[Metadata Source Plugin] Goodreads

[Comfy.n]

I'm loving this update, thanks so much!
I've set #r as lookup name for the precise Rating custom column, and #v for number of votes/reviews, as I like to have one-letter columns for added comfyness.
Previously I had tried out a plugin fork that would work as a two-step process to feed the new optional columns; now, with this update, a single step is sufficient.
Congrats on the new plugins home, I liked everything about it, so far.

Screenshot attached displays the new options:

[dunhill]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

I'm loving this update, thanks so much!
Here I've set #r as lookup name for the precise Rating custom column, and #v for number of votes, as I like to have one-letter columns for added comfyness.
Previously I had tried out a plugin fork that would work as a two-step process to feed the new optional columns; now, with this update, a single step is sufficient.
Congrats on the new plugins home, I liked everything about it, so far.

Screenshot attached displays the new options:

It is a dream come true !!!

[Comfy.n]

I'm getting unexpected behaviour from this search:

when using #r (my lookup name for the custom column containing the grrating identifier), #r:false returns 0 titles; whereas using identifiers:grrating:false the search returns the correct number of titles in the library that still don't have the grrating.

OTOH, both identifiers:grrating:true and #r:true queries return the titles that already have the grrating, as expected.

not sure if this is a PI issue

(i've tried renaming the custom column from #r to #gr, but that didn't help: searching for #gr:false returns a empty list)

[kiwidude]

@Comfy.n - that question is nothing to do with this plugin itself, that is a general query on using the calibre template query language and custom columns for an identifier. Chaley is the guru on that - not sure if you will get lucky and have him spot it here or if you would be better off asking in the main calibre forums.

Glad to hear you are finding the new feature useful at least…

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@Comfy.n - that question is nothing to do with this plugin itself, that is a general query on using the calibre template query language and custom columns for an identifier. Chaley is the guru on that - not sure if you will get lucky and have him spot it here or if you would be better off asking in the main calibre forums.

Glad to hear you are finding the new feature useful at least…

I asked here.

[Melih]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Click to see CHANGELOG on GitHub

Two specific things I will call out on here:

• Plugin can now (optionally) download the exact rating and #votes from Goodreads - in a way that will let you see them in custom columns.

There have been a number of plugins out there trying to do this but always hitting the brick wall limits of the metadata plugin API making them a multi-step/multi-plugin process.

A special shoutout to Melih who emailed me today which prompted this addition. The plugin can now return two additional identifiers of grrating and grvotes. You can then bind these to custom columns using existing calibre template syntax. For full details on how to do this, refer to the README here.

The super nice thing about this is you get that data at the same time you get the rest of your metadata for the book - no need for a "second pass" by another plugin. Note this is all opt-in behavior - you have to go into the configuration options for the plugin to enable this feature.

• This is the first release from the kiwidude plugins "new home" and all that implies...

It has "only" taken me 11+ years to get around to it but all my plugins are now in GitHub. There has been a huge amount of plugin cleanup the last few weeks, dropping support for PyQt4 (i.e. a minimum of calibre 2.x for all my plugins now), common_utils.py refactored/rewritten to be actually shared between plugins again, constant refining and tweaking of command scripts for everything from builds to translation management to automating releases on GitHub, Transifex integration, documenting everything to the nth detail for maintainers etc.

I'm still "tinkering" so not ready to push the button on the new releases of every plugin just yet but that will happen in the next week or so. I'll write a separate post about it all when I am ready.

But you can expect that for my plugins going forward there will be a lot more linking direct to the GitHub repo for documentation for help files, change logs etc to avoid the duplication and overhead for the maintainers. So any early feedback on what people now like or dislike about the "new ways" would be appreciated.

You are a savior Thanks a lot again

[kiwidude]

Just a heads up that the next 1.7.1 release of this plugin (which will happen after I give the translators a day or two to catch up) it will drop any kind of support for genre hierarchies.

On the "legacy" web page design, Goodreads had genre shelve hierarchies. So a book could be listed as genres of both "Fantasy" and "Fantasy > Urban Fantasy" for instance. Which historically I offered the option to configure mappings for in this plugin - you could add "Fantasy > Urban Fantasy" and whatever tags you wanted that to map to.

However in the new web page design there is no such hierarchies for genres. A book may instead just be tagged "Fantasy" and "Urban Fantasy".

The change I am making to the plugin will be that if it hits the old web page design, it instead just grabs the last tag in a hierarchy to use - e.g. "Fantasy -> Urban Fantasy" will just become "Urban Fantasy" instead. That way the same mappings/behavior work for both web page designs.

Why am I mentioning all of this? Because I know some of you put lots of work into your genre tag mappings, and you will now want to do a bunch of editing/deleting of them. Basically any tags that are like "X > Y" you now should just have an entry for "Y" instead.

One further addition in the next version is a checkbox allowing you to bypass all of the tag mappings and get every genre from Goodreads as a tag - no filtering/renaming at all. This may please users who think "more is more" as they do not have to manually maintain that list. Just be aware if you choose that option you may get tags like "audiobook" or other noise coming through and this plugin won't filter them out.

Thanks to @Neyesha for bringing this to my attention.

EDIT: You can see the new dialog/options here: https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...wiki/Goodreads

[Tenome]

Would it be possible to add an option to search using Series instead of Title (or just use Series + Volume # as the Title)? I have some JP novels that I left the Title blank as because it would be redundant with the Series name.

I realize that this is probably something only I need to worry about, so alternatively, if you can tell me which Python script to edit that'd be appreciated. Thanks.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by Tenome

Would it be possible to add an option to search using Series instead of Title (or just use Series + Volume # as the Title)? I have some JP novels that I left the Title blank as because it would be redundant with the Series name.

I realize that this is probably something only I need to worry about, so alternatively, if you can tell me which Python script to edit that'd be appreciated. Thanks.

I could make it just a default behavior of the plugin that if the book has no title but does have a series that it tries a search with that. That way it would work for a range of different books without having to toggle an option on/off.

[kiwidude]

@Tenome - from a quick look I actually don't think this is possible based on how the calibre metadata plugin API works. The callback done to each plugin is to the identify() function and the only parameters it passes through are the title, author and identifiers for the book. Not the series.

It would require Kovid to supplement/change his API and I think the chances of that happening for an edge case like this are not likely.

So you will have to put the series information into the title to get any metadata download plugin to work.

[Tenome]

Dang, oh well. Thanks for checking.

[kiwidude]

Release Notes:
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...odreads-v1.7.1

[Tenome]

Any idea why this one failed to find the metadata? The title, ASIN, and author are exactly the same as listed on Goodreads.

https://pastebin.com/hyyPkxPB
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54962998

[kiwidude]

I see a 403 Forbidden in there - my guess is you got hit with a rate limit by Goodreads from your IP address. Were you downloading metadata in bulk? Give it a few minutes and then try again for that book...

[Tenome]

Hm, I was only downloading one book though... I just tried a different book right after and it works fine. It's like that one specific book is being rejected for some reason.

Huh, nevermind, it's working again. Weird.