Change Format Order? Default Format View?

[tgwdnghn]

1. When editing an ebook's metadata, is there an easy way to change the order in which the multiple formats available for the book appear? (By easy, I mean without deleting and re-adding formats just to achieve the intended effect.) Basically, I'm asking for what is effectively an 'up' and 'down' arrow for sorting formats manually.

This feature would be very helpful so that double clicking an ebook will open my preferred format (ie. the one I would have made first).

Please see my two attachments for details.

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A related, but technically independent question:

2. Is it possible to configure the default view format, or a prioritized lists of formats to open, when double clicking a book? That is, when double clicking a book, I want it to open the first available format in the user-defined list: PDF, DJVU, AZW3, ..., etc.

This feature would be a non-mutually exclusive alternative to the mechanism I proposed in #1

[kovidgoyal]

1. No

2. Preferences->Behavior

[tgwdnghn]

Thank you, Kovid, for your prompt reply.

If I'm understanding Preferences->Behavior properly, this sorting applies to conversions; I don't necessarily want to change the preferred input format for conversions (I like those the way they are), but I would like to change the format opened for reading when I double-click. Could you please advise?

Also, I kindly ask that you consider #1 as a feature recommendation. Thanks again!

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC, preferred input format order applies to the viewer as well.

EDIT: Looking a tthe code, yes it applies without the caveat. That is, preferred input format is what determines which format is picked, regardless of output format.

[tgwdnghn]

Hm... this could be somewhat problematic for me. I prefer to view books as PDF since the vast majority of my collection doesn't view well in markup formats, yet PDF is a relatively terrible input format. Fortunately, I don't do conversions often, but now these two semantically distinct features are using the same model in a conflicting manner. (The list I'd use for one is not the list I'd use for the other.)

I suppose I'll have to deal with it for the time being. Given how frequently you release new versions, I'm sure an elegant solution will appear soon enough .

Going along with your solution, is there a way to override this behavior on a per-book basis? For example: I'd like all but a few specific ebooks to open as PDF by default; these specific ebooks would use a different, individually specified format (EPUB, MOBI, etc).

Again, I greatly appreciate your time and consideration.

[BetterRed]

@tgwdnghn - you can assign keyboard shortcuts to open specific formats in specific programs - viz:



BR

[kovidgoyal]

I'm not sure why you need a per book override at all. Simply click the format you want to view in the book details panel, instead of clicking the view button.

You can even assign a keyboard shortcut to viewing a specific format via the open with mechanism in calibre, if you prefer to use keyboard shortcuts.

[tgwdnghn]

Many of the ebooks in my collection (both purchased and 'bootleg') have numerous errors not present in the print edition (ie. typographical, OCR, etc), and also have horrendously low resolution images. Sometimes I need to alternate between different formats of the same book just to overcome these errors and see better resolution images. This is particularly true for my many books on mathematics, most of which were originally printed long before present ebook technology existed.

Ideally, formats like mobi/epub would be preferred for reading due to their native reflow capability; however, given the low quality of many of my mobi/epub books, it is very convenient for me to specify which format would be the best (or rather, the 'least troublesome') for reading on a per book basis.

I am aware that I can always specify which format to load via menu or hotkeys, but it'd be neat if Calibre could remember my preference on a per-book basis (hence #1)

[kovidgoyal]

I'm afraid your use case is rather too specialised for builtin support in calibre, but you can simply create a custom column (Preferences->Add your own column) to record your favorite format and then either use that to decide which format to click on in the book details panel or write a simple calibre plugin to do it for you automatically (it would basically require minor alteration in the demo plugin)

[BetterRed]

@tgwdnghn - you could put the un-preferred formats into a Secondary physical library so that your Primary library only had the preferred format - thence double click would view that format.

And you could use the Column Colour or Column Icon feature to 'flag' books that have un-preferred formats in the Secondary library.

And/or if you wanted to be really 'cute' you could put file links to the un-preferred formats into a long text custom column on the Primary book, and vice versa. You would have the custom column shown in Book details, to view a secondary format you would click on the file link.

The long text editor (Comments) has a toolbar widget that includes a file browse button that makes its v easy to create the file links.

TIP : It is almost always the case with calibre that there are multiple ways to get want you want. One needs to avoid getting fixated on the first idea one thinks of - i.e. think outside the box.

BR