searching for books modified

[kcarscadden]

I attempted to find all of the books I had modified with the search term:

modified:>date:

but this found nothing. What would the correct search term be?

[JSWolf]

You can use the Qulity Check plugin if you have something you can search for in your modified eBooks.

[BetterRed]

Because your comparing two columns (dates), I think you will need to do it with a template, see The calibre template language

BR

[PeterT]

Does this help

The syntax for searching for dates is:

pubdate:>2000-1 Will find all books published after Jan, 2000
date:<=2000-1-3 Will find all books added to calibre before 3 Jan, 2000
pubdate:=2009 Will find all books published in 2009
If the date is ambiguous, the current locale is used for date comparison. For example, in an mm/dd/yyyy locale 2/1/2009 is interpreted as 1 Feb 2009. In a dd/mm/yyyy locale it is interpreted as 2 Jan 2009. Some special date strings are available. The string today translates to today’s date, whatever it is. The strings yesterday and thismonth (or the translated equivalent in the current language) also work. In addition, the string daysago (also translated) can be used to compare to a date some number of days ago. For example:

date:>10daysago
date:<=45daysago
To avoid potential problems with translated strings when using a non-English version of calibre, the strings _today, _yesterday, _thismonth, and _daysago are always available. They are not translated.

You can search for books that have a format of a certain size like this:

size:>1.1M Will find books with a format larger than 1.1MB
size:<=1K Will find books with a format smaller than 1KB
Dates and numeric fields support the relational operators = (equals), > (greater than), >= (greater than or equal to), < (less than), <= (less than or equal to), and != (not equal to). Rating fields are considered to be numeric. For example, the search rating:>=3 will find all books rated 3 or higher.

[kcarscadden]

Thanks for all the attempts at help so far. However, none of them seem to be applicable.

However, I have made a slight step forward - the correct field name is actually "last_modified:", not "modified:" (discovered by putting the cursor in the column header). So if I change the search term to:

last_modified:>date:

I still get nothing, but also an error message:

Date conversion error: date:

So my search term is still wrong. Both should be dates, but ??

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kcarscadden

Thanks for all the attempts at help so far. However, none of them seem to be applicable.

However, I have made a slight step forward - the correct field name is actually "last_modified:", not "modified:" (discovered by putting the cursor in the column header). So if I change the search term to:

last_modified:>date:

I still get nothing, but also an error message:

Date conversion error: date:

So my search term is still wrong. Both should be dates, but ??

I don't think native Calibre allows multi column compares.
There is a plugin that does: oddly enough called :Multi Column Search
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=261712

[kcarscadden]

Thanks, theducks, that is what I need (as well as sqllite browser, to actually determine the Calibre database column names).

It appears that the column Date is actually timestamp in the database, and last_modified gets updated for any modification (of course!), so my query in Multi Column Search is something like:

SELECT id FROM books WHERE last_modified > datetime(timestamp, '+2 days')

What I wanted was to find books I had edited over the last month or so, thinking (stupidly) that last_modified would indicate that, but of course it indicates any change, to any column, and unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a column that indicates what the change was.

Thanks all for the help.

[stumped]

A workaround of sorts is configuring the modify epub plug in to create an original_epub file whenever it is used.
If you run that as a final edit/tidy up step, after editing, then your modified books are the ones where that extra format exists and the date of that original format file may be accessible

[BetterRed]

@kcarscadden - see Audit Log plugin ==>> Index of plugins

BR

[kcarscadden]

@stumped - do you mean that it is currently possible to configure the edit epub plugin to do this, or are you suggesting this as a modification to the plugin?

@BetterRed - yes, if I had had the the Audit Log plugin enabled, then I probably would have been able to find the books I edited. I have it turned on now.

Thanks for the help.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kcarscadden

@stumped - do you mean that it is currently possible to configure the edit epub plugin to do this, or are you suggesting this as a modification to the plugin?

The option is part of Calibre. Go to Preferences > Tweaks > Save original file when converting/polishing from same formatto same format #. Both tweaks should be set to true.

save_original_format = True

save_original_format_when_polishing = True

When you use Modify ePub before you make any changes, you'll have two formats. EPUB and ORIGINAL_EPUB. You can search for ORIGINAL_EPUB and the results will be all the modified eBooks.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The option is part of Calibre. Go to Preferences > Tweaks > Save original file when converting/polishing from same formatto same format #. Both tweaks should be set to true.

save_original_format = True

save_original_format_when_polishing = True

When you use Modify ePub before you make any changes, you'll have two formats. EPUB and ORIGINAL_EPUB. You can search for ORIGINAL_EPUB and the results will be all the modified eBooks.

yes, that's a clearer version of what I was trying to say.

you can set for an original format file to be created for either , or for both of, calibre conversion & modify epub action, or for never.

dunno if any other plugins support it

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

yes, that's a clearer version of what I was trying to say.

you can set for an original format file to be created for either , or for both of, calibre conversion & modify epub action, or for never.

dunno if any other plugins support it

That depends if other plugins create another copy of the eBook in the same format. Modify ePub takes the ePub, makes it's changes and then adds the changed ePub back in and Calibre then created the ORIGINAL_EPUB file.

[kcarscadden]

@jswolf, @stumped,

Both of these settings are set to true for me, and when I edit the epub (using Edit Book, shortcut T), I do not get ORIGINAL_EPUB. It seems to me that save_original_format = True is for when you do Conversion to EPUB when there is already an EPUB, and save_original_format_when_polishing = True is for the plugin Modify Epub. I can't see a similar setting for Edit Book, which is the modification I usually do.

Keith

[BetterRed]

The last_modified column refers to modification of metadata, not modification of format files (book contents), you can get them via the formats_modtimes template function, see ==>> The calibre template language

BR