Which custom columns do you use?

[Ansem_93]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Here's how it looks for me.

Attachment 192796
6. Book type: I have Fiction, Nonfiction, Fanfiction, Comics, Magazines & Periodicals, and Documentation & Manuals. This mostly is for sorting into virtual libraries.

7. Some Kobo-specific columns. This is for eBooks on my device.

I also have a bunch of fanfic-specific columns and one specific to documentation/manuals, but I hid them for the screenshot.

6- Why don't just use tags?
7- I'm new to Kobo, which comuns should I create?

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Ansem_93

6- Why don't just use tags?
7- I'm new to Kobo, which comuns should I create?

6. I actually don't remember why I switched -- I suspect one of my templates was misbehaving with hierarchical tags though.

7. Here are the ones I have:

#onkobo: Boolean (yes/no). 'Yes' means it's on the Kobo, 'no' means that it's on the device but outdated (fanfics, mostly), undefined means not on device.

#kobostatus: Enumerated column (text, fixed values). I have "Kobo Store," "Sideloaded," "Fanfiction," and "Loans."

#kobocoll: Tag-like text. the driver (KoboTouch and KoboTouchExtended) can sync it to the device to manage collections/shelves on the device.

#kobobookmark: This is used by the Kobo Utilities plugin to store the reading position whenever I sync. Helpful to have a backup.

#kobopath: I use this to add a bit more customization in the save path that a single-function template can't quite handle.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Ansem_93

6- Why don't just use tags?
7- I'm new to Kobo, which comuns should I create?

Kobo support #Subtitle, So I break those out in my Library (and configure the Kobo PI to use it)

[HappyCalibreUser]

Ah, my favorite discussion: Calibre.

I agonized since roughly the early beginning of Calibre back when it first started just how I could most effectively use it, and only within the last year decided what I wanted. Okay, I'm slow... :P

I finally settled on a single custom column: Notes

I set my viewed columns to these only to be seen because it's so super easy to hide any of the pre-made columns until I want to view them. This way I can already see buckets of information easily when/or if I need it.

Author(s): Set to-Last name, First Name (Middle). For other format's: Caper the Friendly Ghost, Comic Books ... Men's Adventure, Magazines..., Vamperilla, Comic Magazines; etc.
Series: Since it sorts and/or numbers the way I want it to-Sample: The Big Bear, aphabetizes on the'B'
Title: sorts the same as the series
Published: the earliest known printing. Besides I may fix something sometime so my changes no longer reflects the original download.
Tags: Informative (Brief samples: action, American Western, American B-Western, Better Little Books, comic books, comic magazines, fiction, fiction ePub's, fiction comic books, humorous, newspaper strips, paranormals, romance, vampires; etc.)
Notes: my only custom column. (Sample: Chapters make non-indent, book bad-rebuild, find better copy or reformat by hand, cover, whatever I need to say. Use only as needed. I can quickly alphabatize the list to find whatever I want to work on later by 'top-clicking' the top of that column.)

For a data sort, if ever needed:
I use Tags heavily to sort or create temporary virtual library pages when I need more than authors, languages, formats, or whatever from the left side of the page menu.
I let Calibre Date when the title is downloaded.
Language is always English, but I still add it to the mix, just in case it's needed in the future.
Rating: Cleared. That literally changes over time, so I don't use it but it's hidden if I ever want to use it.
Size: viewed only as needed.

ids: Again, Cleared. Since I may have made changes to formatting or the cover, it doesn't reflect the current title. If I want to order a different copy, I can find it online easily. :/

This is what works for me, so I'm 'happy'.

My method permits me to later divide my library easily into multiple libraries, simply select comic books in the Central Library, or Magazines, or fiction, nonfiction, childrens books, vintage, music disc's, movie disks.

I love this thing!

[Loosheesh]

My custom columns are:

Read (Yes/No)
Date Read
Cost
Source
Stars (half-star ratings)
Minutes (for audiobook length)
Status (I use this to track my unread paid books and my print books)
Narrators
Translators
Pages (page count)
Words (word count)
Speed (to estimate the reading time for any books with a word count)
Annotations
Review

I have an *ENF column that I don't use but I'm too lazy to get rid of it.

(*for the English Noun Frequency plugin)

[allanahk]

I have quite a few custom columns. My most used ones are:

Genre: broad genre (scifi, mystery, fantasy, thriller etc) - I have about 20 of these and leave the Tags column to the metadata downloader and other more specific tags

Word count: from Count Pages plugin

Read status: 4 options - read, partially read, abandoned and unread

Goodreads reviews: number of reviews on Goodreads, useful for getting an idea of how famous a book is. I used the method described here: https://usman.io/goodreads-decimal-ratings-in-calibre/, i.e. edit the Goodreads metadata plugin to import goodreads reviews into the publisher column (I never care about the publisher anyway...)

Popularity: column based on number of GR reviews as follows:

program:

# returns the "fame" of a book based on number of goodreads reviews

if raw_field('#gr_review') ># 500000 then
'V. Famous'
elif raw_field('#gr_review') ># 100000 then
'Famous'
elif raw_field('#gr_review') ># 50000 then
'Well Known'
elif raw_field('#gr_review') ># 10000 then
'Known'
elif raw_field('#gr_review') ># 1000 then
'Rel. Unknown'
else
'Unknown'
fi

Reading time: a rough guess at how long the book will take to read, based on min/max reading speed. I think I found the program template on mobilereads somewhere:

program:

# This program calculate a reading time per hour for an ebook

# Adjustments:
# w_min -> minimum words per minute
# w_max -> maximum words per minute
w_min = 250;
w_max = 400;

# readingtime per hour = 60
p_time = 60;

# Needs a custom column for word count (#words)
# change it to your field name
words = raw_field ('#words');

time1 = format_number (divide (words, multiply (w_max, p_time)), '{0: .1f}');
time2 = format_number (divide (words, multiply (w_min, p_time)), '{0: .1f}');

rt1_hour = re (time1, '\. \ d *', '');
rt2_hour = re (time2, '\. \ d *', '');

readingtime = strcat (rt1_hour, 'h -', rt2_hour, 'h');

Some other handy yes/no columns: #on_kindle, #need_to_edit, #replace_on_kindle

[dunhill]

The columns I have are:
Status (Read, To Read, Reading)
Title
Author
Date (From Calibre)
Ranking
tags
Serie
Editorial
Published
pages
Started (Read start date)
Finished (Date the reading finished)
Days (Number of days to read it)
Reading time
Calif. Goodreads in numbers
Is it Audiobook? If it is in digital format, it says Yes/No
Physical Books --
Price
price date
Bookstore where I bought the book
if you ask for the book
Who do you lend them to?
Location
Audiobook ---
Duration
Storyteller

[meghane_e]

I use these custom columns:
#source (where I bought and/or downloaded the book from)
#price (Starts with a default $100.00 value. I read a lot of KU books and want to record them, but also need a way to record the price I paid for my other books. Helps with comparing online book sales.)
#ereader_title (program to display "{series} Book {series-index}: {title}")
I plan to add in some old code that strips any series info from the end of titles
#original_add (I had been combining old libraries which means the new library would only have the most recently added date. But I also wanted to capture the originally added date)

I've tried adding a custom #genre column a few times but get bogged down in actually translating incoming tags to genres every single time.

This is copy/pasted from my #ereader_title column:

program:
if_series = ifempty($series, '') ;
if_series_index = test($series_index, strcat(' Book ', $series_index), '') ;
if_subseries = ifempty(field('#subseries'), '') ;
subseries = test(if_subseries, strcat('/', if_subseries), if_subseries ) ;
subseries_index = test(if_subseries, strcat(' ', field('#subseries_index')), '') ;
title_choice = ifempty($title, '<Unknown Title>') ;
trim_title = test($series, re(title_choice, '((: \()|(\())(.*)(\))', ''), title_choice );
if_series_colon = test($series, strcat(': ', trim_title), trim_title) ;
display_title = strcat(if_series, if_series_index, subseries, subseries_index, if_series_colon);
re(display_title, '( :)', ':' ) ;

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by meghane_e

I've tried adding a custom #genre column a few times but get bogged down in actually translating incoming tags to genres every single time.

I selected a handful of genre tags from wikidata and use the wikidata plugin to import them for matching books. This gets a lot of them filled in correctly, but not all.

Then I have a custom search that flags books missing metadata. I typically don't mess with the tags imported on books, as they're mostly junk but still informative. I have my own custom tags column that I populate, both from wikidata and manually. I have a few "flag" tags I do put in the tags column that help filter the custom searches.

[meghane_e]

@compurandom: Thanks for the pointers! I didn't know about wikidata, so you've given me a lot to explore!