Series - Automatic numbering?

[guyanonymous]

I noticed that is now a feature in Calibre, and it has the potential to be very useful to me. But I'd also like to turn it off sometimes. How do I go about doing so?

[kovidgoyal]

You can't. Previously series would be automatically numbered as 1, not theyre automatically numbered as the next number in the series. I can't really see a case where the old behavior is superior to the new one.

[guyanonymous]

Where I add books out of order (i.e., missing certain books in a series). In that case, I'd enjoy it just leaving the series # completely blank, to be honest.

Personally, I'd prefer to see the series and number as two separate columns/fields, but I know you'd have to rework the database for that

[theducks]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

I noticed that is now a feature in Calibre, and it has the potential to be very useful to me. But I'd also like to turn it off sometimes. How do I go about doing so?

I will second the request.
For the reasons given and when you rename (correct) a series of single book into an existing series, it jumps the existing number to the highest+1
Annoying

(See bug report on trailing space, I just filed)

[guyanonymous]

I just came back in to add that issue! Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

Still not sure I understand. Whether the number is set to 1 or the next higher integer, you still have to correct it manually, so what's the difference?

[guyanonymous]

When it's set to 1, by default, and there are 20 1's in a row, I know I have to correct it later. When it's set in consecutive numbers, then I'm not so sure. It's a visual reminder.

I think the new automatic incrementation is great - most of the time. But there are times when I import a range of documents that are unsorted and don't want to take the time right then and there to sort them. Similarly, there are times when I import a series of documents intermingled with others and beyond knowing that they belong to a series, don't know the order - I have to figure it out later. When they're all 1's it's easy to see they still need to be corrected. When they are auto-incremented, it looks done, even when it isn't.

[kovidgoyal]

How is it that your books have series, but not series index in the first place? I don't know of any metadata sources/books that give you a series name, but not number.

The reason I'm reluctant to add this setting is I try to avoid the proliferation of endless preferences, it makes the whole program harder to use.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

How is it that your books have series, but not series index in the first place? I don't know of any metadata sources/books that give you a series name, but not number.

The reason I'm reluctant to add this setting is I try to avoid the proliferation of endless preferences, it makes the whole program harder to use.

Using Default "Get Meta data" never returns a series.
Baen Webscription epub, never supplies a series (sets most everything else)

This is not proper behavior?
I have manually set series and Index for over 400 titles .

[rcuadro]

For what it is worse here is what I do... I add the books and do a bulk media edit to add the series... then I filter for the series and then check/correct book series number.

Or I add the books in series order and Calibre does the rest for me

[guyanonymous]

Diddo - I've not once had series data returned for me. But wait....could this explain why I've had series data vanish from my system? Would downloading metadata be replacing my previously entered Series info with blanks?

As for series not having a number. There are quite a few series out there that have additional books written that become prequels, additional to the canon, so to speak, etc. Star Wars, Star Trek, and quite a few other sf series are like that.

I choose to put my books and documents in read-order. So if a book/document is published at a later date, but really comes earlier in the "read-order" than a previously published title, it gets inserted.

I've been using the decimal feature for that.

I recognize that you may not do things that way, and that you're the boss. Just letting you know that some of us might do things differently and appreciate the feature. If you choose not to add it, I suspect we'll survive.

Hmm....perhaps down the road a drag and drop mechanism could be put in place, so that one could view all books tagged in a series, drag them into the correct order, and numbers would then be applied after saving. If a new book comes out, it could be dragged to the appropriate place, and again, numbers could be regenerated.

[Sabardeyn]

guyanonymous,

For awhile I had "Use Metadata from Files" turned on. At another point I also used "Social Metadata".

In either case the metadata obtained (from the file, or online) overwrote any existing metadata I had previously. Particularly with Social Metadata I've seen some strange things (Google only, have not tried ISBNdb as yet). I won't try to provide examples, but I have had entries completely overwritten with garbage (at least, from my point of view) that I had to re-enter.

[guyanonymous]

The only metadata I get now (after finding everything full of bad data after a batch job) is downloaded from within the Edit (individual) tab. Not from the file itself. And I happily have social metadata turned off now.

[Sabardeyn]

Yes, the time I was referring to above was a batch import.

Another topic recommended per book metadata look-ups, cutting & pasting any acceptable data into the book, and ignoring the remaining extraneous stuff. I believe now with 0.6.37 their is some new field inclusion controls per book, but I haven't used them as yet.

[drplokta]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You can't. Previously series would be automatically numbered as 1, not theyre automatically numbered as the next number in the series. I can't really see a case where the old behavior is superior to the new one.

I would find it more useful if it defaulted to the lowest unused number, not the highest used number plus one. So if you've already added items 1, 3 & 4 to a series, the next item should default to 2, not 5.