Library Management: various questions not worth their own thread

[ownedbycats]

Hopefully this'll cut down on people posting small questions in the template question thread

Question: Why do author-type columns use a different separator (ampersand '&' instead of comma ',')?

[kovidgoyal]

commas are used for sort names. Like Cats, Owned by

[ownedbycats]

I forgot about the sort. That makes sense!

[chaley]

Also commas appear in names with degrees or tities, such as Joe Bloggs, PhD. Some people put them in names with suffixes such as Jr, Second, etc., as in Joe Bloggs, II.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by chaley

Also commas appear in names with degrees or tities, such as Joe Bloggs, PhD. Some people put them in names with suffixes such as Jr, Second, etc., as in Joe Bloggs, II.

They do, though it looks weird to me.

[ownedbycats]

Question: Is the lookup name for the 'Date' column date or timestamp?

I see 'date' in the column header tooltip, and 'timestamp' in Preferences > Add Your Own Column.

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Question: Is the lookup name for the 'Date' column date or timestamp?

I see 'date' in the column header tooltip, and 'timestamp' in Preferences > Add Your Own Column.

good catch, I just confirmed that the header tooltip is 'date', and that 'timestamp:2023' isn't recognised as a valid search...

some plugins use 'timestamp' to refer to the date column, like JS "Visualize Metadata" tool

[chicleeblair]

Is there a way to delete all or batch delete in columns that are textboxes like comments, or IDs?

I’m redoing my BookFusion catalog so I want to clear the old ids, and also accidentally sent the wrong information to a column using fanficfare , and I’ve got it all fixed but I just need to delete the errors

[culytera]

Originally Posted by chicleeblair

Is there a way to delete all or batch delete in columns that are textboxes like comments, or IDs?

I’m redoing my BookFusion catalog so I want to clear the old ids, and also accidentally sent the wrong information to a column using fanficfare , and I’ve got it all fixed but I just need to delete the errors

Is it this? Select books > Edit metadata > Edit metadata in bulk > Search and replace tab

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Question: Is the lookup name for the 'Date' column date or timestamp?

I see 'date' in the column header tooltip, and 'timestamp' in Preferences > Add Your Own Column.

The "official" lookup name is "timestamp". However, various places in calibre, in particular templates, also accept "date" (it accepts any search term as the key).

As for searching, the only acceptable value is "date". Below is the "field metadata" that shows most of what calibre knows about the field.

            ('timestamp', {'table':None,
                           'column':None,
                           'datatype':'datetime',
                           'is_multiple':{},
                           'kind':'field',
                           'name':_('Date'),
                           'search_terms':['date'],
                           'is_custom':False,
                           'is_category':False,
                           'is_csp': False}),

[ownedbycats]

Is it possible to display a composite column as a list rather than comma-separated?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Is it possible to display a composite column as a list rather than comma-separated?

I don't understand. Lists except authors (names) are comma-separated.

[ownedbycats]

Sorry, I meant a bulleted list. I thought I saw a screenshot of one before, but maybe that was just a regular longtext column.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Sorry, I meant a bulleted list. I thought I saw a screenshot of one before, but maybe that was just a regular longtext column.

Tags-like composites can't be shown as bulleted lists. They can be shown one per line. One hack would be to make the column hierarchical with the outer level a dot then show one per line.

What I would consider is making a contains-html text column that reformats the list with bullets then show that in book details. Up to you whether you show the original in book details. This wouldn't have impact on performance because the new composite would be evaluated only when the book's details are shown.

[ownedbycats]

For this specific case, I have a column, #readdates, which stores multiple dates, and a composite column to sort them.

Is there a better way to store multiple dates? In a regular tag column, 'Aug 12 2023' sorts alphabetically.