Creating Catalogs (Archived)

[GRiker]

0.7.37 has been released, including fixes (hopefully) for Windows users of the catalog feature. Please report in this thread if you have any problems.

G

[Malcolm]

@G: Have just done the catalog in 7.37 and it now works again. Thanks, Ticket 8152 is fixed.

[mfaine]

For CSV output (and maybe others) it would be nice if we could order the columns and provide alternate labels for them. Also, it would good if we could set the date format that will be output to CSV for date columns. Also, why is the rating based on 10 being the highest. The rating output should be / 2

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by mfaine

For CSV output (and maybe others) it would be nice if we could order the columns and provide alternate labels for them. Also, it would good if we could set the date format that will be output to CSV for date columns. Also, why is the rating based on 10 being the highest. The rating output should be / 2

The CSV and XML output formats are intended to be used as input to other programs. CSV is intended for spreadsheets, where you can easily manipulate column order and sorting.

The rating is actually stored in the database as a number from 0-10. I left it in that range to mirror the true contents of the database. My instinct is to leave the content with a correct representation of the database content, and leave it to the spreadsheet to manipulate the number for compatibility. I believe that the original reason was to potentially support half ratings at some point, e.g. 7 would be a 3.5.

I used the lookup name of the custom columns to be consistent with the standard column names - they are the exact name you would type when searching by column. That way, it's easy to see what content will be output to the file.

What date format are you looking for? I'd consider adding a formatting string option if there's enough interest.

G

[flo_tm]

Hi everybody - and a happy new year !

I'm trying out this great function to create a catalog for my Kindle with Calibre 0.7.37 - just with author and series information.

After searching the forum and fiddling a little bit myself, I can't seem to solve two little problems: I want to customize the catalog creation so the publication date in parentheses is removed and every author gets some empty space before the start of his text block.

By default, the publication date is always attached after the title - and this date is never correct. Also, there are no breaks between two authors, just when a new letter section starts. (A -> B).

I tried creating my personal template definitions (changed the copied templates in my calibre user profile in previously created resource/catalog folder), but I can't get it to work.

I would be happy if somebody could give me a pointer (or a solution ... =)).

Thanks and best wishes from Germany,
Florian

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by flo_tm

After searching the forum and fiddling a little bit myself, I can't seem to solve two little problems: I want to customize the catalog creation so the publication date in parentheses is removed and every author gets some empty space before the start of his text block.

Instructions for creating a local copy of the catalog resources, from the first post in this thread (revised):

Spoiler:

If you wish to change the default appearance of the Description pages, you can create a local copy of the template and CSS files which will override the default layout. This requires familiarity with HTML and CSS.

• Open your calibre configuration directory - Preferences|Advanced|Miscellaneous|Open calibre configuration directory.
• Within this directory, create a subdirectory resources (if it doesn't already exist).
• Within the newly created resources directory, create a subdirectory catalog.
• Open a new file system window, navigate to the default catalog resources folder:
  • OSX: Applications/calibre/Contents/Resources/resources/catalog
  • Windows:Program Files\Calibre2\resources\catalog
• Copy all of the files from the default catalog resources folder to the newly created resources/catalog directory within your calibre configuration directory.
• Edit template.xhtml and stylesheet.css to your preferences. If you want to start over, copy from the default template and CSS files again. If you want to discard your customizations, delete the catalog subfolder from your calibre configuration resources directory.

If you're referring to the year of publication appended to the book title in the 'Authors' list, it is always included. If you want a switch for that, create an enhancement request.

If you're referring to the year of publication inserted in the book's description page, open template.xhtml in your text editor:
Change

<td class="date">{pubyear}</td>

to

<td class="date"></td>

To add extra space between author listings, open stylesheet.css in your text editor:
Change

p.author_index {
	font-size:large;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-align:left;
	margin-top:0px;     /* controls spacing between author groups */
	margin-bottom:-2px;
	text-indent: 0em;
	}

to

p.author_index {
	font-size:large;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-align:left;
	margin-top:8px;  /* controls spacing between author groups */
	margin-bottom:-2px;
	text-indent: 0em;
	}

The margin-top: rule controls the spacing between author groups. Any non-zero value will increase the space.

By default, the publication date is always attached after the title - and this date is never correct.

I need an example of the incorrect date.

G

[gweminence]

I'm having a problem with the catalog feature that hopefully someone can help me with:

I initially tried it with just 2 authors' worth of books, one with roughly 8 books in a series, and the other with 3. Specifically, I wanted to try out the kindle TOC features as stated in the first post here. It worked fine. 'go to section' pulled up a nice page with subsections of series, authors, titles, etc, to click on. Thinking I was good to go, I sorted hooked up my k3, sorted my collection with 'ondevice:true', which is about 350 books, and created the catalogue with the same settings as earlier.

The TOC seems to have disappeared. Clicking on 'go to section' now just takes me right to the beginning of the catalog list.

I'm baffled because I changed nothing. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[GRiker]

Confirm that you're running the latest release. If so, create a ticket, attaching a debug trace as described in the first post in this thread.

G

[gweminence]

Originally Posted by GRiker

Confirm that you're running the latest release. If so, create a ticket, attaching a debug trace as described in the first post in this thread.

G

Griker, thanks for the reply. I am using the latest release. However, I'm not going to submit a bug report, because I now, after some experimentation, think that it's some bit of formatting in my library, and not a bug. This, specifically, I think, is the problem:

*** TOC discontinuity: nodes are not sequential ***
node 047: 'Series beginning with 'T'' offset: 0x3E52B length: 0x190
node 048: 'Series beginning with 'A'' offset: 0x2AFF8 != 0x03E6BB

I saw earlier in this thread something about fixing TOC.ncx, but after searching all my hard drives, I cannot find such a file.

Any suggestions? If you want the whole trace, I will do that. I just wasn't sure I should submit a bug report for what I'm reasonably sure, now, isn't a bug.

Edit:

Further experimentation reveals that any series beginning with 'T' in the catalog causes this error. 'A' is irrelevant, since if I leave out 'A', it finds other, random letters to go along with the 'T'. Interestingly enough, series that begin with 'The' do not throw the error -- I assume that's because the indexing ignores it. However, if I leave out any series that actually begins with a 't', but include series that begin with 'The', I get this:

Could not find TOC entry "Series beginning with 'T'", aborting indexing ...

Very frustrating. I know this is a fix needed in some file in my library. I simply don't know which one.

[GRiker]

@gweminence: The debug trace tells me what I need to know, specifically the title that breaks the sequence. If you don't want to create a ticket with the debug trace, then you need to do trial and error on groups of books until you find the title causing the problem. Most likely it's a title or series name with an unusual character. The code should be corrected to handle your condition, whatever it is, but without the debug trace I'm flying blind.

G

[gweminence]

Ah, okies Griker. I'll do that asap. I appreciate your help. This is annoying -- made more so because I know it's my file house-keeping that's the problem. Expect the upload shortly, and thanks again.

[gweminence]

Ok, ticket submitted. Thanks.

[GRiker]

I have some follow-up questions you'll find at the ticket, please reply there.

G

[gweminence]

Answered. I'll keep watch there so that we don't have to go back and forth here. Thanks.

[GRiker]

@gweminence: Fixed in next release, thanks for your assistance.

G