Sorting tag values in tag browser

[mcam]

Is there a way to sort the values of a tag in the tag browser in descending order?

[davidfor]

At the bottom of the tag browser, there is a button labelled "Alter Tag Browser". Pressing that displays a menu which includes sort options. Is that what you want?

[mcam]

Originally Posted by davidfor

At the bottom of the tag browser, there is a button labelled "Alter Tag Browser". Pressing that displays a menu which includes sort options. Is that what you want?

Thanks for your suggestion, but no, that option only determines WHAT the values are sorted on, not whether they are sorted in ascending or descending order.

[davidfor]

Your right. I read your post as "how do I sort". I don't see how to do it either. I would suggest making an enhancement request to reverse the sort when selecting the same one again.

[kovidgoyal]

I dont see a use case for reversing the order, simply scroll upwards instead of downwards if you want to view items in descending order.

[mcam]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I dont see a use case for reversing the order, simply scroll upwards instead of downwards if you want to view items in descending order.

Yes I agree,there isn't much point in having textual tags sorted in descending order, but my tag is year of publication, and I want to have the most recent editions appear at the top of the list.

[GrompyOldMan]

Click the column header.

[mcam]

There is no column header in the tag browser ...

[GrompyOldMan]

Tags column. KISS principle works here.

[BetterRed]

Why not use built in Published date column rather than a tag

Tweak Control how dates are displayed will allow you to specify display format, default is MMM yyyy (eg Aug 2013), change it to yyyy if that's what you need.

Dates can be sorted in ascending or descending order

BR

[mcam]

Thanks BetterRed. I already have a Published column of course (the tag is actually the year component of the Published date), and sorting on that helps, but the tag value allows me to quickly filter by year of publication, and if possible I'd like to have the most recent years at the top of the list for easier accessibility. Still, it's apparently not possible with Calibre as of v.1.0, so that's that.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by mcam

Thanks BetterRed. I already have a Published column of course (the tag is actually the year component of the Published date), and sorting on that helps, but the tag value allows me to quickly filter by year of publication, and if possible I'd like to have the most recent years at the top of the list for easier accessibility. Still, it's apparently not possible with Calibre as of v.1.0, so that's that.

Maybe someone can come up with another way to do the 'quick filtering' on the pubdate

My first thought is that date column headings would have context menu something like

Filter
        Equal...
        Equal or Before...
        Before...
        Equal or After...
        After...
        Between (inclusive)...
-----------------------
         Save Current Filter...
         Use Saved Filter...
         Manage Saved Filters... (delete and rename)

And maybe numeric values could have something similar

BR

[theducks]

You can use (saved) searches on any datetype:

From the users guide:

The syntax for searching for dates is:

pubdate:>2000-1 Will find all books published after Jan, 2000
date:<=2000-1-3 Will find all books added to calibre before 3 Jan, 2000
pubdate:=2009 Will find all books published in 2009

If the date is ambiguous, the current locale is used for date comparison. For example, in an mm/dd/yyyy locale 2/1/2009 is interpreted as 1 Feb 2009. In a dd/mm/yyyy locale it is interpreted as 2 Jan 2009. Some special date strings are available. The string today translates to today’s date, whatever it is. The strings yesterday and thismonth (or the translated equivalent in the current language) also work. In addition, the string daysago (also translated) can be used to compare to a date some number of days ago. For example:

date:>10daysago
date:<=45daysago

To avoid potential problems with translated strings when using a non-English version of calibre, the strings _today, _yesterday, _thismonth, and _daysago are always available. They are not translated.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

You can use (saved) searches on any datetype:

From the users guide:

...

@theducks - I knew there had to be a way

It would be helpful if something could be shown in Advanced Search dialogue to indicate the options that are available when a date or numeric column is the object of the search

Momentarily I tried to wrap my mind around how one could convert the date to a string using a template and then a regular expression on the result to express datewise comparisons - thankfully sanity prevailed

The manual page theducks quoted is here http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gui....arch-interface

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Momentarily I tried to wrap my mind around how one could convert the date to a string using a template and then a regular expression on the result to express datewise comparisons - thankfully sanity prevailed

FWIW: easy to do the conversion.

Create a composite column, not tags-like. Set the sort/search type to number. The template would be

{date:format_date(yyyy)}

where "date" is the lookup name for the date you are interested in. You now have a column showing just the year for the date.

If you check the "Show in tag browser" box in the column settings then you will see each year as a separate entry in the tag browser. Click on a year to see books for that year.

NB: in calibre v1.0.0, non-text sorting on composite columns is broken. Will be fixed in the next release, or now if you run from source. It won't matter for this example unless you have books with a date < the year 1000.