[GUI Plugin] Action Chains

[ownedbycats]

I think that would make sense.

[ownedbycats]

Also:

while I was working on some chains, I noticed there wasn't any way to temporarily disable an action.

program: connected_device_name('main') = ThisDeviceDoesNotExist worked as a kludge.

I'm not sure how useful a 'disable action' would be in general though.

[capink]

Uncheck the checkbox to the left of the chain name.

[ownedbycats]

I don't see one?

[ownedbycats]

Also: At one point I thought there was an option to be able to run a chain inside another chain but I can't seem to find it. Was I mistaken?

[capink]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I don't see one?

Look in the customize dialog, not the chain links dialog. Next to the chain name.

Edit: Sorry. I thought you wanted to disable a chain not an action. If you want to disable an action set to condition that evaluate to false. The same as you did. But and easier way to enter 1 as a template and 2 as condition value (using the = operator), that will always evaluate to false.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Also: At one point I thought there was an option to be able to run a chain inside another chain but I can't seem to find it. Was I mistaken?

Originally Posted by capink

On a side note, I thought about giving the users the ability to call other chains through Calibre Actions or through a separate action, and maybe supplementing that with a another flow control action. I dismissed the idea because it can cause problems like circular dependency. You can prevent a chain from directly calling itself, but it can do so indirectly through another chain that might reference it, and this would require a complicated dependency checking before running chains. You can write these action(s) for yourself as custom actions if you want this be a generalized solution, but I think it is opening a can of worms.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

- Start ActionChain#1
- It calls ActionChain#2
- But then that calls ActionChain#1
- Which again calls ActionChain#2
- And once again, it calls ActionChain#1...

I don't think there's any good way to halt a chain in progress, is there?

I did not include this feature because of the reasons outlined in the quotes above. However, I did demonstrate how to run it from code.

[ownedbycats]

I was referring to a specific action, not the entire chain.

I will try the code.

[capink]

See the edit above about disabling an action.

[ownedbycats]

That makes sense. I'll keep using my "ThisDeviceDoesNotExist" kludge in the future.

[Terisa de morgan]

Hello, I've got a doubt about how to do something. I'm using the plugin so I add a batch of books and I want to apply a command to all the added books. The plugin waits OK till the end of the batch add. The problem, however, is that, after the add, only the first book is selected and the second command is applied only to that one. I guess there is a way to apply the command to all the added books, but I don't know how.

Edit: Forget it, I only had to read (Selection modifier)

[capink]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Edit: Forget it, I only had to read (Selection modifier)

I know it is not immediately clear and I don't know how to make it so.

Edit: To elaborate on what Terisa de Morgan is saying: If you want to add books and apply other actions to the added books, do the following:

• As the first action: Calibre Actions > Add books. You must also select the option to wait until the progress bar finishes.
• After the books are added we want a way to select all the newly added books. The solution to this: Selection modifier > select books modified by last action.
• Now, you can apply whatever actions you want on the selected books.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by capink

I know it is not immediately clear and I don't know how to make it so.

It's clear if you read the plugin instructions, I hadn't done it. After reading it, it was clear. The problem was laziness

[ownedbycats]

Question: I have a chain set to use the Count Pages plugin as well as change a bunch other single-field edits.

In Word Counts' settings, I disabled the confirmation prompts to save the count. Is there any risk that it could accidentally corrupt the database by writing at the same time one of my single-field edits runs?

[capink]

I am not familiar with the count pages plugin, so I cannot give a definitive answer to this.

All I can say, since those changes are going to happen on different actions, there is no risk of corruption, unless count pages starts another thread. And even in the event of a separate threads, calibre is thread safe to the best of my understanding.

[ownedbycats]

to mitigate the risk, I set Count Pages to run last, after all my single-field edits.