Searching a yes/no field

[ficbot]

I am having trouble figuring out how to do a search for a non-text field type. The text ones I can search using the tag browser, but the yes/no fields do not show up there. I want to set up some saved searches to easily find certain things and I can't do it. For instance:

- I have a field for free books which is yes/no (e.g. if the book is free, I choose yes for it). I want to know what to put in the search box so I can pull up a subset of only the free books.

- I have another field for public domain books which is yes/no (if it is a public domain title, I choose yes for it) and I want to make a saved search for these as well. What to put in the search box?

Any advice appreciated.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I am having trouble figuring out how to do a search for a non-text field type. The text ones I can search using the tag browser, but the yes/no fields do not show up there. I want to set up some saved searches to easily find certain things and I can't do it. For instance:

- I have a field for free books which is yes/no (e.g. if the book is free, I choose yes for it). I want to know what to put in the search box so I can pull up a subset of only the free books.

- I have another field for public domain books which is yes/no (if it is a public domain title, I choose yes for it) and I want to make a saved search for these as well. What to put in the search box?

Any advice appreciated.

#customfielname:true and not #customfieldname: true

we use the Not construct because the tri-state field. False and undefined are treated as False in the search

remember the # must be included for any custom field name used in searches

[ficbot]

thank you so much, that did the trick!

[chaley]

For completeness...

Taken from calibre's search documentation:

Yes/no custom columns are searchable. Searching for false, empty, or blank will find all books with undefined values in the column. Searching for true will find all books that do not have undefined values in the column. Searching for yes or checked will find all books with Yes in the column. Searching for no or unchecked will find all books with No in the column. Note that the words yes, no, blank, empty, checked and unchecked are translated; you must use the current language’s equivalent word. The words true and false and the special values _yes and _no are not translated.

[tekwrite]

Originally Posted by theducks

#customfielname:true and not #customfieldname: true

we use the Not construct because the tri-state field. False and undefined are treated as False in the search

remember the # must be included for any custom field name used in searches

Too BAD the docs dont seem to tell you that!! All of their examples are of non custom field searhces so how are we supposed to know about the "#" sign?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by tekwrite

Too BAD the docs dont seem to tell you that!! All of their examples are of non custom field searhces so how are we supposed to know about the "#" sign?

Reading something like this?

Series indices are searchable. For the standard series, the search name is ‘series_index’. For custom series columns, use the column search name followed by _index. For example, to search the indices for a custom series column named #my_series, you would use the search name #my_series_index. Series indices are numbers, so you can use the relational operators described above.

Manual for graphical user interface.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by tekwrite

Too BAD the docs dont seem to tell you that!! All of their examples are of non custom field searhces so how are we supposed to know about the "#" sign?

The really, really really subtle part right here:

Series indices are searchable. For the standard series, the search name is ‘series_index’. For custom series columns, use the column search name followed by _index. For example, to search the indices for a custom series column named #my_series, you would use the search name #my_series_index. Series indices are numbers, so you can use the relational operators described above.

Also keep in mind that custom columns always have a "#" at the beginning of their canonical name...


EDIT: Ninjaed!

[chaley]

Originally Posted by tekwrite

Too BAD the docs dont seem to tell you that!! All of their examples are of non custom field searhces so how are we supposed to know about the "#" sign?

See The Search Interface, and in particular:

Available fields for searching are: tag, title, author, publisher, series, series_index, rating, cover, comments, format, identifiers, date, pubdate, search, size and custom columns. If a device is plugged in, the ondevice field becomes available, when searching the calibre library view. To find the search name (actually called the lookup name) for a custom column, hover your mouse over the column header in the library view.

and

For example, to search the indices for a custom series column named #my_series, you would use the search name #my_series_index.

EDIT: Oh nos, ninjaed twice!

[Terisa de morgan]

It looks like all of us use the same search at google

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

It looks like all of us use the same search at google

Not me. I wrote that piece of the manual.

[Terisa de morgan]

I bow to you. Writing manuals is something I deeply dread (I'm awful at it).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by chaley

Not me. I wrote that piece of the manual.

As a mere mortal, I must content myself with having it bookmarked and partially memorized.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

As a mere mortal, I must content myself with having it bookmarked and partially memorized.

I bow to you too. My memory nowadays is not very useful , so google is my friend.

[eschwartz]

And yet you beat both of us. Somewhat ironic...

[BetterRed]

It would be 'nice' if Preferences->Add your own columns displayed a table with Column heading, Lookup name (with the '#' on custom columns), Column Type, Description, Format etc.

Then there'd be no excuse for missing the need for a prepended crunch

The output of the calibredb custom_columns -d command is comprehensive, but it's not what I'd call 'user friendly' Nor is it complete in that it only 'lists' custom columns.



BR