Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Software > Calibre > Library Management

Notices

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 01-14-2011, 02:20 AM   #391
alexxx
Connoisseur
alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 68
Karma: 479602
Join Date: Aug 2006
Device: Kindle DX
Hi people,
I am trying to create a catalog just for the books that on my Kindle are in a given collection ("TO READ").
The problem is that I can filter them in the Device panel by this search: Collections:"TO READ", but in the Device panel I cannot create catalogs (of course, "Convert Books" is grayed out).
While instead in the Library panel I cannot filter for those books, since the Collections column doesn exist.
There is some way to filter - in the Library panel - for books that on the device are on a given collection?
... I hope I've been clear ...

thanks!

alessandro
alexxx is offline  
Old 01-14-2011, 09:31 AM   #392
GRiker
Comparer of the Ephemeris
GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,496
Karma: 424697
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: iPad
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexxx View Post
Hi people,
I am trying to create a catalog just for the books that on my Kindle are in a given collection ("TO READ").
The problem is that I can filter them in the Device panel by this search: Collections:"TO READ", but in the Device panel I cannot create catalogs (of course, "Convert Books" is grayed out).
While instead in the Library panel I cannot filter for those books, since the Collections column doesn exist.
There is some way to filter - in the Library panel - for books that on the device are on a given collection?
According to @chaley, the expert on such matters:

Quote:
There isn't an easy way to do this.

The only way I can think of is to write a plugin that copied the device collections field to a cust col in the library. The plugin would traverse the device's database (the one in the device gui view) grabbing the appid (db id) and the collections for books with in-library ==true. It would next find the books in the library with the appids and insert the info into a cust col.
Not the answer you're looking for, but that's the authoritative answer.

G

Last edited by GRiker; 01-14-2011 at 09:38 AM.
GRiker is offline  
Advert
Old 01-14-2011, 10:54 AM   #393
alexxx
Connoisseur
alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.alexxx ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 68
Karma: 479602
Join Date: Aug 2006
Device: Kindle DX
Quote:
Originally Posted by GRiker View Post
According to @chaley, the expert on such matters:

Not the answer you're looking for, but that's the authoritative answer.

G
that's a pity, but I thank you anyway for the info!

alessandro
alexxx is offline  
Old 01-14-2011, 02:10 PM   #394
flo_tm
Member
flo_tm began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 12
Karma: 10
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle Touch WiFi
Thanks, GRiker - all good now !

Quote:
Originally Posted by GRiker View Post
If you're referring to the year of publication appended to the book title in the 'Authors' list, it is always included. If you want a switch for that, create an enhancement request.

...

I need an example of the incorrect date.
Actually, that was the date I meant - I'll see about opening an enhancement request.

And sorry, I wasn't clear enough - the date is only "incorrect" for me because I either don't update the metadata and it is set by default or because the downloaded metadata contains not the date of the first publication, but for example the date of a current publication.

My familiarity with html and css is definitely not good enough - but I'm getting better. So thanks again for the detailed instructions !

Best regards,
Florianm
flo_tm is offline  
Old 01-14-2011, 02:34 PM   #395
GRiker
Comparer of the Ephemeris
GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,496
Karma: 424697
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: iPad
New OCD features (0.7.39)

As of 0.7.39, it's possible to do some fancy manipulations of a book's metadata to generate text that can be added to the Descriptions pages of your catalogs.

Let's say that you use the tags 'NYT #1 Fiction' and 'NYT 10 Best of the Year'. What we'd like to do is create a custom column 'Awards' whose content will be 'NYT 10 Best of <year of publication>', or 'NYT #1 <year of publication>', which can then be inserted into the Description page opposite the cover.


The top oval contains links to all books in your catalog tagged with 'NYT #1 Fiction' or 'NYT 10 Best of the Year'. The bottom oval is the result of following the steps in this post, which generate the Awards section from the tags.


Step 1: Create a custom column 'Awards'
  • Open Preferences|Interface|Add your own columns
  • Click Add custom column
  • Lookup name: awards
  • Column heading: Awards
  • Column type: Column built from other columns
  • Template: program:'' (we will add the template in Step 3)
  • Click OK to close the dialog
  • Click Apply to close the Add your own columns dialog
  • Click Close to close the Preferences dialog.

Step 2: Create the template function
  • Open Preferences|Advanced|Template Functions
  • Copy the code below, paste it into the Program Code window.
    Code:
    def evaluate(self, formatter, kwargs, mi, locals, *args):
      from calibre.utils.date import format_date
      SEPARATOR = u' \u00B7 '   # Unicode representation of &middot;
      awards = {}
      for arg in args:
        strings = arg.split(':')
        awards[strings[0]] = strings[1]
      a_list = [awards[t] + format_date(kwargs.get('pubdate'), u' yyyy') for t in kwargs.get('tags') if t in awards]
      return SEPARATOR.join(a_list)
  • In the Function field, type award_date
  • Set Arg count to -1, representing a variable number of arguments
  • Click Create to add the award_date function
  • Click Apply, then close the Preferences dialog

Step 3: Add the template to the custom column
  • Double-click any book's cell in the Awards column to open the Edit template dialog window.
  • Paste the following code into the edit box:
    Code:
    program:award_date(
    'NYT 10 Best of the Year:NYT 10 Best of',
    'NYT #1 Fiction:NYT #1',
    'NYT #1 Nonfiction:NYT #1')
  • Click OK to close the Edit template window

Step 4: Create the catalog, adding Awards to the Description pages
  • Click Convert Books↓Create catalog of books in your calibre library
  • Switch to the E-book options tab
  • In Other options|Description note, select Awards
  • Catalogs created with these settings will show matching books awards in the Description notes section, opposite the cover

An even more advanced approach: per-tag processing
Spoiler:
It is also possible to process matching tags individually. In this approach, the mappings are assigned in the function.
Step 1: Create a custom column 'Awards'
  • Open Preferences|Interface|Add your own columns
  • Click Add custom column
  • Lookup name: awards
  • Column heading: Awards
  • Column type: Column built from other columns
  • Template: program:'' (we will add the template in Step 3)
  • Click OK to close the dialog
  • Click Apply to close the Add your own columns dialog
  • Click Close to close the Preferences dialog.

Step 2: Create the template function
  • Open Preferences|Advanced|Template Functions
  • Copy the code below, paste it into the Program Code window.
    Code:
    def evaluate(self, formatter, kwargs, mi, locals, val):
    	from calibre.utils.date import format_date
    	SEPARATOR = u' \u00B7 '   # Unicode representation of &middot;
    	list_1 = {'NYT 10 Best of the Year':'NYT Top 10 Best of'}
    	list_2 = {'NYT #1 Fiction':'NYT Best Seller',
    		      'NYT #1 Nonfiction':'NYT Best Seller'}
    	ans = []
    	for tag in kwargs.get('tags'):
    		if tag in list_1:
    			ans.append(list_1[tag] + format_date(kwargs.get('pubdate'),u' yyyy'))
    		elif tag in list_2:
    			ans.append(list_2[tag])
    	ans = sorted(ans)
    	return SEPARATOR.join(ans)
  • In the Function field, type award_date
  • Set Arg count to 1, representing a single argument
  • Click Create to add the award_date function
  • Click Apply, then close the Preferences dialog

Step 3: Add the template to the custom column
  • Double-click any book's cell in the Awards column to open the Edit template dialog window.
  • Paste the following code into the edit box:
    Code:
    program: award_date(None)
  • Click OK to close the Edit template window

Step 4: Create the catalog, adding Awards to the Description pages
  • Click Convert Books↓Create catalog of books in your calibre library
  • Switch to the E-book options tab
  • In Other options|Description note, select Awards
  • Catalogs created with these settings will show matching books awards in the Description notes section, opposite the cover

Thanks to @chaley for adding python functionality to the template feature making this possible, and his assistance in developing the sample code.

Learn more about calibre's template language feature
Discuss other uses of calibre's template language feature

G

N.B. The year added to the award name is actually the year of the book's publication, which is almost always the same year the book won the award. If you're more OCD than I am, and this bothers you, create a custom column dedicated to awards.

Last edited by GRiker; 01-18-2011 at 08:50 AM.
GRiker is offline  
Advert
Old 01-14-2011, 03:58 PM   #396
GRiker
Comparer of the Ephemeris
GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,496
Karma: 424697
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: iPad
Catalog Users: Input needed

I've had a number of requests to disable the year of publication that's appended to the title in various section lists. Currently, the implementation is inconsistent:
  • Books by Author: Yes
  • Books by Title: No
  • Books by Series: Yes
  • Books by Genre: No
  • Recently Added: No
  • Descriptions: Yes (template can be edited to remove/modify)
I'm seeking input on how this might be presented in the Generate catalog|E-book options dialog. I envision three possible scenarios:
  • Offer a global 'Append date of publication' checkbox. This would append the date after the title in all enabled sections, or none at all.
  • Offer per-section checkboxes.
  • Don't change anything, it's perfect the way it is.
Please reply in this thread if you have an opinion about this possible enhancement.

G

Last edited by GRiker; 01-14-2011 at 07:17 PM.
GRiker is offline  
Old 01-15-2011, 07:48 PM   #397
flo_tm
Member
flo_tm began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 12
Karma: 10
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle Touch WiFi
Regarding the three scenarios, I would prefer #2 over #1 over #3.

But a hard coded "ignore" for "undefined pub_date" would also be a good first step.

Flo
flo_tm is offline  
Old 01-15-2011, 08:03 PM   #398
GRiker
Comparer of the Ephemeris
GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,496
Karma: 424697
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: iPad
Quote:
Originally Posted by flo_tm View Post
But a hard coded "ignore" for "undefined pub_date" would also be a good first step.
That patch is already in place for the next release.

G
GRiker is offline  
Old 01-15-2011, 08:05 PM   #399
flo_tm
Member
flo_tm began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 12
Karma: 10
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle Touch WiFi
And since I just read a rant by the developer of Sigil regarding the bloating of opensource software because every user wants his little speciality ..
(can we have the button to turn off the pub_date in pink, please ? =))

Instead of creating separate checkboxes only for the publication date, would it be possible to create templates for the "assembly" of the section lines ? Please ignore me if I'm naive here, I have no idea how complex the software is and how much work would be involved.

Example: Section "By Title"

Default:
(title) (series) (series_index) - (author)

Other Possibilities:
(title) - (author) (pub_year)
(title) (series) (series_index) - (author) (rating)
(title) - (author) (user defined tag)

Of course this would also mean that a lot of bimbos (like me) start asking stupid questions why their templates don't work ...
flo_tm is offline  
Old 01-15-2011, 08:23 PM   #400
flo_tm
Member
flo_tm began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 12
Karma: 10
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle Touch WiFi
Quote:
Originally Posted by GRiker View Post
That patch is already in place for the next release.

G
This is great !

(You also wrote that in the ticket and I missed it ...)
I'm probably a nitpicker, but I anticipate the next release because of this.

Btw, using 01 0000 in the GUI column to set publication date to undefined works, but I can't get it to work in the metadata editor with Jan 0000.
(Only setting it with a lot of fiddling in the drop down menu date fields to 01.01.101 works).

But thats ok, since editing in the column is faster anyway.
flo_tm is offline  
Old 01-15-2011, 08:44 PM   #401
theducks
Well trained by Cats
theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.theducks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
theducks's Avatar
 
Posts: 29,689
Karma: 54369090
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Central Coast of California
Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A
Quote:
Originally Posted by flo_tm View Post
This is great !

(You also wrote that in the ticket and I missed it ...)
I'm probably a nitpicker, but I anticipate the next release because of this.

Btw, using 01 0000 in the GUI column to set publication date to undefined works, but I can't get it to work in the metadata editor with Jan 0000.
(Only setting it with a lot of fiddling in the drop down menu date fields to 01.01.101 works).

But thats ok, since editing in the column is faster anyway.
in the meta data editor, there are 2 0r 3 (non-obvious) fields in the date box.
Jan 2011 are 2 separate sections. But setting the 2011 to 0000 or 101 does not un-assign Publisher. Changing (tweak) the date format to dd MMM yyyy does not help in the Editor.
theducks is offline  
Old 01-16-2011, 05:20 PM   #402
Fashtas
Junior Member
Fashtas began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 2
Karma: 10
Join Date: Jan 2011
Device: Kindle 2
I'm having some issues generating a catalog. I've generated one before with (almost) the same set of books, but added some more and changed a few tags and now I am getting the following error:

ValueError: Cannot open image from empty data string

Unlike the issues with Inconsistent Author Sort values (which I had before) there is no sign that I can see of what book is causing the issue

The only thing I haven't tried was the recommended check for Tag problems (The quick way to confirm this is to change the regex expression in the EPUB/MOBI options tab) because I can't find any setting tab or screen called "EPUB/MOBI Options"

This is using 0.7.38. I had tried 39, with the obvious problems, then went to 40, which had errors uploading to the Kindle, so rolled back to 38 because I needed to fill a Kindle before an overseas trip

Spoiler:
ERROR: Conversion Error: <b>Failed</b>: Generate catalog

Generate catalog
Catalog_EPUB_MOBI(): Generating mobi for kindle in GUI environment
connected_device: 'Amazon Kindle'
mount point: G:\documents
book count: 732
Sections: Authors, Titles, Recently Added, Genres, Descriptions
opts:
authorClip: 60
catalog_title: u"Walter's Books"
connected_kindle: True
descriptionClip: 100
exclude_book_marker: u':'
exclude_genre: u'\\[.+\\]'
exclude_tags: u'~,Catalog'
header_note_source_field: ''
merge_comments: '::True'
output_profile: 'kindle'
read_book_marker: u'tag:+'
search_text: None
sort_by: None
sort_descriptions_by_author: True
sync: True
thumb_width: '1.00'
wishlist_tag: u'Wishlist'
existing thumb cache at C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Roaming\calibre\caches\cata log\thumbs.zip, cached_thumb_width: 1.00"
Begin catalog source generation
DPI = 168; thumbnail dimensions: 84 x 112
Collecting Kindle bookmarks matching catalog entries
24 genre tags in database (excluding genres matching \[.+\]):
Adventure, Catalog, Childrens, Classic, Diskworld, Fiction, Hard Science,
Historical, Law and Order, Literature, Magic, Nonfiction, Sci-Fi Short,
Spy, Strange, Thriller, detective, fantasy, humor, mystery, science fiction,
vampire, war, zombie
Genre summary: 16 active genre tags used in generating catalog with 732 titles
Childrens: 13 titles
Classic: 2 titles
Diskworld: 40 titles
Fiction: 711 titles
Hard Science: 3 titles
Historical: 11 titles
Law and Order: 11 titles
Magic: 19 titles
Nonfiction: 12 titles
Spy: 64 titles
Strange: 10 titles
Thriller: 12 titles
fantasy: 134 titles
humor: 41 titles
mystery: 48 titles
science fiction: 284 titles
Python function terminated unexpectedly
Cannot open image from empty data string (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 103, in main
File "site.py", line 85, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 107, in main
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 61, in gui_catalog
File "site-packages\calibre\library\catalog.py", line 5020, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\library\catalog.py", line 1357, in buildSources
File "site-packages\calibre\library\catalog.py", line 2881, in generateThumbnails
File "site-packages\calibre\library\catalog.py", line 4672, in generateThumbnail
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\magick\draw.py", line 77, in thumbnail
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\magick\__init__.py", line 111, in load
ValueError: Cannot open image from empty data string
Fashtas is offline  
Old 01-16-2011, 05:59 PM   #403
GRiker
Comparer of the Ephemeris
GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,496
Karma: 424697
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: iPad
That's a bug that was fixed in 0.7.40, so you'll have to wait until your kindle issue is resolved, or identify the book with the bad cover. You have a cover that's just an empty string. You could try typing 'cover:true' in the search box, then paging through the titles until you find the title(s) that don't actually have a cover.

G

Last edited by GRiker; 01-16-2011 at 06:04 PM.
GRiker is offline  
Old 01-17-2011, 06:06 PM   #404
GRiker
Comparer of the Ephemeris
GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.GRiker ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,496
Karma: 424697
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: iPad
@Fashtas, 0.7.41 will display a dialog when it encounters a bad cover, telling you which book has the problem.

G
GRiker is offline  
Old 01-17-2011, 07:07 PM   #405
Fashtas
Junior Member
Fashtas began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 2
Karma: 10
Join Date: Jan 2011
Device: Kindle 2
Thanks for the response!

I can confirm that 0.7.40 worked in creating the catalog. The error I saw uploading to the kindle previously also didn't reappear, I may have been confused with .39 given I was installing/uninstalling several times

The catalogs created weren't quite what I was expecting, not tying into the Kindle collection system, but rather being a book in it's own right with no way (it seems) to "click" one and go to the book itself.

After some research I've gone with using an app called the Kindle Collection Manager to edit collections on the device, and making one Catalog with Calibre per collection (or for the larger collections anyway) which I can browse in each collection folder for more information on the books in it

Works nicely so far!
Fashtas is offline  
Closed Thread

Tags
book catalog

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Content Newspapers piling up in my Archived Items Millbrook Amazon Kindle 9 07-05-2012 03:09 PM
Creating Catalogs: Start here GRiker Library Management 0 01-26-2011 03:58 PM
Removing 'Archived Items' seagull Kindle Developer's Corner 7 09-29-2010 01:38 PM
Archived items question Corran006 Amazon Kindle 1 08-28-2010 02:52 AM
T?ol to create Structured catalogs? itimpi Calibre 5 11-19-2008 11:30 AM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 01:19 PM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.