[Metadata Source Plugin] Goodreads

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by Leilu

Hi,

Would it be possible to retrieve both pieces of information please? That is, the published date in the default column and thefirst published date in a custom integer column (to manage texts BC).
Thanks

The only way of doing something like this is with the same sort of hacks mentioned above to retrieve detailed review data into a custom identifier and then having a custom column displaying that “identifier”. You cannot directly populate a custom column from a metadata download plugin, this is a limitation in the calibre plugin api design.

So while yes it technically “could” be done in a way using that approach the next question then becomes is it really worth the development effort of doing so, given no-one else has asked for this feature in the at least 12+ years this plugin has existed It is clearly not something there is high demand for, and if it is only ever going to be used by 1-2 people then the answer is going to be no. The source code is available for you to modify the plugin for your own purposes to add this feature for yourself of course.

[Wolfbeta]

Is there a formula suitable for a custom column that considers both the number of votes and the rating, such that a book with over 20,000 votes and a 4.1 rating would rank higher than a book with 20 votes and a 4.9 rating?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Wolfbeta

Is there a formula suitable for a custom column that considers both the number of votes and the rating, such that a book with over 20,000 votes and a 4.1 rating would rank higher than a book with 20 votes and a 4.9 rating?

Yes, if you can express a mathematical expression that gives you the result you want. A simple version would be votes * rating. DWIMNWIS (Do What I Mean Not What I Say) won't work.

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by chaley

Yes, if you can express a mathematical expression that gives you the result you want. A simple version would be votes * rating. DWIMNWIS (Do What I Mean Not What I Say) won't work.

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...dreads-v1.7.10

[cur1ous]

hi there,

the plugin is great as a meta data source and I'm loving it. I just got one gripe with it.
Most of the time when downloading meta data it gives me not only the original author but also the translator as an author. (This is especially a problem since my ebook reader often only shows the translator as the author).
Is there a way to only get the original author as meta data?
Alternativly is there a way to deactive goodreads as the source for author meta data?

best regards!

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by cur1ous

hi there,

the plugin is great as a meta data source and I'm loving it. I just got one gripe with it.
Most of the time when downloading meta data it gives me not only the original author but also the translator as an author. (This is especially a problem since my ebook reader often only shows the translator as the author).
Is there a way to only get the original author as meta data?
Alternativly is there a way to deactive goodreads as the source for author meta data?

best regards!

The simplest option is to just turn off populating the Authors field from metadata. Just click on Configure Download Metadata, then in the top right is the "Metadata fields to download" and untick the first one of Authors. Note that turns off authors for all plugins, not just Goodreads (you cannot turn off authors as an individual field for a specific plugin only).

I had started typing text explaining why it isn't possible to get just the main author back from Goodreads. Then in double checking my facts on this I discovered a way I could do it. Given someone had raised an issue for this on GitHub for me I will take the opportunity to sort that out. The Goodreads plugin has a "Get all contributing authors" setting in it's configuration page but it doesn't really do anything meaningful at the moment due to how the data scraping method got changed. However I now think I can find a way to properly respect that... expect a new plugin version soon...

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...odreads-v1.8.0

This addresses the issue mentioned above of the plugin not respecting turning off the "Get all contributing authors" setting. So now you won't get translators, illustrators, introduction authors etc all being returned as authors for a book with that setting off (which is the default).

Note that I still had to make a decision on pseudonyms (pen names). I decided to return both. I didn't want to add yet another setting to control this (which would lead to another round of translation updates etc).

So for example the book "Thinner" will return both "Richard Bachman" and "Stephen King" as the authors. There will be some people who want that, others who don't - if you don't you can always either (a) turn off updating author metadata completely (what I do), or (b) edit the authors after to how you prefer them to be...

[Comfy.n]

That's awesome, I noticed this only recently when I started using the EPOM plugin to extract translators from book content to a long text column. Then I began seeing the same information on author and translator field, and I thought it wasn't possible for the plugin to retrieve just the author from Goodreads website. Example: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34741564
Previous version would add Agatha Christie and Lucia Brito to authors. This one will add only Christie. Thanks!

[cur1ous]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...odreads-v1.8.0

This addresses the issue mentioned above of the plugin not respecting turning off the "Get all contributing authors" setting. So now you won't get translators, illustrators, introduction authors etc all being returned as authors for a book with that setting off (which is the default).

Awesome! Thank you so much!
I really didn't expect this issue to get adressed so quickly!

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...odreads-v1.8.1

A further addition to the change for retrieving author metadata for the default behaviour when not retrieving all contributing authors as metadata. The problem is that some books like Manga do not have any contributors with a role of "Author". So in this circumstance I am just taking the primary contributor as the best compromise I could come up with.