how to unselsect? ( or select no books)

[cybmole]

how do I progress , in main window ,from having say 1 book selected to having NO books selected.
so that if I then re-sort on a new column, my cursor will be at top of new sort not somewhere in the middle, where the previously selected book now happens to be

I bet there's an obvious answer but I can't guess it !

to elaborate. If I sort on author, I want to see all books thus sorted with cursor at row 1, on author A.... if I sort on title I want to see similar, with cursor on row 1, on book with title A..., same for date....

so I need to have cursor NOT locked onto one current book ?

[eschwartz]

use the key combo Ctrl+Home to go up to the top regardless.

[BetterRed]

I do

1. to go to top of list press ctrl+home (standard GUI behaviour)
2. to set 'explicit focus' on current book ctrl/esc (I changed it to ctl/alt/home, its in the Misc group of kb shortcuts)

I often just set 'explicit focus' on the current book

What's 'explicit focus' (its my term) - on my rig I often find the current book is only highlighted by a very thin blue line under the current cell - rather than all cells being highlighted in solid blue and current cell darker. The ctrl+esc simply redisplays current row in the normal highlighted state - a solid blue bar rather than a thin blue line - ie Sonny Rollins trumps Miles Davis

BR

[cybmole]

CRTL+Home moves the cursor, thanks but does not change what book is selected.

is there no way to de-select a book , except by selecting a different one ?

in a windows folder view, I un-select an entry by clicking in empty space, but there's' no empty space in calibre view ?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by cybmole

CRTL+Home moves the cursor, thanks but does not change what book is selected.

Yes it does, well here at least - look at the row number - if its bold its the current book

There's another idiosyncrasy I forgot, you may need to nudge the home key or an arrow key to get the current book to highlight as a solid blue bar

Originally Posted by cybmole

is there no way to de-select a book , except by selecting a different one ?

Not that I know of - I think there's always a current book, it just that sometimes you can't easily see what it is

Originally Posted by cybmole

in a windows folder view, I un-select an entry by clicking in empty space, but there's' no empty space in calibre view ?

True

BR

[cybmole]

well I start with a solid blue bar across one book.. that survives all re-sorts, Homing of cursor etc

we are sort of both right. I do see the bold row number & the cursor on 1st line after CRTL+Home, like you say. but if I scroll down I still also see the solid blue line on the original book...

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by cybmole

I do see the bold row number & the cursor on 1st line after CRTL+Home,

At that point hit the Home key and Row 1 should be a solid blue bar, if not try ctrl/esc - if that doesn't work then I'm out of ideas

I had an amicable to and fro with KG & CH a while back on this area, as a result of which they made some changes - the ctrl/esc and the better highlighting of the current cell are two I recall, I think there may have been a third. IIRC they said were constrained by the Qt library.

Now I remember what the third item was - chaley made a couple of changes to the custom comments dialogue. And he allowed the use of '-' to set a date cell to null, '=' to set a date cell to 'now' and space to clear an numeric cell.

The net result was I able to do 95% of my bread & butter metadata editing on the book list (spreadsheet) rather than the metadata edit dialogue boxes (which were driving me nuts). I have to enter most metadata manually because most of my books are non commercial documents.

BR

[BobC]

Selecting no books appears to be just as simple as clicking in a blank area beyond the columns displayed - the highlighting of the row disappears. I don't believe though it is actually deselected as the book data is still displayed at the bottom of (my) screen and hitting an icon such as "Edit Book" it acts on the last selected book.

This works for me in one library where I have limited columns, however in another library where the columns take up the full screen width I haven't worked out a way of doing it.

BobC

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by BobC

Selecting no books appears to be just as simple as clicking in a blank area beyond the columns displayed -
BobC

yes, if the list is less than 1 screen long that works, but that is the least useful case.

as soon as the list of books is > 1 screen there is no "space beyond" that you can click in!

[cager]

Point at the selected book and hold the control key down and right-click

It seems to leave a thin blue line under the title for me but clicking on View or Metadata icons gets the message "No book selected" (or words to that effect).

Wow, at last a question I can answer - unless you know otherwise?

See correction below --- should be Ctrl Left-click

[cybmole]

crtl + right lick for me works the same as simple right click - it brings up a menu - it does not unselect the line

I think you must be escaping that by clicking into empty space, on a short list ?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by cybmole

crtl + right lick for me works the same as simple right click - it brings up a menu - it does not unselect the line

I think you must be escaping that by clicking into empty space, on a short list ?

In some countries you would do time for that

BR

[cager]

Originally Posted by cybmole

crtl + right lick for me works the same as simple right click - it brings up a menu - it does not unselect the line

I think you must be escaping that by clicking into empty space, on a short list ?

I am on Windows and the standard keys for selecting non-sequential items in a list is Ctrl Left-click. Sorry my bad - cannot always tell right from wrong.

Point at an item in the list Ctrl Left-click and it is selected. If already selected it is de-selected. This de-selection works for me even if only one item selected.

Sorry for the mislead