[GUI Plugin] Job Spy

[BetterRed]

I'll leave it at that for now so you can to respond to Petzi's post - #906.

My main outstanding was onenote and that's fixed, the browser over ride was secondary - glad its working though.

BR

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by petzi

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I was a week out of town.

WOW! I have seen you improved this part of your plugin tremendously Facilities to navigate around the calibre database is a great idea! This makes the work with the multi-format windows very efficient.

I hope it is ok, that I give you some feedback.

1. Leaving the regular expression field empty and clicking on the "Srch" button results for me in an error:

   calibre, version 6.14.1 ERROR: Notes Viewer: No books were found that have any values matching your Search Regular Expression: ^.+[.]

2. Whenever I get a result list of my research, each hit displays a name, title, number, and the search expression. Where does the number come from? Which fields are searched?
3. After writing the search term in the "RegExpr" field, one has to click the "Srch" button. The <enter> key does not work, but I think it should, as it would be an intuitive and expected UI behavior.
4. The button of the opened note column and the `CC` button have the same behavior. They open both a dropdown menu choice. --- An additional suggestion concerning the long list of columns: Wouldn't it be helpful to have a configuration option to limit the entries for the dropdown menu? Instead of showing all fields with "Long text, like comments, not shown in the Tag browser" one could specify those fields where a multi-format field would be really necessary.
5. Some HTML notes always open as Markdown. This happens most of the time with notes exported as HTML emails from iOS or iPadOS. This is easy to correct with just one click. But one has to do it every time one opens this field. It would be nice if the program remembers the last configuration.

Hopefully, some of my remarks are of value for you.

They are all of value. Thank you for the remarks.

[1] That regex has been changed to ^.+[.]* so that text with zero periods in would still be selected. I was thinking "first sentence".

[2] The number in the search results list is the Calibre Book ID number, which NV uses to "jump" to the selected book. It needs that number. The field that is searched is of course the currently selected Custom Column, a.k.a. Notes Column. If you can articulate a preference for the order of the results, I can change that. Currently, it is: Author; Title, BookID; Snippet (returned as the matched text of the regular expression). The greyed-out text in the dropdown combobox before it is filled with search results will be changed to correctly put Author first, and Title second.

[3] Enter button now activates the search.

[4] Notes Viewer, to users who are fortunate to be able to use a mouse, has seemingly redundant pushbuttons for doing a few things. Those buttons are for those who cannot use a mouse for physical reasons, or do not have a mouse to use. The buttons also provide a direct shortcut, Alt+X, to the action of the button.

[5] Good idea. I will add that for the release after the one that I post tonight with the changes just mentioned in [1] & [3], above.

[6] Good idea. Also, it would be helpful if you posted a debug log for the "guessing math" displayed for those HTML emails. Not the text of the emails, which are of course private, but the ratios for markdown and HTML that are printed when "guessing" the format. That would help me refine the process of "guessing". Regardless, I will still implement this good idea at the same time I do [5].


Added: Just Released: Version 1.0.220 -2023-03-20 Notes Viewer: Enhancements. See [1] & [3], above.




DaltonST

[BetterRed]

I figured out why Onenote links are 'fixed' - its because of the weirdness of the links I mentioned in post 869.

Onenote's Copy Link to Page tool puts something like this into the clipboard, which I paste into the column in <a ref> tags:

onenote:https://d.docs.live.net/cc6283b11474a776/Documents/BetterRed's%20Notebook/blah-blah-blah&end

The presence of https: throws it to the https override handler, which is of course… Edge. It was working before because I had an override handler for http. It now works if I change it to:

onenote:http://d.docs.live.net/cc6283b11474a776/Documents/BetterRed's%20Notebook/blah-blah-blah&end

Which means I can't have an override for http protocol links; that should be okay though… the web links I put into columns I'd look at with NV are copied pasted from a handful of 'well behaved' sites. And, I have to edit what Onenote puts in the clipboard before creating the link in the LT column so removing the 's' is no big deal.

But, I wouldn't object if something could be done to avoid having to do that.

Ideally of course MS would provide two Copy Link tools, one for the desktop Onenote, the other for the browser Onenote.

BR

[DaltonST]

What if I enable both "onenote:http:" and "onenote:https:" as unique override keys so you could point each one to separate apps? So, there would be 4: http; https; plus the 2 above. Would that work?

If so, are there others to enable at the same time?

DaltonST

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

What if I enable both "onenote:http:" and "onenote:https:" as unique override keys so you could point each one to separate apps? So, there would be 4: http; https; plus the 2 above. Would that work?

Not sure, what I have works.

Although, I regard my use of "onenote:http:" as a contrivance to overcome the fact that "onenote:https:" is currently being treated as "https:".

I can't imagine why I would ever want invoke different web clients or onenote clients - but I guess someone might. So, I'm going to say - "Your call."

For me, the issue of 'dead' file links is of greater relevance.

Originally Posted by DaltonST

If so, are there others to enable at the same time?

Not that I can think of. The mailto and calibre links work, I think I have few sftp links somewhere but I'd have to find them.

do you understand why I got the debug output from calibre-debug -g and not from Prefs->Restart in debug mode? I've always assumed they were one and the same.

BR

[DaltonST]

[1] I can add an os.path.isfile check to each file before passing it on. If it isn't, I can throw an error message or info message; your choice.

[2] No clue as to why. I always use the calibre-debug -g method, as I don't like waiting for surprises after Calibre closes. Limits testing with instant feedback. May be related to why Portable debugging is worthless.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

[1] I can add an os.path.isfile check to each file before passing it on. If it isn't, I can throw an error message or info message; your choice.

Simple info message - easy enough to a peek at the 'code' in Plain style - even correct in Edit mode if it's a typo.

BR

[petzi]

I just noticed another possible UI issue:

When calling the multi-format field via Job Spy (I have dedicated the shortcut CTRL-N for this action) the program always opens the field that comes alphabetically first. This is even then the case when I have selected a special field I want to open.

I have three fields: "fn", "ln", and "sn" for fleeting, literature and summary note. I position my cursor on the "sn" field and select it with one click. But using my shortcut or the Job Spy menu opens the "fn" field and not the "sn" field. After opening the (wrong) field, I have to change from "sn" to "fn".

I am uncertain if this behavior is intended, but I think it would be nice whenever the user has selected a correct field format to open this specified field.

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by petzi

I just noticed another possible UI issue:

When calling the multi-format field via Job Spy (I have dedicated the shortcut CTRL-N for this action) the program always opens the field that comes alphabetically first. This is even then the case when I have selected a special field I want to open.

I have three fields: "fn", "ln", and "sn" for fleeting, literature and summary note. I position my cursor on the "sn" field and select it with one click. But using my shortcut or the Job Spy menu opens the "fn" field and not the "sn" field. After opening the (wrong) field, I have to change from "sn" to "fn".

I am uncertain if this behavior is intended, but I think it would be nice whenever the user has selected a correct field format to open this specified field.

Petzi:


I suspect that there is a basic misunderstanding of the Note Viewer's usage paradigm. Let me return to first principles by starting at the beginning.

1. NV "assumes" that any single, random Long-Text/Comments Custom Column may have many rows, each row with a different random text format of either Plain, Markdown, or HTML.
2. NV further assumes that the user must be abler to randomly select a Calibre Library View (a.k.a. Library List) cell, being the intersection of a column and a row, for which the text format may randomly be Plain, MD, or HTML.
3. NV must accurately "guess" at the text format of the 'randomly selected row' / 'randomly selected column' intersection, indicating its best guess by changing the text format radio button to coincide with NV's best guess.
4. In other words, the User picks the row and column, and NV picks the text format of the User's selection. Never the other way around.
5. If for some reason the "best guess" of NV is wrong, such as when its ability to discriminate between Markdown and HTML for a particular "cell" is not sharp enough, the User has the ability to "override" the guessed-at text format by manually clicking the appropriate text format radio button.
6. Stated differently, the User never clicks a text format radio button prior to selecting the cell containing the Note that they wish to view.

Having said the above, and given some recommendations for new functionality that you made in another recent post, I am in the process of developing a "Notes Viewer Customization" feature that implements the new functionality requested by you and others.

Examples:

• Filtering the available Custom Columns in the drop-down list to those that you personally want to see;
• Setting a 'default' Custom Column for each Calibre Library that is the default "go to" column upon first execution of NV;
• Specifying an 'assumed' text format for each Custom Column so that those with marginal Markdown versus HTML discrimination may always show accurately in NV without User intervention. This of course would presuppose that the so-specified Custom Column did not truly have a mixture of rows with differing text formats within the same column (which NV was designed to support in the base case). That would be each User's choice, not NV's.

I hope the above is helpful.


DaltonST


p.s.: NV keeps track of the "last used Custom Column" at the time that NV was closed via the "save and exit" pushbutton, and reopens with that same Custom Column the next time. It does not always open at the alphabetical first Custom Column. If the User always exits via the "X" button in the top of the window, rather than through the exit pushbutton, it is possible that the "last used Custom Column" never got saved upon exit.

[DaltonST]

See the attached image for an explanation of how NV is customized, and what it does.

Also attached below is the latest beta test version of Job Spy. 'Notes Viewer' is under the Look & Feel submenu of JS near to 'RowSpy'.

Please back up your "Job Spy.json" file found in the same directory as the JS .zip plugin file. There is a JS Utility Menu Item for doing so easily. Backing up your JS .json file should be a routine event.

I am still working on the Tabbing among the radio buttons in the Customization dialog. For now, using a Mouse to click them is necessary.


DaltonST

[BetterRed]

Default Custom Column: cannot be cleared.

Quick test: all good, dead file msg

Could/should the job_spy_notes_viewer_protocol_default_apps setting be in Options, that would satisfy @owb's wish for per library setting - if you do that I'd like an all library setting.

BTW I did the tests in portable.

BR

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Default Custom Column: cannot be cleared.

Quick test: all good, dead file msg

Could/should the job_spy_notes_viewer_protocol_default_apps setting be in Options, that would satisfy @owb's wish for per library setting - if you do that I'd like an all library setting.

BTW I did the tests in portable.

BR

I suggested a per library setting because it's likely for different libraries to have different columns...