Plugboard, template, and custom composite column recipes

[theducks]

Originally Posted by retro

I setup a metadata plugboard for the KoboTouchExtended driver using this as my source template.

{series}{series_index:0>5.2f|| - }{title} > title_sort

It mostly works, but the series are sorting alphabetically by title rather than series number. The series titles stay together but if an author has more than one series, they aren't alphabetical either. So the results look like this when sorted by author:

Daughter of Atrocity
Sirona Cycle - 2

The Jump Point
Sirona Cycle - 1

Nullifier
Fire and Rust - 6

Refuge
Fire and Rust - 5

Am I doing something wrong or is this expected behavior?

I think it is expected. very few things can handle a biased sort like the Calibre gui does.
FWIW I make {series} into a collection and do NOT put it in the plugboard term.
As a matter of fact, I dont even use the plugboard with my Aura2.
I just configured the driver. Index does not show (and I just noticed ). Kobo uses a Database. I will play, but making Series into a collection is good

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by retro

I setup a metadata plugboard for the KoboTouchExtended driver using this as my source template.

{series}{series_index:0>5.2f|| - }{title} > title_sort

It mostly works, but the series are sorting alphabetically by title rather than series number. The series titles stay together but if an author has more than one series, they aren't alphabetical either. So the results look like this when sorted by author:

Daughter of Atrocity
Sirona Cycle - 2

The Jump Point
Sirona Cycle - 1

Nullifier
Fire and Rust - 6

Refuge
Fire and Rust - 5

Am I doing something wrong or is this expected behavior?

Kobo devices do not use the author_sort or title_sort. Your metadata plugboard is not actually changing anything the device uses. And what you are seeing above, series grouped when sorting by an author, is a fluke.

When sorting by author or title, the Kobo devices do not use the series. They sort by author (as "LN, FN") and within that, by the book title. The title sorting uses what calibre calls "library_order". That means that articles at the start of the title are moved to the end. So, "The Jump Point" will be sorted as "Jump Point, The". If the above is an example from your device, the fact that the series are grouped together is a fluke. The titles just happen to sort that way.

Kobo devices do support series sorting. As you have the series info on the device, sorting by that will put the series together in the correct order. That will be global in the library, not grouped within authors. But, there is also the authors list. From there you can view individual authors. This supports all the sorting options.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by theducks

I just configured the driver. Index does not show (and I just noticed ). Kobo uses a Database. I will play, but making Series into a collection is good

And I encourage everyone with a Kobo device to ask them to add a series list, just like they did for authors.

[retro]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And I encourage everyone with a Kobo device to ask them to add a series list, just like they did for authors.

I will! My 9 year old sony did it with the pretty much same metadata plugboard. Seems like it would be a simple fix.
Thanks!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And I encourage everyone with a Kobo device to ask them to add a series list, just like they did for authors.

Where is the best place to ask Kobo for enhancement requests?

[JSWolf]

@retro when you first add books to your Kobo, you have to eject the Kobo from the computer so the Kobo can finish updating the database.

Then you have to plug the Kobo back into the computer with Calibre active so it can populate the series. If you've not plugged your Kobo in a second time, your series info won't be there to sort by.

[retro]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@retro when you first add books to your Kobo, you have to eject the Kobo from the computer so the Kobo can finish updating the database.

Then you have to plug the Kobo back into the computer with Calibre active so it can populate the series. If you've not plugged your Kobo in a second time, your series info won't be there to sort by.

Yes, my sony is the same. Numerous connects doesn't change the Kobo series sort order under the author sort like sony does.
David and theducks explained that - (thank you, guys!).

[dcmarquardt]

I just wanted to share this here because I spent the last few hours trying to narrow down how to accomplish this...

Background: I recently converted my entire audiobook (multi-mp3 per book) collection into M4B's so that I could manage them with calibre following the "One File Per Book" pattern. (If anyone is interested in a decent way to batch-process that, feel free to PM me)... Once I loaded all of my M4B files into calibre, fixed up all the metadata, etc... it occurred to me that I would create a virtual library called "Audiobooks"... The search expression I used for that is: format:M4B. Easy enough. Now, some of the newly loaded audiobooks that I have, also have various e-book formats (epub, pdf, etc...) that I added to their calibre records for convenience.

Problem: I have a virtual library that shows me all of my audiobooks... that's great, but what if I'm browsing through them and want a specific one to read on my tablet? So I decided to add a custom column that would be called "Audio Only"... basically if the book has only a single format, and that format is equal to "M4B" in my case, then it would show yes, otherwise if there were additional formats available it would show no... or a check/x-mark as it ended up. I'm a software dev, so writing some code isn't anything new, but I was surprised that I couldn't find something out here already to have a simple if... this and this are true ... then 'yes' else 'no' ...

Solution:
I created a custom column template that displays a green check if the book is "Audio Only", and a red X if it has non-audio formats attached to it. Here's how:

Preferences -> Add your own columns -> Add

Lookup Name: onlyaudio
Column Heading: Audio Only
Column Type: Column built from other columns
Show checkmarks: Checked
Template:

program:cmp(count(template('[[format]]'), ','), 1, 'no', in_list(template('[[format]]'), ',', 'M4B', 'yes', 'no'), 'no')

---

This can be adapted to give you a yes/no column if the book contains only one specific format and no others... just paste that in there and replace the M4B with whatever format you want to single out... if it is the ONLY one present, the column will have a value of yes, otherwise no... you can swap those around as needed also to gain the desired result.

One possible improvement I may work on is in the event I someday store more than a single audio format inside calibre, in which case I would need to go through all of the formats and check them... at that point it becomes more complex because I could potentially have >1 formats but have them all be audio... I'll leave that one for another day.

[dunhill]

Hello people, I am looking for a way to put an icon in the column "Estado" if the column "V.Decimal" is empty. The column "V.Decimal" your query name in the custom columns is # gr1. I have tried with spreadsheets but I do not find the result someone could guide me. From already thank you very much

[carmenchu]

Help, please! I dare say somebody has done this already, but my search hasn't found any example I can follow...
I have added to my library a column #aliases, to contain the pseudonym(s) of the book author(s), and I would wish to get it working the same as the 'authors' column: view as 'FN LN', but have it in the tag browser as 'LN, FN'.

I have got 'almost' there, by adding a 'column from other columns' #aliases_sort, to appear in the tag browser.

Hitch: after wrestling with the reference for template functions, the nearer I have got is:
{#aliases:sublist(-1,0, ), #aliases:sublist(0,-1, )}
which:
* fails down for names like 'Thomas J. Bassler, MD' and adds a comma after single names like 'Homerus'
* Would likely go haywire if applied to a multi-valued column, like 'Ivar Jorgensen & Mark Phillips'

So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I come for help, **please**.
Many thanks!

[OrangeFlavored]

Is there a way to create a column to list the number of items within the series that this book is a member of? I tried {series:count(,)} but that just displayed 1 for everything, not sure if I'm using it wrong or that function can't be used here.

Goal is to find and remove all series with only one member (an old holdover to when I was on a Kindle device where putting everything in a series made browsing through the series list easier, but not necessary anymore for my current device) so if there's an alternate means to do so that would also work. I thought about just batch unsetting the #1 entry from every series in my library (which seems like it could be accomplished easily enough with find/replace on batch metadata edit) and then manually going back and fixing it for all the ones that actually belong to a real series, but wondering if a better way exists.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by carmenchu

Help, please! I dare say somebody has done this already, but my search hasn't found any example I can follow...
I have added to my library a column #aliases, to contain the pseudonym(s) of the book author(s), and I would wish to get it working the same as the 'authors' column: view as 'FN LN', but have it in the tag browser as 'LN, FN'.

I have got 'almost' there, by adding a 'column from other columns' #aliases_sort, to appear in the tag browser.

Hitch: after wrestling with the reference for template functions, the nearer I have got is:
{#aliases:sublist(-1,0, ), #aliases:sublist(0,-1, )}
which:
* fails down for names like 'Thomas J. Bassler, MD' and adds a comma after single names like 'Homerus'
* Would likely go haywire if applied to a multi-valued column, like 'Ivar Jorgensen & Mark Phillips'

So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I come for help, **please**.
Many thanks!

There isn't any way to do this reliably. What you are doing gets as close as one can.

I suggest you make a second column #aliases_sort, entering the value you want to see for the sort. That way it is correct. Unfortunately it means you must edit that field when you add a new book.

If there are multiple authors for a book then both the #aliases and the #aliases_sort should have "Contains names" checkbox checked.

Originally Posted by OrangeFlavored

Is there a way to create a column to list the number of items within the series that this book is a member of? I tried {series:count(,)} but that just displayed 1 for everything, not sure if I'm using it wrong or that function can't be used here.

Goal is to find and remove all series with only one member (an old holdover to when I was on a Kindle device where putting everything in a series made browsing through the series list easier, but not necessary anymore for my current device) so if there's an alternate means to do so that would also work. I thought about just batch unsetting the #1 entry from every series in my library (which seems like it could be accomplished easily enough with find/replace on batch metadata edit) and then manually going back and fixing it for all the ones that actually belong to a real series, but wondering if a better way exists.

There isn't any way to do this with the template language because it can see only one book. There could be (probably is) a tool in one of DaltonST's plugins that can do the computation for you. Another way: use the tag browser to find series with count == 1 then editing the series appropriately. To help with this, click on the "screwdriver/spanner" icon under the tag browser and set the sort to "Number of books"

[carmenchu]

Originally Posted by chaley

There isn't any way to do this reliably. What you are doing gets as close as one can.

I suggest you make a second column #aliases_sort, entering the value you want to see for the sort. That way it is correct. Unfortunately it means you must edit that field when you add a new book.

Well, I managed to improve the 'alias sort' column a little (program mode):

Spoiler:

program:
# prepare the name
name = field('#altname');
# John Peter Smith, MD -> MD John Smith
prepname = swap_around_comma(name);
# Smith
firstname = sublist(prepname,-1,0,' ' );
# MD John Peter
lastname = sublist(prepname,0,-1,' ' );
# Smith, MD John Peter
sortname = strcat(firstname, ', ', lastname);
# Protect single-name cases, i.e., Homerus
# As this is the last function in the program, its value will be returned.
contains(name, ' ', sortname, name);

I post it just in case someone can think of an improvement--'first name + last name' can usually be copied and pasted (i.e., from wikipedia)--the bore is to change to 'sort mode'.
I think this kind of doubled columns 'as author' can come handy also for translators, illustrators...

[LibBikher]

I have one column that displays the asin (I figured out how to do this)

I would like to create a column that displays the file name of the book
And a column that compares the asin column and the file name column and retures 1 if the same and 2 if different

Can someone help me with this please. It has been a while since of used calibre.

thank you

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by LibBikher

I have one column that displays the asin (I figured out how to do this)

I would like to create a column that displays the file name of the book
And a column that compares the asin column and the file name column and retures 1 if the same and 2 if different

Try this:

1. Use the GetFileName plugin to put the file name in a custom column ('file') ==>> Index of plugins
2. Put the ASIN into a composed custom column ('asin') using a template; something like this {identifiers:select(amazon)}
3. In another composed custom column ('result') use the string compare (strcmp) function to compare 'file' and 'asin' and set the 'results' column value see ==>> calibre templates: Function classification

The names 'file', 'asin', and 'result' are illustrative.

BR