouping. "How do you want to match the books?" "Cancel/Not Matching/Matching". So, if you long pressed on publishers, "Not matching" would create the virtual library of books without publishers, "Matching" would create a virtual library of all books with any non-null value in the publisher field. I think that this is more useful than just popping up an error message. Its also something that people are likely to try.

Originally Posted by kaufman

4) Most important: Currently pressing on the blank item pops up the "Cannot long press on a group name message". The fact that no one has complained about this not working any more might be a sign that people don't use it very often.

Originally Posted by chaley

You mean "long-pressing on a blank item", not "tapping on a blank item". Tapping does exactly what it should, showing the books that do not have that item (series, publisher, what-have-you) set.

Correct. I meant long pressing. I played a bit more, and it actually doesn't have anything to do with the blank field. Long pressing on the first item in any grouping will give the error message.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

If you don't select a grouping and close the grouping drawer, it shows you a list that contains all of the book in your library.

If you select the tags grouping and then close the grouping drawer without selecting a tag, it shows you a subset of your library that only contains the books that have a tag.

If you select any other grouping and close the grouping drawer, it shows you a list that contains all of the book in your library whether they are a member of that grouping or not.

To me, the behavior for tags makes more sense. If I have shown interest in a grouping, the thing I want to see by default is the books that belong to that grouping. Currently, the default when I select a grouping is to show me all the books in my library, whether they are relevant to that grouping or not.

Actually, I think this is a bug. The same thing will happen for any is_multiple custom column. It should add an empty entry if the column is empty.

I think I just didn't say it very well. I think that a long press on a grouping should pop up the same dialog box that currently pops up for a search on a sub-grouping within a grouping. "How do you want to match the books?" "Cancel/Not Matching/Matching". So, if you long pressed on publishers, "Not matching" would create the virtual library of books without publishers, "Matching" would create a virtual library of all books with any non-null value in the publisher field. I think that this is more useful than just popping up an error message. Its also something that people are likely to try.

You are right -- long pressing on a group should do a :true/:false search on that group. However, for that to work in the DB the empty value must be there to be found.

So in the end we are still at the original question: do I add an option not to show <<>> books? I am still thinking ...

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

On the pretext that "you don't quite know what you want till you don't quite get it" I'm going to raise this here as it may be impossible/quite a lot of work.

Whilst alpha-testing I decided to try out custom column #pages (integer) as a Groupable item.

With 'Group by first letters' checked the results are:

<<>> [1 #pages, 3 books]
0 [113 #pages, 134 books]

With 'Group by first letters' unchecked the results are:

<<>> [1 #pages, 3 books]
... ...
99 [1 book]
...
nnn [1 book] x a very long list

Unfortunately, neither of which is ideal. What I'd really like for Grouped integer custom columns is something like:

0-99 [n books]
100-149 [n books]
150-199 [n books] etc. etc.

Might such an option be doable in a future release?

There are some interesting issues here, mainly around how the database is structured and how sorting works. For example, the range

2000-2099

will sort before

300-399

because all the sorts are string-based. I can't change this.

What I can do is make ranges of the form

300- 399

which is space space 300 space space 399.
This makes the string sort correctly. Is this OK?

[jackie_w]

@chaley,
I was expecting you to save this for a rainy day. Should've known better

I have no objection at all to leading spaces. Your proposal is certainly more useful than a long list of individual Page counts.

A few thoughts:

1. Are you thinking that this may become a general feature for any numeric field? If so, many people use the Count Pages plugin to generate both Page count and Word count (not me for the latter). Word counts could be significantly larger numbers, at least 6-dgts maybe more. I'm not sure at which point you need to decide how many leading spaces to allow or whether it's possible to programatically calculate it per field depending on actual values in the database. If it has to be a one-size-fits-all for all fields then a large number of displayed (rather than stored) leading spaces for a field which is only ever in the range 0-999 may look a bit peculiar.
   
2. If its a general feature, the question of what the range intervals should be will also arise. I think, on the whole people like to see 'nice round numbers' as the start (or end) points, e.g. 200-249 or 200-299 rather than 221-370. However a range interval of 50 or 100 is probably too small if the field is Word count.
   
3. If people see and like the ability to have range groups for Pages, I can imagine future requests to have the same for Dates, e.g. Date published. There's no requirement to say 'yes', of course

[chaley]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

@chaley,
I was expecting you to save this for a rainy day. Should've known better

I have no objection at all to leading spaces. Your proposal is certainly more useful than a long list of individual Page counts.

A few thoughts:
[*]Are you thinking that this may become a general feature for any numeric field? If so, many people use the Count Pages plugin to generate both Page count and Word count (not me for the latter). Word counts could be significantly larger numbers, at least 6-dgts maybe more. I'm not sure at which point you need to decide how many leading spaces to allow or whether it's possible to programatically calculate it per field depending on actual values in the database. If it has to be a one-size-fits-all for all fields then a large number of displayed (rather than stored) leading spaces for a field which is only ever in the range 0-999 may look a bit peculiar.

Yes, all numeric fields will use this scheme if "first letters" is checked. I need 9 spaces, given that the largest number calibre will let you put in is 999,999,999. And funnily enough, it doesn't look as strange as I thought it would.

[*]If its a general feature, the question of what the range intervals should be will also arise. I think, on the whole people like to see 'nice round numbers' as the start (or end) points, e.g. 200-249 or 200-299 rather than 221-370. However a range interval of 50 or 100 is probably too small if the field is Word count.

Currently I use ranges of 100. Note that a range will not appear if there are no books in it. The pathological case is that there is one book per interval.

I can't adjust the interval dynamically. I can adjust the interval by the size of the number, but I am not convinced that would be better.

[*]If people see and like the ability to have range groups for Pages, I can imagine future requests to have the same for Dates, e.g. Date published. There's no requirement to say 'yes', of course

Dates are already grouped a bit. Pubdates show by year. Other dates show by year/month. But yes, there will probably be a request to show "first letters" not as "2" but as "2000". I could easily do it by year.

The int/float feature is in the new alpha release. Try it and let me know what you think. Note that you must trigger a database rebuild to see the new grouping. The easiest way to do that is to add or remove a column from the grouped-on list.

[kaufman]

I had an idea today for a feature that I think would be very handy for people with large libraries or long lists within their libraries.

I was in the grouping drawer going through my authors, I wanted to look up Robert Sheckley, I went to the "S" authors and since I have 194 of them, I started quickly scrolling. I stopped where I thought I was far enough and it turned out I was at the "Sm"s. I scrolled backwards a bit and stopped at the "Sc"s and then slowly moved forward to Sheckley.

I thought, "wouldn't be be nice to have a small indication to show me where I was in any list I was scrolling though". It could appear when I started scrolling and then go away as soon as the scrolling stopped. I don't think it would need to show the whole item, but perhaps the first two or three letters (probably two) would give me enough of an indication to know when to slow down or stop. I see this as a semi-transparent grey box with the letters in it near the upper right of the screen, but that's just my vision. It might make more sense to put it in the grouping bar so you didn't have to deal with scrolling issues.


This would be handy both in the grouping drawer and in the book list. I'm not sure it would be useful for dates, or other number based fields, but for alphabetic based elements, it would make scrolling a lot nicer.


Anyone else think this might be useful?

[chaley]

@kaufman: what about providing a slidable scroll bar like exists on the book list? That would give you fine control over the fling.