How to change the metadata published field.

[magnoliasouth]

I am completely new to Calibre. I went to their site and read the manual, but that was no help at all.

I have an open source ebook that was originally published in April of 1884. I would like to put April 1884 as a date, but there is no way to edit anything of that nature.

If I go to Metadata > Published (field) it will only allow me to select something from the drop down box but it says Jan (a down arrow) 101. I don't understand the meaning of that. Same goes for Metadata > Date (field), just above it.

Also, there is no known ISBN number for this book, but I do have an LC control number, which I would like to insert somewhere. I cannot figure out where to do that though.

I'm so sorry to ask something that has likely been repeated, but I cannot seem to find an answer on Google nor a thread here. I did find this thread here but that doesn't relate to entering information.

Yipes. All this for just a couple of things. lol!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by magnoliasouth

I am completely new to Calibre. I went to their site and read the manual, but that was no help at all.

I have an open source ebook that was originally published in April of 1884. I would like to put April 1884 as a date, but there is no way to edit anything of that nature.

If I go to Metadata > Published (field) it will only allow me to select something from the drop down box but it says Jan (a down arrow) 101. I don't understand the meaning of that. Same goes for Metadata > Date (field), just above it.

Also, there is no known ISBN number for this book, but I do have an LC control number, which I would like to insert somewhere. I cannot figure out where to do that though.

I'm so sorry to ask something that has likely been repeated, but I cannot seem to find an answer on Google nor a thread here. I did find this thread here but that doesn't relate to entering information.

Yipes. All this for just a couple of things. lol!

click on (just) the 101: make it read: 1884, (same as flipping a multi-year calender.)
use the arrows at the edge, to flip months
Click on the day number

[magnoliasouth]

Originally Posted by theducks

flip months Click on the day number

Ah. This is a problem and the functionality seems overly restrictive. Not all books have the month in them, let alone month AND day. When I posted earlier, I thought this book was published in April 1884, but I was wrong; that's when the library obtained it. It's actually from 1880, but Calibre will not allow me to only type in a year.

I wonder why the developers elected to make month and day required? That doesn't make any sense.

Is there another way?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by magnoliasouth

I wonder why the developers elected to make month and day required? That doesn't make any sense.

Because the graphics toolkit software that calibre uses for date entry requires day, month, and year. None of us developers want to spend time reimplementing this enormous toolkit.

You can control what is displayed for the published date. For example, I display only the year. See Preferences -> Tweaks -> Control how dates are displayed. If you want to see only the year (for all books, not just one book), change the line containing gui_pubdate_display_format to be

gui_pubdate_display_format = 'yyyy'

As for data entry, I use '1 July' if I have only a year, and '1 TheMonth' if I have only a month and a year.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by chaley

Because the graphics toolkit software that calibre uses for date entry requires day, month, and year. None of us developers want to spend time reimplementing this enormous toolkit.

Of course, I understand this. But you'll agree that it is an unneeded restriction (and the ePub spec, for example, explicitly allows year-only dates), and entering some particular day and/or month when none is known is a kludge.

I wonder if something could be done to allow the use of year-only dates, without the need of modifying the toolkit (other than pressing the toolkit developers to add this should-have-been-there-from-the-beginning feature). Maybe two checkboxes for "no day" and "no month"? Maybe the possibility of manually entering the date?

[BetterRed]

I'm never sure whether to enter the original publication date or the date of the edition I own. The original date is usually 'more interesting'.

My Penguin copy of Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies was published in 2000 to which my mind says... 'so what.' But the original was published in 1405, to which my mind says... 'really...! Fancy that Hedda' :lol:

My suggestion is not to use a calendar gadget - allow for 3 part field YYYY (allow 0000-this (next ?) year) MM (allow 00-12) DD (allow 00-31)

Maybe if Year is 0000 then MM is forced to 00, if MM is 00 then DD is forced to 00.

Display zero as blank

BR