Less scary removal of book from device

[KNickerson]

I wanted to toss this out, and see if it's just me instead of submitting kind of official request. Or, better yet, just get told it's possible as is.

If a book is both in Calibre, and on the device, I'd like to be able to remove it from the device without any pop up warnings. Ideally just by just clicking on the green check mark.

As it is, I get a pop up, and have to think about if I hit the correct delete options.

So, am I alone on this?

[user_none]

If you are in the device view you won't get the popup and the book will be deleted from the device. The popup is there simply because users were deleting books from their library by accident thinking they were removing them from the device. The popup only appears if you delete from the library while a device is connected and is purely a protection measure.

[KNickerson]

Nope, in the device view, I get the warning that the books will be permanently deleted from the device.

Maybe you unchecked the box saying show the message again. I haven't because I don't know for 100% certain exactly which popups would be disabled. I'd only want the warning to not show up if I have a copy safely in my Calibre library.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by KNickerson

Nope, in the device view, I get the warning that the books will be permanently deleted from the device.

Obviously two different pop-ups, but since you only were referring to books being in the library and the device and since you only see the green check mark in the library view user_none's assumption of which pop-up you were referring to was the only one that made sense.

Personally I think the pop-ups to make you think when deleting a book are a good thing and are here to stay. If you don't want to see them then uncheck the box. If unchecking it disables more dialogs then you want gone you can always go to Preferences - Behavior and reset all disabled confirmation dialogs.

[KNickerson]

Obviously, I was unclear. I've done the deletes from both screens. The green checkbox comment was only intended as an idea for clearing books off the device, not to be read as the only screen I've ever done a delete from.

My second post was strictly in response to the statement that the popups don't come up from the device view. When I saw that post, I had a moment of "am I sure I've tried that", so I specifically went to the device view and confirmed that my memory was correct.

I absolutely agree that a popup when deleting a book is a good thing, but if the book is in my library, I don't really think of it as deleting, but just leaving in long term storage while decluttering the device. It's a subtle difference, I suppose, but the key thing is that removing a book from the device when it's in the library can be remedied with a single click.

As to "If unchecking disables more dialogs that you want..." Well, the problem is that I wouldn't know until too late. I could grab the source and figure it out, I suppose. Or run a set of experiments.

To extend the thought, though, in my perfect world deleting a book on the device that isn't in Calibre would bring up a totally different popup: "This book is not in you library. Would you like me to move it there for you? Or delete it completely?"

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by KNickerson

As to "If unchecking disables more dialogs that you want..." Well, the problem is that I wouldn't know until too late. I could grab the source and figure it out, I suppose. Or run a set of experiments.

There are three pop-ups in regards to book deletion. The one you saw when deleting a book form the device view. The same looking pop-up when deleting a book from the library view and no device is connected and the pop-up user_none described when you have a device connected and you delete a book from the library view. After you uncheck the one in the device view check the others to see if thet still pop-up.

Originally Posted by KNickerson

To extend the thought, though, in my perfect world deleting a book on the device that isn't in Calibre would bring up a totally different popup: "This book is not in you library. Would you like me to move it there for you? Or delete it completely?"

Seems like a reasonable request/solution. Submit an enhancement request to see if it might get on the list of things to add to calibre.

[kovidgoyal]

Matching of books on the device to the library in calibre can never be 100% accurate (there can sometimes be false negatives and less often a false positive), so conditioning delete behavior on the results of that matching is not a good idea.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Matching of books on the device to the library in calibre can never be 100% accurate (there can sometimes be false negatives and less often a false positive), so conditioning delete behavior on the results of that matching is not a good idea.

Thanks for the insight.

[KNickerson]

Few things in programming in the real world are 100%. That said, False negatives wouldn't be dangerous. Positives would be.

Indeed, I have a set of false negatives right now. I changed the author on some to get them consistent. The books on the device now show as false negs.

How about: "That book appears to be in your library. Remove it from the device?"

[kovidgoyal]

In the case where the delete books set has some matches and some that dont match, you would then need two dialogs or a complex split dialog.

And just do a search on this forum for issues with book deleting. I started out being a lot like you. I dislike overly melodramatic/annoying messages. But there are users that need them. And then there are users that manage to ignore even the melodramatic ones and still blame you for losing their books.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

There are three pop-ups in regards to book deletion. .... After you uncheck the one in the device view check the others to see if they still pop-up.

I can't speak specifically to these dialogs, but I have written other delete warning dialogs (the Merge code has several types of similar, but distinct, delete warnings) and I've looked at the source for most of the warnings written by Kovid. In all cases I can recall, the warnings are handled separately. Turning off one warning does not turn off any of the others.

OTOH, I don't turn off any delete warnings, even for the bits of code I wrote.

[speakingtohe]

I just look at the screen to make sure I am in device mode. So far it's been fine
Helen