[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[Atherton25]

So I updated the plugin a few days ago, and then again today. For some reason, since the one a couple of days ago my replace metadata for the sites (which has worked for years) is no longer working. I generally have it replace the url with a better name IE www.royalroad.com -> RoyalRoad I'm not exactly sure which update did it, and I haven't screwed with my personal.ini until today, trying to get it to work (when I updated the plugin to the most recent version). Is there any reason this might have happened @JimmXinu ?

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Atherton25

So I updated the plugin a few days ago, and then again today. For some reason, since the one a couple of days ago my replace metadata for the sites (which has worked for years) is no longer working. I generally have it replace the url with a better name IE www.royalroad.com -> RoyalRoad I'm not exactly sure which update did it, and I haven't screwed with my personal.ini until today, trying to get it to work (when I updated the plugin to the most recent version). Is there any reason this might have happened @JimmXinu ?

TL;DR:

Use publisher instead of site.

Long answer:

A bit of safety checking I should have put in place years ago:

2026-02-02
...
- Make some metadata entries immutable

FFF will not allow you to change these entries anymore:

• authorId
• authorUrl
• seriesUrl
• storyId
• storyUrl
• langcode
• numChapters
• site
• anthology
• newforanthology
• cover_image

They are used internally very frequently or exclusively and I've seen a few remarkably difficult to find problems over the years from users changing them.

A few others, such as rating, are also used internally in some adapters, but I changed the code to explicitly use the 'raw' version because I recognize they are not objective, technical information and thus more open to interpretation.

[ericar13]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

As mentioned, there's no specific string concat mechanism, but replace_metadata can do a lot. Here's one approach.

First, don't change FFF's site metadata entry--it's assumed to be a domain name and used internally in epub metadata. So we'll make a copy.

Second, I assume you don't actually mean it when you say an arbitrary string. You want Worm fics specifically.

[defaults]
add_to_extra_valid_entries:,cat_site
include_in_cat_site:site

add_to_replace_metadata:
 cat_site=>^(.*)$=>WormFic - \1&&category==Worm
## Add more lines for Star Trek, Warhammer, whatever.
## Be aware you could get more than one then.

It's honestly probably easier to turn it around and copy category and append site name, but this is what you asked for.

And you use custom_columns_settings to populate the Calibre column with cat_site. You said you have that part already.

I'm trying to do something similar and can't seem to get it to work!
Basically, I am trying to extract the first ship in the ships list, transform it, and then save the transformed value to my custom column. I do not want to alter the original ships metadata at all.

Here's what I'm trying currently, but still no luck:

Spoiler:

[defaults]
## Normalize main ship names for collections column
add_to_extra_valid_entries:,pairing
include_in_pairing:ships
add_to_replace_metadata:
pairing=>^([^,]+),.*$=>\1
pairing=>Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov=>Hollanov
custom_columns_settings:
pairing=>#collections

The fic I am trying to download is from AO3.

(I am brand new to both FanFicFare and MobileRead, so sorry if the formatting is a mess or anything )

[Atherton25]

Edit. Dup. Refreshed page and it reposted.

@JimmXinu
Alright, so the "Make some metadata entries immutable" was it. Didn't realize what it did, and that I had written the replace metadata wrong. It just always worked. And now, it's working again. Got them all switched over to Publisher. Hopefully I don't have another one written wrong that that'll screw with, but if something weird pops up later on a I'll know what to check. Or, I'll spend some time tomorrow going through them tomorrow and seeing of something else corresponds to the entries you targeted/fixed with the update.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ericar13

I'm trying to do something similar and can't seem to get it to work!
Basically, I am trying to extract the first ship in the ships list, transform it, and then save the transformed value to my custom column. I do not want to alter the original ships metadata at all.

First tip, when posting wrap ini examples in [code] tags to preserve spacing. And it's best practice to always include an example story URL. I'm much more likely to offer a working solution with a concrete example.

Second, replace_metadata operates on each value in an entry's list. If you want to save only the first value in the list, you need to operate on the pairing_LIST.

[defaults]
## Normalize main ship names for collections column
add_to_extra_valid_entries:,pairing
include_in_pairing:ships
add_to_replace_metadata:
	pairing_LIST=>^([^,]+),.*$=>\1
	pairing=>Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov=>Hollanov
custom_columns_settings:
	pairing=>#collections

Note that all pairing lines will be performed to first construct the list and then pairing_LIST lines after that, regardless of order in replace_metadata.

Note also that, by default, lists such as ships (and pairing) are sorted alphabetically. The first entry in the list is not going to be the first listed by the author unless you also set:

keep_in_order_ships:true
keep_in_order_pairing:true

[Elaine T]

This is something I occasionally want to do and I don't think there's a way: download the comments along with the story on Ao3.

Am I wrong - is there a way to add that functionality to FFF? That is, If I'm not the only person who sometimes finds discussions in the comment strings interesting enough to want to keep. Right now I'm doing copy and paste into Word then edit book and add that file.

[JimmXinu]

Downloading comments is not likely.

FFF is designed around metadata, stories, and chapters. Comments don't fit in the existing paradigm, especially with regard to updates.

Looking at AO3, comments are paginated and threaded. Paginated means it's not just a single additional network hit. I'm seeing comment counts as low as 40 with multiple pages. Stories with more pages of comments than chapters are not just possible, but likely.

Threaded means comments are not in chrono order. There'd be no updating like chapters--only downloading and overwriting all comments every time.

Further, every site implements comments differently. Looking at forums like SB/SV/etc, that's basically full thread download, which is a line I don't want to cross.

And in general, with all the problems we see downloading at all, adding more network traffic is not a good idea, IMO.

[Elaine T]

ok, thanks for the detailed reply. I had the idea it wasn't workable, but wanted to confirm since occasionally I get things wrong.

[tsumtsum9]

Hi! I've been using FFF in previous years with AO3 which was great. Recently, it wasn't working after coming back to it a couple years later but I found the mirror workaround with archiveofourown.gay and it worked great the past couple weeks. Today it stopped working all of a sudden? The error comment in the log appears as:

"HTTP Error in FFF '403 Client Error: Forbidden in url:"

which appears for individual fic urls and series. Is this an FFF error or because of AO3?