Calibre2OPDS split tags just doesn't work

[DavidTC]

I'm faced with a rather surreal and persistent problem, namely, if I have 'split tags' turn on, whenever Calibre2OPDS generates a catalog, all the links in the 'Tag' catalog go to *exactly the same page*.

And it's always the page that the first link should go to. All of the links on the page go to it. This both in the HTML catalog and the XML catalog. (And, yes, I've looked at the page source to confirm they're actually wrong.)

This is on 305 and 308, and I think even older versions.

I've erased settings and started over. I've changed the separator character. Everything. I keep my Java up to data.

I thought for a while I was just configuring things wrong, somehow, but I finally sat down and started running experiments on smaller library subsets, and, yes, the links always go to whatever the first link is on that page. I just added tags of AA@AA and AA@BB to a dozen books, with a split char of @, reran calibre2OPDS, and now there's a new AA link at the top of the Tags page, *and all the links on that page now point there*, to a page that offers me AA or BB.

Interestingly, if that first link *has* no sub-tags (Either because it has no split-tags characters in it, or there's only one sub-tag so it shows the entire thing.), that's not where all the links point. They always point to the first link in the page that has any sub tags.

Incidentally, as far as I can tell, the other sub-tag pages aren't even being generated, although oddly *their* sub pages are. I.e., if I have the tags AA@AA AA@BB, Genre@Blah@One and Genre@Blah@Two, the Genre page isn't being generated, but the Genre@Blah page *is*, and works perfectly. (Except the 'Go backwards in tree' link points to the wrong page. It will say 'Blah' but send me over to 'AA', exactly like the 'Genre' link on the Tags page.)

So, to summarize: calibre2OPDS is only generating the first 'second-level tag' page it runs across, alphabetically. Any time it would generate any other a second-level tag page, it instead uses that one, and makes links to that one.

What the hell is going on? Are other people able to *use* the Tags catalog with split tags?

[itimpi]

Not sure how many people make use of this option (default is to not use it)! If it has been broken and not reported then it would not necessarily get looked at. I must admit I cannot remember testing it in any recent build.

I will see if I can recreate the issue from your description. I have used the information you provided to raise it as an Issue 231 on the Issue register.

[DavidTC]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Not sure how many people make use of this option (default is to not use it)!

Really? Ah, if I'd realized no one was using it that I would have reported it sooner. I figured that everyone was using split tags to get around the 'no custom columns' issue. I made a custom column called 'Move Tags' in Calibre that pieces together all my various custom columns into 'Status@Read' and 'Genre@Science Fiction' and 'Characters@James Potter' and stuff like that, and then I just do a global search and replace to copy that column directly into the Tags.

Rather unelegant, but it works, or it would work if it actually worked. Instead, everything ends up at the 'Characters' listing, as that is the first item on the page. (Except now it ends up at AA, because that's now the first item.) Like I said, for the longest time, I thought I was just doing something wrong and I must be misunderstanding how this should work, but it has to be some sort of bug.

If it did work, it rather neatly would solve the custom column issue. Instead of trying to deal with all that complexity, just have them put all the stuff in the Tags. Although it would be very clever to let people specify a user column to use *instead* of 'Tags', because using a generated column that can suck all the other columns in is easier.

[itimpi]

It will be some time tomorrow at the earliest before I get a chance to check this out. to make sure it is a bug.

More understanding on exactly what you want to use the custom columns for would be useful. The latest build supports displaying custom columns in the Book Details pages. I have some work underway aimed at extending the filter syntax to support custom columns.. This will allow you to create custom sub-catalogs based on values in Custom columns. Are you thinking of using them in any other way in a Calibre2opds generated catalog?

If you are thi

[DavidTC]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Are you thinking of using them in any other way in a Calibre2opds generated catalog?

I was wanting to use them instead of the Tags column, because I generate the Tags column in a user column, and currently have to copy them over.

If you want me to generalize that, it would be to let the user swap out the Author, Series, Ratings, and Tag fields each for a specified custom field.

But, frankly, if it just allowed *one* user-defined field to be used instead of Tags, that would be enough, because that one field can go and get all that other stuff and put it in any hierarchy I want.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by DavidTC

But, frankly, if it just allowed *one* user-defined field to be used instead of Tags, that would be enough, because that one field can go and get all that other stuff and put it in any hierarchy I want.

I am trying to find out if there is any significant demand for there to be a catalog sub-section which is indexed based on the custom column values, or whether just supporting custom columns in the filter expressions will be enough for most people. The upgrade for filter expressions is already being worked on. Supporting a whole catalog section based on the column values would be a further development.

[DavidTC]

Ah. I have no opinion on that, as I don't really use filters at all, and if I did, it would probably be via Tags, or I could at least put it in Tags.

That said, I want to clarify that I didn't want a whole new catalog section...I merely wanted the ability to say 'Pretend this custom column is the Tags column instead of the actual Tags column, and behave exactly as before.'.

But like I said, it's trivial to just bulk copy that column to Tags in Calibre.

[itimpi]

I have found that there definitely seems to be a problem with the option to split tags, but I have not managed to recreate the symptoms you describe so I am not sure if what I am seeing in my testing is the same issue or a different one.

It is quite likely that I do not have test data set up correctly to exactly reproduce your problem. It would be useful for my investigation if I can get hold of a copy of the metadata.db file from your calibre library, and also the calibre2opds profile.xml you are using so I can use the same settings. If you are willing to provide this I would suggest that you either attach this (zip it to reduce size) as a comment to the issue #c20-231 issue or email it to calibre2opds at gmail dot com.

[DavidTC]

I have sent you an email.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by DavidTC

I have sent you an email.

At the moment nothing has arrived. Can you please check the email address you used.

[DavidTC]

I re-sent it, did you get it?

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by DavidTC

I re-sent it, did you get it?

The email appears to have arrived OK this time!

I will get on today with using the supplied library for testing if I can reproduce all the symptoms you found.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by DavidTC

I re-sent it, did you get it?

Just to let you know that with the test library you provided I recreated your symptoms at my end. Thanks very much for creating the test cases. With a test library with just a few books that clearly exhibit the symptom it helps when trying to step through the code to see what is going wrong.

Now to work out WHY it is happening and what the fix is . My suspicion is that this bug is going to take some serious work to out the fix.

[itimpi]

I have put rev 313 into the 3.4 downloads are that I believe fixes your problem with splitting tags. Once I finally tracked down the cause the key change at the source code level was a single line!

If you are still getting any unexpected results, then please let me know.

[DavidTC]

It works as far as I can tell! Thanks!

Well, with one caveat. | doesn't seem to work as a separater. But I changed it to @, and it works exactly like I assume it should work.

Now I will start making the tag trees I want.