Calibre2opds and Custom Column support

[itimpi]

The latest beta (rev245+) of Calibre2opds has added the option to display Calibre Custom Column details within the Book Details pages (implemented as a result of a number of requests for this feature). I am now trying to get a feel for whether this support should be extended to allow custom columns to be used to generate complete sub-catalogs.

To do so I would like to get some feedback on whether there is any demand for such a feature, and also how my thoughts on how it might be implemented mesh with what calibre2opds users think they might want.

My thoughts so far are:

• Create new sub-catalogs where the name shown at the top level is the value taken from the Description field of the Custom Column definition (i.e. what is displayed as a column heading in the Calibre GUI)
• Provide a catalog that is rather like the existing Tags sub-catalog. For this I would limit the support to custom column types that are either defined as ones that can contain a list of tags, or ones that contain a limited list of pre-determined values. This would provide the values to sub-divide the catalog section on.
• Treat other types like comments, text, float, integer as errors if specified for this purpose.
• I am undecided about custom series type fields. If done this would be treated in a similar way to the current Series sub-catalog implementation.
• I had hoped to extend the support for the calibre2opds search syntax to allow custom columns to be used, but having had a quick look at this it does not look at all easy to do so will not look any further unless there is a real demand for this.

I will probably not go ahead with any implementation if there is no expressed demand for it as I have do not have a need for such facilities to support my own personal libraries.

Please feel free to express any ideas in this area.