[GUI Plugin] Import List

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by omin

Can we use Import List to update Tags, including remove tags? The plugin only seems to append to Tags, not update.

Here's a screenshot after I pressed the "Update metadata for the selected books in the list" button.

No the plugin currently as you say is designed to append tags, not replace the contents of existing tags.

Technically it would not be difficult to add, other than knowing where in the GUI to actually put the "option" to allow users to toggle the behaviour between the two modes. The Step 2 "Resolve" page is already pretty busy, and not sure adding a menu hidden behind yet another button in the right side is going to be very discoverable. The Options... button at the bottom currently doesn't have any specific preferences in it, though theoretically it could have something added.

If anyone comes up with a good suggestion I can consider adding it.

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...rt_list-v1.9.5

Support for calibre 7.26 - thanks chaley for the info on the fix

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...rt_list-v1.9.6

Groundhog day as another breaking interface from calibre 7.26 was found, thanks to chaley again for confirming the fix required.

[Comfy.n]

Hi kiwidude, maybe still groundhog day! I wanted to try this plugin then I tried to preview this url as a list source...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/lis...uth?shelf=read

.. and got this message:

Spoiler:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre_plugins.import_list.tab_webpage", line 802, in _preview_rows
File "re\__init__.py", line 227, in compile
File "re\__init__.py", line 294, in _compile
File "re\_compiler.py", line 743, in compile
File "re\_parser.py", line 982, in parse
File "re\_parser.py", line 457, in _parse_sub
File "re\_parser.py", line 867, in _parse
re.error: missing ), unterminated subpattern at position 2

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

Hi kiwidude, maybe still groundhog day! I wanted to try this plugin then I tried to preview this url as a list source...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/lis...uth?shelf=read

.. and got this message:

Spoiler:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre_plugins.import_list.tab_webpage", line 802, in _preview_rows
File "re\__init__.py", line 227, in compile
File "re\__init__.py", line 294, in _compile
File "re\_compiler.py", line 743, in compile
File "re\_parser.py", line 982, in parse
File "re\_parser.py", line 457, in _parse_sub
File "re\_parser.py", line 867, in _parse
re.error: missing ), unterminated subpattern at position 2

That one has been broken for a long while I believe, for the last 11 months at least. It is from a monster change I had to make across many plugins to the raw string syntax, which apparently was not as trivial as just sticking an r in front of the string when the previous values were heavily escaped as the goodreads regexes are. Ugh. New fix incoming...

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...rt_list-v1.9.7

This should fix the Goodreads predefined options. If you have your own custom preset based on them and are still having errors, make sure your regexes are correct (the ones provided by the plugin were not for nearly the last year). The fix involved removing the double escaping on each regex for each of the fields. So instead of:

\\([^\\)]+\\)

it should be:

\([^\)]+\)

in title for instance, and similar removing of \\ for \ in series, series index and identifier.

[me-ella]

I'm absolutely loving the Import List plugin, thank you, it's invaluable for so many usecases. Is there a way to force it to only change/add to some columns (example custom columns, tags, etc) and use other columns (Title, Authors etc) just to cross-reference entires and not actually change the existing values in calibre? When I import a list it changes my existing data and it's quite complicated.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by me-ella

I'm absolutely loving the Import List plugin, thank you, it's invaluable for so many usecases. Is there a way to force it to only change/add to some columns (example custom columns, tags, etc) and use other columns (Title, Authors etc) just to cross-reference entires and not actually change the existing values in calibre? When I import a list it changes my existing data and it's quite complicated.

Hi, glad you find it useful! It's a bit of a geek tool really, I haven't ended up using it personally as much as I thought I would when I first wrote it so it hasn't had much demand from me for additional customisation. Plus it is already a very complex plugin to use so trying to find a balance when considering new options on top requested is difficult.

However I am slightly confused about what you are asking for. With the "Update metadata fields" button on the Step 2 page, you have to pick which fields you want to update in your library. Does that not do what you want already?

[Rellwood]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...rt_list-v1.9.5

Support for calibre 7.26 - thanks chaley for the info on the fix

What did you change?

[Rellwood]

Originally Posted by me-ella

I'm absolutely loving the Import List plugin, thank you, it's invaluable for so many usecases. Is there a way to force it to only change/add to some columns (example custom columns, tags, etc) and use other columns (Title, Authors etc) just to cross-reference entires and not actually change the existing values in calibre? When I import a list it changes my existing data and it's quite complicated.

You know it doesn't have to change your metadata if you don't want it to. I mean, you have the option to "update" or not.

When you "update metadata" for matched books, you have to choose or check or uncheck the columns you want to update, you also choose to update the books by selecting "all" or some to update.

Also, if there are columns you want to show to check that the metadata is correct or needs updating or need it to accurately match to the list, but the column isnt there, just select the column in the dropdown of available columns to match, even if it is empty or not pointing to anything in the list, it will show you what it has.

[Rellwood]

Hi there, and thanks to everyone maintaining this plugin — it's incredibly useful!

I wanted to report a persistent usability issue with the matching window in the Import List plugin. Specifically, the column widths in the window where books are matched (after the plugin starts) become effectively locked after auto-adjusting.

Here's what happens:

When the plugin first launches, I can see multiple columns at once, which is great.

But if I use the auto-adjust column widths function (either manually or automatically), the column widths expand in a way that makes only one column visible at a time.

After this point, I’m unable to shrink the column widths again, so I’m stuck scrolling sideways or toggling back and forth — which is very inefficient for comparing data across columns.
The only way to restore the ability to see multiple columns is to exit and relaunch the plugin.

Would it be possible to allow manual resizing of column widths in that window (or at least reset them to default)? Ideally, I’d like to shrink them down and fit more on-screen at once to make the matching process easier.

[kiwidude]

@Rellwood - what "auto adjust column widths" function are you talking about? I'm not aware of any such feature in the plugin itself. If you mean double clicking on a column heading separator to expand and the column becomes silly large due to lots of content, you just use the horizontal scrollbar to find the end of it and drag it back to something more reasonable?

Your other question re what changed - its right there in the release notes link that you quoted on. Nothing functional, just matching an internal calibre change.

[Rellwood]

Thanks for confirming the release notes — much appreciated!

And yes, to clarify what I meant:

When I double-click the column separator in the header (to auto-size it based on content), the column expands — but then I’m unable to shrink it back. There is no way to grab the column to shrink it. It stays full width, there is no "edge" to grab. If I scroll over it just moves to the next column.

This results in only one column being visible in the window at a time. If I scroll to the right, the next column also takes up the full width. It ends up acting like a “single column view” instead of a multi-column table, and I lose the ability to see multiple columns side-by-side, which makes matching much harder.

The only way I’ve found to reset the view is to close and relaunch the plugin.

Let me know if you want a screen recording or screenshot to show what I mean — happy to help however I can. And thanks again for maintaining this plugin, it’s a lifesaver!

[kiwidude]

@Rellwood - I'm still not understanding why you are not using the horizontal scrollbar in that grid in this circumstance? Using that you can precisely position yourself so the right side end of the super long column is visible in your view. Then you can drag the column header back to a more manageable size?

This isn't behaviour specific to this plugin BTW, thats just how grids usually work, you get exactly the same behaviour in the main calibre grid or even Excel for instance. It reminds me a bit of the saying they use in a lot in legal TV shows of something like "don't ask a question that you haven't prepared for the answer". I have pretty much the same feeling about double clicking on a column to adjust to it's max width - it's fine to do for columns you know are small, but if you aren't sure how wide it will become then better to not do it and just adjust drag it manually to avoid this sort of situation.

I already persist the widths of columns so this isn't something you should regularly have to worry about doing once you set some initial acceptable sizes. Unless you are temporarily trying to look at all values in some very long column (such as lots of tags) for some reason. Is that the use case?

One potential solution to that is I just add tooltips to the grid like the main calibre grid does, so you can see all the values by hovering over the cell rather than having to expand the column.

The only additional thing that comes to mind I "could" do in theory is do what Kovid added for the main UI grid of offering a column header context menu for "Adjust width of column for xxx". TBH I think that dialog is overkill (I've only just found it myself) but I can understand it would give you more granular control over a column width. I don't know if Kovid wrapped it up all his functionality in a nice reusable delegate that would make this a trivial change - I certainly wouldn't want to reinvent the wheel by having to recreate it myself.

[sgmoore]

If I understand @Rellwood correctly, I have seen a similar issue a couple of times. I have also seen this issue with lots of other programs. Excel does give you the option to set the column width manually on a column, but most don't and the only way around it is to start at the end and resize the columns until you can see a part of the previous column and that allows you to resize it.

A contrived example is using a template

(?P<title>.*?) \-\-\- (?P<authors>.*)\-\-\- (?P<series>.*)\-\-\- (?P<series_index>.*)\-\-\- (?P<published>.*)

with a clipboard source

H.G. Wells: Masterpieces: The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Food of the Gods... (Bauer Classics) (H.G. Wells Definitive Collection) --- H.G. Wells --- --- --- 2020
Belfast Noir --- Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville & Glenn Patterson & Eoin McNamee & Garbhan Downey & Lee Child & Alex Barclay & Brian McGilloway & Ian McDonald & Arlene Hunt & Ruth Dudley Edwards & Claire McGowan & Steve Cavanagh & Lucy Caldwell & Sam Millar & Gerard Brennan --- --- --- 2021

In order to resize title, you first have to shrink the authors column until you can see a bit of the title column.

The more columns you have the more annoying it is, but with any of the templates I have used with import list, there are not many columns, so the issue doesn't cause me any inconvenience.

Since the scroll bar scrolls columns you can't see what is at the end of the title column if both it and the next column are the full width of the grid, so I have seen some grids that restrict the 'resize to maximum width' feature so that it is just slightly less that the total grid width. It does look strange, but seems to reduce this problem.