Suggestion: Stop popups from interrupting workflow

[dandichka]

I have a problem I am continuously having to deal with. Here is the situation:

I am going through my list of books updating information (from the list view, not in book details view). For example, I am going down the list, clicking on the genre (or other) and typing that in. Then, I click Ctrl D to update, say, the last 5 books from the web. Great so far. So, while Calibre is doing its job of searching the web, I continue down the list, filling in more info. So I am in the middle of typing the author's name, for example, and the popup appears asking me if I want to go ahead and apply the info found on the web. This interrupts my typing and I end up with half an author's name or half a genre name. I have to go back in and click the field to continue. Its even more of a problem if for some reason I lose the view (for example I am viewing only genre "sort"... since I have already started writing over the genre, it dissappears from my sort genre). The fix would be to either have the popup wait until I tab or enter out of the field I am typing OR to not have the popup disrupt my typing in the field (popup appears, I click ok, and I am returned to the field I was editing).

Hope this is understandable. Forgive if its in the wrong place, I couldn't find a suggestions thread.

Thanks for the great program.

[dandichka]

Is there a better place for me to post this request to get an answer?

[Sabardeyn]

Just so that you don't think everyone is ignoring your question...

I'm not aware of the internal workings (source code) to intelligently comment on the issue you've raised. I have a complex database, and lots of books, but I don't really make use of all of calibre's available "muscle". Pushing buttons and tweaking settings is one thing, altering the internal functionality a whole other issue.

I think that many of the other helpers in these forums are, for similar reasons, uncomfortable responding on the subject.

Thus, the question can only be answered by those who program calibre - Kovid Goyal, et al.

As for a better place... perhaps the bug report website (you'll need to register over there). I would see what Kovid says here first. Sometimes he'll do it from here, sometimes he wants a bug report to be submitted.

[speakingtohe]

At one time you had to wait for the metadata to finish downloading before you could use the GUI to edit metadata.

I believe they made it an independent process so that those who wanted to keep on editing with the GUI could.

There may not be a simple way to stop the confirmation dialogue(which you call popup) from appearing as it might require keeping track of every keystroke.

What I do is use the individual edit metadata window for editing and use the next key at the bottom to go from book to book. The dialogue doesn't interrupt till you exit.

If you use the edit metadata single layout, all of your standard and custom columns information is on one screen and it can be very easy to do multiple columns (sometimes faster than the GUI. Preferences>Behavior edit metadata.

Helen

[BetterRed]

@dandichka like Sabardeyn I read your post and decided I couldn't give you a straightforward response so I also decided it was best left to the experts - although I do have some empathy the issue you've raised.

I don't know if it would be feasible to implement what you suggested - which as I read it is :-

• When a job finishes that requires user input then suspend current user input and give control to the end of job user input
• When the end of job user input is finished resume the user input that was suspended
• The first question this raises in my mind is what happens if another job finishes whilst another has control of user input, does it take over?.
• It sounds like a tricky thing to implement and a difficult thing for many users to manage - I know I'm not good at handling interrupt stacks - I only allow one call waiting on my phone, any further calls go to voicemail.

An alternative might be to put the jobs that are awaiting user input into an end of job user input pending queue

• I'd suggest only those jobs involving multiple books would put themselves into this queue - and only then if an appropriate tweak is set to True (its default would be False to reflect the status quo)
• The Jobs Spinner be given a different colour or some other hint if there's are entries in the end of job user input pending queue.
• There would have to be enhancements to the Jobs dialogue box to facilitate dealing with jobs awaiting end of job user input
• And calibre may need to issue a warning if the user attempts to terminate it and there are jobs in the end of job user input pending queue; I don't imagine its the sort of data that would persist across calibre 'sessions'.

But I'm not sure how many people would make use of such a feature, which is one of the factors that Kovid and other developers take note of in their deliberations on enhancements to calibre.

Since the current cell highlight feature was introduced I find that I'm doing a most single book edits on the spreadsheet; and its in this context I've noticed and resented the interrupts from end of job dialogues.

Now I only use the edit metadata dialogue for bulk updates and for maintaining my Comment like "Notes" custom column (which I would prefer to do from the Book Details panel - buts that's another 'big ask').

BR

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by dandichka

Is there a better place for me to post this request to get an answer?

You can get guidance on creating a bug/enhancement request here.