What Customs Columns do you use in your Calibre Library?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

The other advantage of using a separate long text column for a Notes column, is that you can edit it from the book list via F2, I mask the column with an icon that's only shown if the book has a Note.

BR

Good idea. I think I'll copy this. Question, how do you do the icon mask thing?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Good idea. I think I'll copy this. Question, how do you do the icon mask thing?

Preferences->Look and Feel->Column Icons (far right)

Here's my rule



And the icon I use is attached.

BR

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Preferences->Look and Feel->Column Icons (far right)

Here's my rule

Attachment 162579

And the icon I use is attached.

BR

Thanks! Big for the "far right". Apparently Column Icons was getting cut off from my menu and I wouldn't even notice the scroll thing without your note.

[jjquin]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Preferences->Look and Feel->Column Icons (far right)

Here's my rule

Attachment 162579

And the icon I use is attached.

BR

Thanks! Great Idea. I moved the Notes column to the end and replaced it with a slightly different icon since I'm using a Vertex-Dark theme in Linux. It's a png with a transparent background. Sticks out more on a black theme.

Again thanks!

[Angel Crawford]

Hello first

My custom columns:

• URLs (Column build from others) For Shops, Goodreads and more
• Owner (Text, but with a fixed set of permitted values) With Icon rules. Values: no, paperbook, onleihe, readfy, ebook
• Pages (Integers)
• Shelves (Comma separated text, like tags, shown in the Tag browser) With Icon rules. Values: wishlist, read, to-read, currently-reading, tbr-dropped, tbr-maybe, tbr-maybe-or-not, tbr-unpublished
• Genre (Comma separated text, like tags, shown in the Tag browser)
• Started (Date)
• Finished (Date)
• Read update (Integers) In case by ebook reader broke.
• Goodreads ID (Column build from others)
• Edit (Yes/No) Sometimes I only add a Book, and don't want to polish it.
• Lent on (Date)

In the Shelves Case, I want to make a "Text, but with a fixed set of permitted values" Field out of it. I don't want a book on more than one shelf.
Currently switching from the List view to the Cover view, than I will change the field.

[latepaul]

Update:

I removed read and date read, and replaced them with times read, first read (date) and last read.

I've also added a Y/N column Lib for books I borrow from the library.

And I've added some columns relating to the Overdrive Link plugin - Od (#has_odid) for borrowed ebooks (Lib includes paper books), wait and wait update - for the expected wait time, and the date that was last updated.

[lazorbeam]

This seems like the group to ask. Is there a way to make Custom Column info more permanent? That is, to make it remain part of the metadata like title/author/tags when you have to restore or recreate your library? Just experienced this today and had to manually/batch re-add my Custom Column info.

And, to answer the thread question, I mostly do fanfic and I use a Characters, Fandom, and Words (Count Pages plugin). For actual published work, I use the tags for any genre, descriptive info.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by lazorbeam

This seems like the group to ask. Is there a way to make Custom Column info more permanent? That is, to make it remain part of the metadata like title/author/tags when you have to restore or recreate your library? Just experienced this today and had to manually/batch re-add my

Press F1, then see Calibre User Manual->Frequently Asked Questions>Miscellaneous->How do I backup calibre?

If you do daily incremental backups to a USB drive or cloud storage, should only take a few moments.

BR

[Kyle Connor]

Read
Word Count & Pages
Subscription
Library/Type
Price AU
Source
Review
Genre

[lazorbeam]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Press F1, then see Calibre User Manual->Frequently Asked Questions>Miscellaneous->How do I backup calibre?

If you do daily incremental backups to a USB drive or cloud storage, should only take a few moments.

BR

Thanks. I do have occasional backups and normally use them when I have to refresh Calibre. I was having a very strange error where everything was apparently corrupted. I ended up having to re-add all my books and it remembered most metadata - title, author, publisher/date, comments, series - but not one piece of custom column data.

The FAQ says it should have, but maybe it was because I wasn't able to select the existing library containing the metadata file and instead had to re-add my books. Maybe?

Your daily backups. Are you doing that manually or did you set up a program to run?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by lazorbeam

Thanks. I do have occasional backups and normally use them when I have to refresh Calibre. I was having a very strange error where everything was apparently corrupted. I ended up having to re-add all my books and it remembered most metadata - title, author, publisher/date, comments, series - but not one piece of custom column data.

The FAQ says it should have, but maybe it was because I wasn't able to select the existing library containing the metadata file and instead had to re-add my books. Maybe?

Your daily backups. Are you doing that manually or did you set up a program to run?

I use GoodSync to handle backup and restore of all my data. Nothing special for calibre, as far I'm concerned its just another bunch of folders and files. I co-locate, my libraries, configurations, autoadd folders, and other ebook related folders in a common root level directory on my data drive.

I run a Goodsync backup (one-way mirror) job via Windows Scheduler at Shut Down which I do every day. My daily backups are written to an external drive over USB 3.1. So, its pretty quick, not that it matters seeing as how I just did a Shut Down.

I also do a weekly backup to a remote FTP server, that's slower of course, a) because its over the wire and b) its a whole weeks worth of changes. I start that manually either late Sat evening or sometime on Sunday - my phone nags me until I confirm I done it already

Occasionally, if I'm about to do something 'out of the ordinary', I do a daily backup in the middle of the day - manually. FX I did one before I did a major reorg of my video collection a few weeks ago.

Restores are always manual. Hardware issues aside (head crash etc), I've never needed to recover more than a single book, or a related group of books (e.g. yesterdays uploads), and always because a blunder on my part.

And because my backups are mirror images, I can always 'point' calibre at the backup location via Library->Switch/Create.

BR

[lazorbeam]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I use GoodSync to handle backup and restore of all my data. Nothing special for calibre, as far I'm concerned its just another bunch of folders and files. I co-locate, my libraries, configurations, autoadd folders, and other ebook related folders in a common root level directory on my data drive.

BR

Nice, thanks for all that info. I want to be better about backing up, especially the configs, etc. I think I will explore GoodSync.

[AndyW1691]

I use the Price, Pages (from Count Pages plugin) and Read? which is yes/no

Is there any way to centre the 'Read?' column?

Andy

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by AndyW1691

Is there any way to centre the 'Read?' column?

Right click the 'Read" column header and set the alignment.

BR

[Inukami]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Right click the 'Read" column header and set the alignment.

BR

I was wondering this as well. Thanks. But I can't find that option when I right click on the column. Is the Mac version different? Can you please show image?

Thanks,

Inukami