[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[Far_Pen_6884]

I've been a bit indecisive about how to set up Calibre before I started using the FanFicFare plugin to import fanfics. However, I recently discovered the "Saved Metadata" column, which I plan to use initially to start getting the fics I read. I’ll worry about organizing the library more thoroughly later.

I want to get all available metadata from AO3 when importing a fic and save it into the Saved Metadata column. So far, I've assigned these Calibre columns (or custom columns) to capture metadata fields from AO3 fics:

- FanFicFare column (Calibre column or #custom_column)
- Category (what? is this fandom?)
- Genre (what?)
- Language (languages)
- Series (series)
- Characters (#characters)
- Relationships (#relationships)
- Status (#writing_status)
- Published (published)
- Updated (#updated)
- Created (Date)
- Rating (#content_rating)
- Warnings (#archive_warnings)
- Chapters (#chapter_count)
- Words (#word_count)
- Site (what? isn't this publisher?)
- Publisher (publisher)
- Story ID (#story_id)
- Author ID (#author_id)
- Extra Tags (#extra_tags)
- Title (#title)
- Story URL (#story_url)
- Description (#description)
- Author (authors)
- Author URL (#author_url)
- File Format (formats)
- FanFicFare Version (#fff_version)
- Update/Overwrite Error (#fff_update_overwrite_error)
- Saved Metadata (#fff_saved_metadata)
- Last Checked (#fff_last_checked)

I've heard it’s possible to also capture additional AO3-specific stats like kudos, bookmarks, and such, but I'm not sure how to configure FanFicFare or Calibre to fetch and save these fields automatically.

Could anyone share advice or examples on how to configure FanFicFare and Calibre to extract all available metadata from AO3 fics—including kudos and other stats—and save it to the "Saved Metadata" column for archival?

Moderator Notice
Moved here as it was an FFF question. Please post specific PI questions in their forum.

[Clem2605]

Originally Posted by Far_Pen_6884

I've been a bit indecisive about how to set up Calibre before I started using the FanFicFare plugin to import fanfics. However, I recently discovered the "Saved Metadata" column, which I plan to use initially to start getting the fics I read. I’ll worry about organizing the library more thoroughly later.


Could anyone share advice or examples on how to configure FanFicFare and Calibre to extract all available metadata from AO3 fics—including kudos and other stats—and save it to the "Saved Metadata" column for archival?

So, the Saved Metadata Column is a column where FFF automatically save ALL of the work's metadata's that FFF is able to obtain in one place. The only setting up it needs is for you to create a long-text column in calibre, go to FFF's options in 'Custom Columns' and select this column next to 'Saved Metadata Column'.

There is no need to create a column for every metadata out there for them to be saved in the saved metadata column. So unless you need them in calibre for handling purpose, do not create a column for every metadata out there.

However, if you do want to create a column with your works' kudos for exemple, those will have to be set up in your personal.ini. You can seach in 'defaults.ini' for kudos, in order to find all the extra valid entries available for ao3 and their correct name.
Then, you can seach for 'customn_columns_settings', where it will explain how to set up those extra columns.

If you plan to really personnalise your FFF settings, don't hesitate to carefully read the default.ini file, at least the relevant sections for you, because it has most of the answers you will need.

[iakrus]

hey! i'm just starting to add stories to calibre again after months off- computer issues and such. during that time, instead of downloading the fanfiction, loading it on my reader and THEN reading it, i've generally been reading on the site.
i want to add the fics i have read- my history. and that has a date of when you last opened the fic which is often when it was finished. is there a way to add that metadata to calibre- probably its own column, that i could then transfer to my "finished reading" metadata column.
because the problem is, fanficfare opens the fics to load them, so the last read date changes to right now. but then i cant edit in the finished reading column what the date is, because its gone. i could do it manually by copy and pasting it into a doc before downloading the fics, but when im doing batches that would be a pain in the ass.
any solutions? or am i just gonna have to suck it up and screenshot my ao3 history or something before adding fics

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by iakrus

...

Are you talking about history and 'last read' timestamp in AO3?

In that case, what comes to mind is to do the downloads without logging in via FFF (ie, remove always_login:true). That won't work with stories that require login, of course.

Otherwise, yes. The only answer I see is to save your dates off somewhere else.

[AzureSuperuser]

Hi, just noticed that the links from novelfull.com are not able to download.
Gets the error 403 message

[JimmXinu]

novelfull needs flaresolverr. I also needed to bump up timeouts recently when testing a similar report.

[novelfull.com]
use_flaresolverr_proxy:true
slow_down_sleep_time:7
## flaresolverr_proxy_timeout is in integer milliseconds.
## Keep flaresolverr_proxy_timeout set smaller than connect_timeout
## otherwise the connection *to* flaresolverr will timeout first.
flaresolverr_proxy_timeout:59000

[AzureSuperuser]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

novelfull needs flaresolverr. I also needed to bump up timeouts recently when testing a similar report.

[novelfull.com]
use_flaresolverr_proxy:true
slow_down_sleep_time:7
## flaresolverr_proxy_timeout is in integer milliseconds.
## Keep flaresolverr_proxy_timeout set smaller than connect_timeout
## otherwise the connection *to* flaresolverr will timeout first.
flaresolverr_proxy_timeout:59000

Sorry quite new to this.
Is there somewhere I am supposed to put this code?

[ownedbycats]

personal.ini. Access from config, or menu option.

[MidnightRose]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

The images are displayed smaller due to height / width attributes on the <img> tags. Those attrs are discarded by FFF. You could keep them using keep_html_attrs (search for keep_html_attrs and add_to_keep_html_attrs), but that would apply to all tags.

Oh thank you so much for this. This was actually exactly what I needed for some of the formatting to show up in one of the stories I'm following.
As shown here
And the image size tags plus

nook_img_fix:false

fixed the images issues quite nicely.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by MidnightRose

Oh thank you so much for this. This was actually exactly what I needed for some of the formatting to show up in one of the stories I'm following.
As shown here
And the image size tags plus

nook_img_fix:false

fixed the images issues quite nicely.

Anyone have a Nook they can test with and see if nook_img_fix is needed anymore?

That option is for a Nook only limitation like 10 years ago.

[Far_Pen_6884]

I liked this cover style, but I'm not sure how I got it. It has the title and author names with some decorations on the margins. In most fanfics, I receive an image as the cover, but for this one, I got a different style. I've tried changing the settings in various ways, but I haven't had any luck. As far as I know, the default cover is just a white page with different fields, and the "generate cover" plugin uses a Calibre library image.

Does anyone know how I can get this cover style for all the fanfics I download using FanFicFare?

[theducks]

open the MDE: rightclick Generate cover: Customize the styles.

I believe you can reduce the choices to just 1

[Far_Pen_6884]

Thanks, I could indeed reduce the choices to just the one I liked.

Edit metadata > right-click 'Generate cover':
Color: Grass
Styles: Ornamental

[Ealdwulf]

Not sure what is going on, but apparently Ficwad is not working with FFF. I get the following for the log page when trying to update a story:

Error
Heart of the Warrior Book VII
madnesspersonified
'NoneType' object has no attribute 'find'
https://ficwad.com/story/94608


The story does exist.

Ficwad URLs worked fine back in April.

No changes were made to my personal.ini that I can remember (except maybe to stop the automatic opening of pages if needed, don't remember off hand if that was before or after the last time I checked ficwad)

Debug log:

Spoiler:

ApplicationPaletteChange event ignored
Using calibre Qt style: True
ApplicationPaletteChange event received
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre_plugins.wikidata_gui.common_utils", line 14, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name 'QRegExpValidator' from 'qt.core' (C:\Program Files\Calibre2\app\bin\python-lib.bypy.frozen\qt\core.pyc)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre\gui2\ui.py", line 148, in __init__
  File "calibre\gui2\ui.py", line 166, in init_iaction
  File "calibre\customize\__init__.py", line 673, in load_actual_plugin
  File "importlib\__init__.py", line 126, in import_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1204, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1176, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1147, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 690, in _load_unlocked
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 210, in exec_module
  File "calibre_plugins.wikidata_gui.ui", line 22, in <module>
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 210, in exec_module
  File "calibre_plugins.wikidata_gui.importbooks", line 11, in <module>
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 210, in exec_module
  File "calibre_plugins.wikidata_gui.dictdicttable", line 12, in <module>
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 210, in exec_module
  File "calibre_plugins.wikidata_gui.common_utils", line 20, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PyQt4'
EpubMerge: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:43:26,221: calibre_plugins.epubmerge.epubmerge_plugin(156): macmenuhack file_path:C:\Users\bryan\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\fanficfare_macmenuhack.txt
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:43:26,249: calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.fff_plugin(218): Plugin FanFicFare macmenuhack file_path:C:\Users\bryan\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\fanficfare_macmenuhack.txt
calibre Debug log
calibre 8.7  embedded-python: True
Windows-10-10.0.26100-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.26100')
Python 3.11.12
Windows: ('10', '10.0.26100', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
EXE path: C:\Program Files\Calibre2\calibre-debug.exe
Integration status: True
Initialized urlfixer
Successfully initialized third party plugins: DeACSM (0, 0, 16) && DeDRM (7, 2, 1) && ACE (1, 1, 6) && Amazon.com Multiple Countries (1, 0, 0) && Baen (1, 1, 0) && Barnes & Noble (1, 5, 7) && CalibreSpy (1, 0, 92) && Clean Metadata (0, 0, 6) && Comicvine (0, 14, 2) && Consolidate All Library Metadata (2, 0, 46) && Count Pages (1, 13, 7) && Embed Comic Metadata (1, 6, 6) && EpubCheck (0, 2, 6) && EpubMerge (3, 2, 0) && EpubSplit (3, 12, 0) && Extract ISBN (1, 6, 5) && FanFicFare (4, 47, 0) && Fantastic Fiction (1, 7, 2) && Fantastic Fiction Adults (1, 3, 1) && Favourites Menu (1, 3, 1) && FictionDB (1, 4, 2) && Find Duplicates (1, 10, 9) && Generate Cover (2, 3, 6) && Goodreads (1, 8, 3) && Goodreads More Tags (1, 2, 1, 2) && ISFDB3 (1, 4, 2) && Job Spy (1, 0, 239) && Kindle hi-res covers (0, 5, 1) && KindleUnpack - The Plugin (0, 83, 7) && Kobo Metadata (1, 12, 0) && Last Modified (0, 8, 5) && Manage Series (1, 5, 2) && Modify ePub (1, 8, 6) && MultiColumnSearch (1, 0, 96) && Open With (1, 8, 4) && Overdrive Link (2, 58, 0) && Prettify Cover (1, 6, 0) && Quality Check (1, 14, 2) && Quick Preferences (1, 7, 1) && Reading List (1, 15, 6) && Resize Cover (1, 2, 1) && Search The Internet (1, 11, 3) && Skoob Books (1, 5, 7) && Smashwords Metadata (1, 0, 2) && Standard Ebooks (1, 0, 0) && User Category (1, 6, 1) && View Manager (1, 10, 3) && Walk Search History (1, 5, 4) && Wikidata (2, 0, 0) && Wikidata gui (2, 0, 0) && ePub Extended Metadata {Writer} (0, 11, 4) && ePub Extended Metadata {Reader} (0, 11, 4) && ePub Extended Metadata (0, 11, 4)
calibre 8.7  embedded-python: True
Windows-10-10.0.26100-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.26100')
Python 3.11.12
Windows: ('10', '10.0.26100', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
EXE path: C:\Program Files\Calibre2\calibre-debug.exe
Successfully initialized third party plugins: DeACSM (0, 0, 16) && DeDRM (7, 2, 1) && ACE (1, 1, 6) && Amazon.com Multiple Countries (1, 0, 0) && Baen (1, 1, 0) && Barnes & Noble (1, 5, 7) && CalibreSpy (1, 0, 92) && Clean Metadata (0, 0, 6) && Comicvine (0, 14, 2) && Consolidate All Library Metadata (2, 0, 46) && Count Pages (1, 13, 7) && Embed Comic Metadata (1, 6, 6) && EpubCheck (0, 2, 6) && EpubMerge (3, 2, 0) && EpubSplit (3, 12, 0) && Extract ISBN (1, 6, 5) && FanFicFare (4, 47, 0) && Fantastic Fiction (1, 7, 2) && Fantastic Fiction Adults (1, 3, 1) && Favourites Menu (1, 3, 1) && FictionDB (1, 4, 2) && Find Duplicates (1, 10, 9) && Generate Cover (2, 3, 6) && Goodreads (1, 8, 3) && Goodreads More Tags (1, 2, 1, 2) && ISFDB3 (1, 4, 2) && Job Spy (1, 0, 239) && Kindle hi-res covers (0, 5, 1) && KindleUnpack - The Plugin (0, 83, 7) && Kobo Metadata (1, 12, 0) && Last Modified (0, 8, 5) && Manage Series (1, 5, 2) && Modify ePub (1, 8, 6) && MultiColumnSearch (1, 0, 96) && Open With (1, 8, 4) && Overdrive Link (2, 58, 0) && Prettify Cover (1, 6, 0) && Quality Check (1, 14, 2) && Quick Preferences (1, 7, 1) && Reading List (1, 15, 6) && Resize Cover (1, 2, 1) && Search The Internet (1, 11, 3) && Skoob Books (1, 5, 7) && Smashwords Metadata (1, 0, 2) && Standard Ebooks (1, 0, 0) && User Category (1, 6, 1) && View Manager (1, 10, 3) && Walk Search History (1, 5, 4) && Wikidata (2, 0, 0) && Wikidata gui (2, 0, 0) && ePub Extended Metadata {Writer} (0, 11, 4) && ePub Extended Metadata {Reader} (0, 11, 4) && ePub Extended Metadata (0, 11, 4)
QPA platform: windows
devicePixelRatio: 1.0
logicalDpi: 96.0 x 96.0
physicalDpi: 81.55183946488295 x 81.64285714285714
[0.00] Starting up...
[0.00] Showing splash screen...
[1.17] splash screen shown
[1.17] Initializing db...
[1.50] db initialized
[1.50] Constructing main UI...
Initializing wikidata gui preferences
[5.84] GUI main window shown
CalibreSpy: initialization_complete
CALM: initialization_complete............
Job Spy has begun initialization...
Calibre, and hence Job Spy, was gracefully shut down last time?  True
Last time daemon started:  never
Last time daemon failed:  never
Total daemon starts inception_to_date:  0
Total daemon failures inception-to-date:  0
JS: ===>>> change_gui_alternating_row_colors()
Job Spy has finished initialization...
[0] un-optimized number of undesirable characters accumulated:  756
[1] optimized number of undesirable characters accumulated:  596
MCS has finished initialization...
Key 'Alt+Left' for shortcut Goto previous is already used by Previous result, ignoring
Key 'Alt+Right' for shortcut Goto next is already used by Next result, ignoring
Key 'Alt+Left' for shortcut Goto previous is already used by Previous result, ignoring
Key 'Alt+Right' for shortcut Goto next is already used by Next result, ignoring
[6.27] main UI initialized...
[6.27] Hiding splash screen
[6.27] splash screen hidden
[6.27] Started up in 6.27 seconds with 3878 books
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:32,988: configurable.py(642): config site:test1.com
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:40,889: calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.fff_plugin(1163): FanFicFare v4.47.0
FFF: INFO: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,048: calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.prefs(221): Using default settings
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,048: configurable.py(642): config site:ficwad.com
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,064: configurable.py(1109): use_browser_cache:
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,064: configurable.py(1130): use_basic_cache:true
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,065: adapter_ficwadcom.py(83): URL: https://ficwad.com/story/94608
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,065: cache_basic.py(117): 
========== MISS (GET) BasicCache
https://ficwad.com/story/94608
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,065: fetcher_requests.py(114): 
---------- REQ (GET) RequestsFetcher
https://ficwad.com/story/94608
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,129: fetcher_requests.py(127): response code:200
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,129: decorators.py(118): fromcache:False
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,129: requestable.py(55): Encoding:utf8
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,259: adapter_ficwadcom.py(103): Normalizing to URL: https://ficwad.com/story/94608
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,259: cache_basic.py(117): 
========== HIT (GET) BasicCache
https://ficwad.com/story/94608
FFF: DEBUG: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,260: requestable.py(55): Encoding:utf8
FFF: ERROR: 2025-08-05 05:44:41,396: calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.dialogs(791): Exception: {'title': 'Heart of the Warrior Book VII', 'author_sort': 'madnesspersonified', 'author': ['madnesspersonified'], 'comments': '', 'good': False, 'status': 'Error', 'showerror': True, 'calibre_id': 6689, 'begin': None, 'end': None, 'comment': "'NoneType' object has no attribute 'find'", 'url': 'https://ficwad.com/story/94608', 'site': 'ficwad.com', 'series': '', 'added': False, 'pubdate': None, 'publisher': 'ficwad.com', 'listorder': 0, 'collision': 'Overwrite Always'}:'NoneType' object has no attribute 'find'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.dialogs", line 778, in do_loop
  File "calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.fff_plugin", line 1376, in prep_download_loop
  File "calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.fff_plugin", line 1249, in get_story_metadata_only
  File "C:\Users\bryan\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\FanFicFare.zip\fanficfare\adapters\base_adapter.py", line 343, in getStoryMetadataOnly
  File "C:\Users\bryan\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\FanFicFare.zip\fanficfare\adapters\base_adapter.py", line 447, in doExtractChapterUrlsAndMetadata
  File "C:\Users\bryan\AppData\Roaming\calibre\plugins\FanFicFare.zip\fanficfare\adapters\adapter_ficwadcom.py", line 133, in extractChapterUrlsAndMetadata
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'find'
[133.42] Shutdown starting...
[135.72] Shutdown complete, quitting...

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Ealdwulf

Not sure what is going on, but apparently Ficwad is not working with FFF. I get the following for the log page when trying to update a story:

The site has changed. Needs a code change.