Plugin ideas... add yours here

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The Import List plugin can import from a CSV file to update metadata, or create empty books.

I once used to to create empty books, but I can't use it now. I get stuck on "Step 1: Configure a list source," with "Continue" greyed out.

(I am working with a dummy csv specifying a test tag and trying to select a couple books to add that test tag.)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

I once used to to create empty books, but I can't use it now. I get stuck on "Step 1: Configure a list source," with "Continue" greyed out.

(I am working with a dummy csv specifying a test tag and trying to select a couple books to add that test tag.)

For the next button to be enabled, you need to map at at least the author and title in the CSV to columns in calibre. And press the Preview button. One when the sample matches are shown can you move to the next step.

[liladude]

Originally Posted by liladude

Hello, I am trying to figure out how this old request was developed through the years. I am looking for a good metadata source for Academic Articles, and I noticed Zotero is happily using CrossRef. I searched around a bit and found a couple of github plugins (here and here) that were created to retrieve CrossRef metadata, but they are like 2 years old. I successfully compiled the first one but it is not working at all, and if I run the test it will throw out errors. My knowledge about Calibre plugins is none, can anybody give me a hint? I would probably try to avoid having zotero retrieve the metadata and than export them to Calibre.

A slight update on the matter, the plugin can import metadata when a DOI is available, now I need to find a way to have it work when only Author and Title are available.

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For the next button to be enabled, you need to map at at least the author and title in the CSV to columns in calibre. And press the Preview button. One when the sample matches are shown can you move to the next step.

Okay, I'm trying *, *, csvtest, so it should work with any selected files, but it still doesn't work.

It looks like Import List is intended to import a list, or update metadata for a list of books, and may not work to update metadata for selected books.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

Okay, I'm trying *, *, csvtest, so it should work with any selected files, but it still doesn't work.

It looks like Import List is intended to import a list, or update metadata for a list of books, and may not work to update metadata for selected books.

The Import List plugin doesn't work on the books selected in the library when you start it. The input CSV file needs to have information in it to be able to find the books that are to be updated. Or enough information to add a new book. It does this using the title and the author. If they are in the CSV, then you need to use the "Fields" button to set which columns in the CSV contain the values.

Even if it was limited to the selected books, you still need some method to match the records in the CSV with the book in the library as it is unlikely that the books would be in the same order in both. Or at least it would be a pain to have to make sure the order matched each time you wanted to do this.

[MarjaE]

So is there a good tool to update some metadata for selected books to match a file specifying appropriate metadata?

(Edit Metadata in Bulk can do the same thing, but I have to re-type the appropriate metadata each time I use it, even if I end up using the same specs over and over.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

So is there a good tool to update some metadata for selected books to match a file specifying appropriate metadata?

(Edit Metadata in Bulk can do the same thing, but I have to re-type the appropriate metadata each time I use it, even if I end up using the same specs over and over.)

You are better to update in small batches. You would have to check each book to see if the metadata is correct. No metadata downloader will get it 100% every time. There are some plugins to get metadata from Amazon and Kobo. That should work in most cases.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

So is there a good tool to update some metadata for selected books to match a file specifying appropriate metadata?

(Edit Metadata in Bulk can do the same thing, but I have to re-type the appropriate metadata each time I use it, even if I end up using the same specs over and over.)

You mean, like the Import List plugin? Otherwise, I don't know what you want. You seem to be saying that you want to enter the same value for a set of books, but, it also seems like you want to enter different values for each book.

[arichard321]

My idea for a plugin is part to do with enabling better personal research methods. If you want to reference a webpage then we can use a URL. i.e. http://www.google.com/

If I want to reference an email then I can use a plugin called thunderlink for thunderbird to thunderlink://messageid=123456@google.com/ - here is the page about that https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US...n/thunderlink/

I would like to be able to teach my OS (ubuntu) how to recognise a url something like this

book://{bookid - SHA of book?}/page/12

or

book://{bookid - SHA of book?}/chapter/1

or

book://{filename}/toc

It's meant not as a universal reference, these urls aren't necessarily supposed to be shareable, it's meant to enable local linking between programs.

I would like the Calibre reader app to then launch, with the correct book and page/chapter/whatever loaded and made visible.

I think other document reading apps should work similarly.

[kovidgoyal]

@arichard321 the calibre viewer already supports that look at the the --open-at command line option

[arichard321]

@kovidgoyal That's excellent. Thanks. It looks as though the hard work has been done. I might be able to do something to load such URLs from linux with a .desktop file. The thunderlink one requires that the whole URL is passed in a single argument, but there might be a way around that. Some helper script that perhaps finds the file in the URL and splits out the URL to pass parameters correctly. I can do that for Linux, but have no idea how such a thing can be accomplished on any other OS.

It would be nice to generate the URLs from the calibre viewer. I suppose that if I can do the part above then that could be the next step.

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You seem to be saying that you want to enter the same value for a set of books, but, it also seems like you want to enter different values for each book.

For this, the same value within each set. And different values for different sets. Not downloading.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

For this, the same value within each set. And different values for different sets. Not downloading.

Which sounds like you just need to use bulk metadata edit. Select the books with the same values and enter it. Then move onto the next set.

If what you mean is that you find yourself entering the same thing for sets of books at different times, then store that somewhere so you can cut and paste. Or use a clip manager to make them easy to find and paste.

[BetterRed]

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

Originally Posted by MarjaE

For this, the same value within each set. And different values for different sets. Not downloading.

And/or use calibre's metadata edit cut and paste options to copy values from one book to another book or many books; control what columns get pasted via the Exclude fields when copy/pasting metadata Tweak.

In my journals library I have a number of 'empty' books with common values for the columns I frequently want to copy - I make sure I'm in the VL that has those 'books' before I add journal items.

BR

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Which sounds like you just need to use bulk metadata edit. Select the books with the same values and enter it. Then move onto the next set.

If what you mean is that you find yourself entering the same thing for sets of books at different times, then store that somewhere so you can cut and paste. Or use a clip manager to make them easy to find and paste.

Is there an easy way to cut and paste into all the appropriate fields?

Originally Posted by BetterRed

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔


And/or use calibre's metadata edit cut and paste options to copy values from one book to another book or many books; control what columns get pasted via the Exclude fields when copy/pasting metadata Tweak.

In my journals library I have a number of 'empty' books with common values for the columns I frequently want to copy - I make sure I'm in the VL that has those 'books' before I add journal items.

BR

I already copy and paste metadata for multiple pdf formats for existing books. Since the publisher's formats are rarely Kindle-compatible, I tend to batch-process pdf books using k2pdfopt and/or ghostscript, and I sometime have to try more than one pdf format to find a good result. In that context, I want to copy everything except my user-created columns #status and #processing. Unless I can configure different versions of copy metadata for different tasks, I'm going to keep that version.

Thank you both.