TOC creation tool wishlist

[Phssthpok]

A couple of things I'd love to see in future versions of the TOC editing tool:

1) the ability to undo a change (e.g. accidentally deleting a TOC entry). At the moment the only option seems to be to quit, and then start all over again. (Or of course use the editor to fiddle with the toc.ncx directly, but I don't count that as a solution)

2) the ability to select multiple items and change all their levels at once (e.g. make them sub-items of another item). At the moment this has to be done one by one: select, change level, move down, select, change level... which gets quite tedious after a while. Again, I sometimes find it easier to edit the raw toc.ncx, but I don't like doing it.

Thanks!

[gbm]

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

A couple of things I'd love to see in future versions of the TOC editing tool:

1) the ability to undo a change (e.g. accidentally deleting a TOC entry). At the moment the only option seems to be to quit, and then start all over again. (Or of course use the editor to fiddle with the toc.ncx directly, but I don't count that as a solution)

2) the ability to select multiple items and change all their levels at once (e.g. make them sub-items of another item). At the moment this has to be done one by one: select, change level, move down, select, change level... which gets quite tedious after a while. Again, I sometimes find it easier to edit the raw toc.ncx, but I don't like doing it.

Thanks!

For # 2 just select items then drag and drop them on the level you want them to be a sub-item. I.e select all the chapters between Part 1 and Part 2 then drag and drop the on Part 1, they are now a sub level of Part 1.

bernie

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by gbm

For # 2 just select items then drag and drop them on the level you want them to be a sub-item. I.e select all the chapters between Part 1 and Part 2 then drag and drop the on Part 1, they are now a sub level of Part 1.

bernie

OK, thanks, I hadn't realised. The error message you get when you try to use the arrow buttons to change level on multiple items made me think it wasn't possible. In fact, I still don't understand why you get that error message if it's possible to do it using D&D.

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by gbm

For # 2 just select items then drag and drop them on the level you want them to be a sub-item. I.e select all the chapters between Part 1 and Part 2 then drag and drop the on Part 1, they are now a sub level of Part 1.

bernie

Hmm, I was just dealing with something where I needed to do this, and I thought, Aha! I can use drag & drop!

But I discovered why I had never figured out that this was possible: I tried selecting a bunch of icons (select first, shift-click on last) and then just dragging, but if you do this it gives a "no entry -- not allowed" cursor. What you have to do is, having selected all the items, you let go, go back to the first item, and then drag THE FIRST ITEM (no other will do). Then it works!

Kind of non-obvious, IMHO!

And of course an undo facility is still on my wishlist... especially since I often make mistakes dragging & dropping, and I drop things in the wrong place, and then have to quit and start over in order to fix the resulting mess...

[kovidgoyal]

The steps you described work for me. As for undo -- not wortht he effort for me, but patches are welcome!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The steps you described work for me. As for undo -- not wortht he effort for me, but patches are welcome!

Kovid
All the items seem to have to be at the same level for it to work (which is what you normally expect them to be).
If 1 item is at a different Logical level (visually, it appears the same, but in fact it may have been indented twice underneath), it pop the Not Allowed cursor.

[jackie_w]

I remember participating in a discussion a couple of years ago about drag-drop problems in the TOC editor.

I have a vague memory that it may have been only Windows users (i.e. me) who were seeing the problem. Windows users can drag-drop but you need to work on your 'drag technique' As long as I drag completely vertically everything works fine. As soon as I drag diagonally the results are unreliable.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I remember participating in a discussion a couple of years ago about drag-drop problems in the TOC editor.

I have a vague memory that it may have been only Windows users (i.e. me) who were seeing the problem. Windows users can drag-drop but you need to work on your 'drag technique' As long as I drag completely vertically everything works fine. As soon as I drag diagonally the results are unreliable.

That too

[BetterRed]

Drag/drop to small targets, especially within lists and trees, can be a challenge to anyone with less than perfect fine hand/eye motor coordination.

There are places where I would gladly disable it. FX, I'm forever 'losing' bookmarks (or folders) in my browser's sidebar, invariably it's because at some time I unwittingly dragged a bookmark item or folder to another location.

In calibre I don't use the drag/drop feature of the CSV catalogue column selection. I find it easier to select all columns in default order, and then remove/hide and reorder the columns in CSVFileView or Excel.

BR

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by theducks

Kovid
All the items seem to have to be at the same level for it to work (which is what you normally expect them to be).
If 1 item is at a different Logical level (visually, it appears the same, but in fact it may have been indented twice underneath), it pop the Not Allowed cursor.

No, this is a case where I have several items at the top level (I have since checked a similar case in the toc.ncx, and everything is at the same level, the top level):

Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
...
Chapter 12

So I click on Chapter 1, then scroll down to Chapter 12 and shift-click there. If I then drag while the cursor is still on Chapter 12, it's not allowed. Only if I scroll back up to Chapter 1 and drag Chapter 1 does it work.

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Drag/drop to small targets, especially within lists and trees, can be a challenge to anyone with less than perfect fine hand/eye motor coordination.

I couldn't agree more.

[kovidgoyal]

I cannot replicate that either. The only time a not allow cursor pops up is when you try to drop on a selected item, regardless of how many levels are selected.

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I cannot replicate that either. The only time a not allow cursor pops up is when you try to drop on a selected item, regardless of how many levels are selected.

Here are two photos of the screen: one dragging the last item in the selection, the other dragging the first item. I did it using photos because none of my screen capture tools would show the "not allowed" cursor!

I'm using Calibre 2.81 (32-bit) on Windows 10.

[kovidgoyal]

That's something peculiar to your machine -- dragging by the first, last or any random element in the middle works the same on my win 10 machine

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That's something peculiar to your machine -- dragging by the first, last or any random element in the middle works the same on my win 10 machine

Kovid
I have had it Flip the group order on me . (more than oncetrying to Nest Chpters with in a Part.. It is a PITA to reorder )

Now I am careful to always select Top Down, and drag the top.

Can I give specific steps to make it fail: No