feature request: "tag manager mode"

[wjBLqf-_9]

I found a quick way to fix my snafu is right clicking on the tags that need to be removed... clicking the menu choice to remove that tag

Question: would you please consider a "tag manager mode" that would allow me to check boxes on multiple tags can selected in larger batches and remove?

One-at-a-time works -- but if I could check off a bunch of boxes I could finish my remaining 7000 mistakes faster in batches of 10... 20... 50... etc

:-D

Unless there is a way to search tag fields for that book title (programably for each book)

I cannot find anything regex to do this in calibre

[kovidgoyal]

Select all books, click edit metadata, enter the tags you want removed into the remove tags box, click apply

And if you want to use regex, use the search and replace tab of that dialog

[chaley]

Originally Posted by wjBLqf-_9

Unless there is a way to search tag fields for that book title (programably for each book)

Use bulk metadata edit search and replace in template mode. The following will remove any tag that equals the title as long as the title does not contain a comma. If the title *does* contain commas then the results will be incorrect and quite possibly bad. Hint: search for books that don't have a comma in the title and apply this S/R to those.

The text of the template is:

program: list_difference(field('tags'), field('title'), ',')

[wjBLqf-_9]

So maybe my search-and-replace code "kung-foo" isn't as sharp as I wish

Using that search-and-replace window somehow managed to embed the title of the book ... within the tags of the book

in most of my library of 7,000 books
====
Honestly, I'm shy about using that window again unless I preface it with a filtering of book selection in the main window ahead of time
====
(full disclosure: I made a copy of the metadata.db file and explored the copy with SQLite Browser... this is my disposable copy)

Question for you (kovidgoyal) directly... just curious... what would happen if I manually deleted the rows with title text in the metadata.db/tags table?

Would the database see the missing rows and freak out or would there be corrective action -- interpreting the missing rows as negated tags?

~~~~
I figured deleting the rows in "tags" table would be easier than a higher complexity full-on-sql search syntax between the table relationships :-?

[wjBLqf-_9]

kovidgoyal -- I have been making nightly backups of my calibre library (hurray for me) however I realized my night backup eventually overwrote my last-unscrewed-up backup because I didn't catch this tag snafu early enough the next day (booo for me)

However I instituted infinite revision backup retention.... on a zfs dedupe volume... 100% dedicated to retaining copies of each previous nights backups. Dedup should help me retain A LOT of nightly backup revisions.

My coder "kung-foo" might not be the best in the world

But my ability to engineer plans to mitigate the foreseeable end-of-the-calibre-world are still quite formidable *grin* :-D

[kovidgoyal]

Do not manually mess with the database, you will experience data loss. If you want to script database operations use the calibre provided database API, documented in the user manual.

[davidfor]

@wjBLqf-_9: There is actually a "Tag manager". Right click on Tags in the tag browser, select "Tag manager" and it shows all the tags with a count of how many books have the tag. You can select as many tags as you want and delete them.

[wjBLqf-_9]

"DavidFor" By Gosh you hit a bullzeye! The ~Tag Manager~ you pointed me toward was actually called "Category Editor"

I never knew that was there. thank you for sharing!

This "Category Editor" drastically speeds up my ability to fix my tags... from 100 per night to 400+ per night.

Your advice will greatly shorten the total time I will spend fixing tags on all my Library of 7573 books

Thank you!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by wjBLqf-_9

"DavidFor" By Gosh you hit a bullzeye! The ~Tag Manager~ you pointed me toward was actually called "Category Editor"

I never knew that was there. thank you for sharing!

This "Category Editor" drastically speeds up my ability to fix my tags... from 100 per night to 400+ per night.

Your advice will greatly shorten the total time I will spend fixing tags on all my Library of 7573 books

Thank you!

Category editor is a generic term -- right click on Series and then Manage series and the popup window is labelled Category editor (Series). Ditto for Publisher.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by davidfor

@wjBLqf-_9: There is actually a "Tag manager". Right click on Tags in the tag browser, select "Tag manager" and it shows all the tags with a count of how many books have the tag. You can select as many tags as you want and delete them.

Annnnnd....

If you right click on a Tag value (or Series, Author, etc value) in Book Details (right sidebar) you'll find a Manage "whatever" option

If you click on the Configure button at the bottom of the Tag Browser (left sidebar) you'll find a Manage Authors, Tags etc option.

If you press Shift+F2 on a Tags cell in the Book List you'll get the Manage Categories (Tags) dialogue - IMO the easiest way to get there.

BR

[wjBLqf-_9]

Good news: last night I left my "tags/regex nightmare" ... I am 90% back to normal

I am happier sooner than I expected :-)

thank you!