CC prerelease 3.4.0b

[chaley]

CC prerelease 3.4.0b has been published and will available soon to people who are members of the CC prerelease program.

This prerelease contains the following new features and changes over CC V3.3.6:

• Add option to select which categories to show in the grouping drawer.
• Add option to select which sorts to show in the sort menu.
• Add option to hide the counts on the item lines in the grouping drawer.
• Add option to hide the first letter check box in the grouping drawer.
• Add option to select an "auto-sort" for a category when that category is selected in the grouping drawer.
• Add option to show page up/down buttons on the books display. Helps on e-ink devices.
• Add option to make read information syncing one way, only from calibre to CC.
• Don't show first letters in the grouping drawer if only one letter would be shown.
• Improve logging for content server connections
• [BUG FIX] Change color of links to dark blue so they show up on e-ink devices. (The change is for everyone. I removed the option.)
• [BUG FIX] Fix problem where spurious folders were created in CC's storage when books were deleted.
• [OTHER] Many changes to prepare for translations and to prepare for a free CC "demo version"
• [OTHER] Update to latest Android tools and support libraries

There is no database upgrade with this prerelease.

[kaufman]

Five things:

1) Under the settings menu "Select Sorts to show in Menu" shows "Title" twice. I think the second one is actually for "Date Updated (CC)".

2) When Tapping on a book information link (author, series, tag) in the book details screen, it doesn't change the sort to the new grouping's default sort.

3) Some of my Tags start with a "#". If I select one of them in the book details screen I get a "Unfortunately, Calibre Companion has stopped". I had them send you a report.

4) I only saw this once, and I am not sure what I did, but one time when I switched to series sort, it showed the sort backwards.

5) Is it intentional that there is no way to set a default sort for custom columns? Perhaps a single default sort for all custom columns.

Other then this, everything seems to be working well. I will play more later.

[Dhevi]

So far everything is looking good. I will have more time to look this prerelease over after work. There was one item I noticed at first glance. A double entry in the "Select Sorts to Show in Menu" for 'Title'.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Dhevi

So far everything is looking good. I will have more time to look this prerelease over after work. There was one item I noticed at first glance. A double entry in the "Select Sorts to Show in Menu" for 'Title'.

Thanks. I messed up when copying & pasting the preference.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

Five things:

1) Under the settings menu "Select Sorts to show in Menu" shows "Title" twice. I think the second one is actually for "Date Updated (CC)".

As I said to @Dhevi, I messed up my copy/paste when creating the preferences layout description.

2) When Tapping on a book information link (author, series, tag) in the book details screen, it doesn't change the sort to the new grouping's default sort.

I need to do that.

3) Some of my Tags start with a "#". If I select one of them in the book details screen I get a "Unfortunately, Calibre Companion has stopped". I had them send you a report.

A CC debug log is much more useful than a crash report because I can see the context. The crashes are in the debug log.

Looking at this, it appears that the '#' doesn't really play a role. Instead it seems that it is caused by the "don't show the first letter if only one letter" change. Does that agree with what you see?

4) I only saw this once, and I am not sure what I did, but one time when I switched to series sort, it showed the sort backwards.

The sorts will invert if they are tapped twice. It is possible that the same thing can happen if an auto-sorted group is tapped twice. Yes, I just tried this and it does invert the sort.

It isn't clear to me that this is wrong behavior. Is tapping an auto-sorted column twice equal to choosing a sort twice?

5) Is it intentional that there is no way to set a default sort for custom columns? Perhaps a single default sort for all custom columns.

Custom columns will not appear in any of the choice menus. The problem is that they can come and go and can be listed but be undefined. I think that not changing the sort is better than arbitrarily choosing some sort.

Thanks for the feedback!

[chaley]

@kaufman: thanks for the debug log. With it I confirmed that the problem is caused by skipping showing a single first letter and was able to repeat the crash.

Small request: when you send a debug log could you erase the @multipie address? There is no reason to fill up my son's mailbox with things I am dealing with.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

As I said to @Dhevi, I messed up my copy/paste when creating the preferences layout description.

I saw, but I posted my report first.

Originally Posted by chaley

A CC debug log is much more useful than a crash report because I can see the context. The crashes are in the debug log.

Just sent you a crash report.

Originally Posted by chaley

Looking at this, it appears that the '#' doesn't really play a role. Instead it seems that it is caused by the "don't show the first letter if only one letter" change. Does that agree with what you see?

I don't think so, because it only happens on Tags that start with a "#" I have tags that start with other things (_, A-Z) and those all work correctly. This might help: When I restart CC after the crash, I see the following screen:



I can then navigate back to the grouping drawer and get all my books back.

Originally Posted by chaley

The sorts will invert if they are tapped twice. It is possible that the same thing can happen if an auto-sorted group is tapped twice. Yes, I just tried this and it does invert the sort.

It isn't clear to me that this is wrong behavior. Is tapping an auto-sorted column twice equal to choosing a sort twice?

I don't think so for two reasons:

1) When you tap on the sort a second time, you are explicitly saying "reverse the sort". This is a different sort of behavior and a different mindset.

2) It makes no sense from the user perspective. Its kind of like saying "My default sort for selecting a series is series order, but if I select a second series, I want reverse series order". My thought it that for the default sorting, there is an implied "forward sort" after the selected sort.

Originally Posted by chaley

Custom columns will not appear in any of the choice menus. The problem is that they can come and go and can be listed but be undefined. I think that not changing the sort is better than arbitrarily choosing some sort.

I wasn't thinking you should have a default sort for each custom column, just that it might be nice to have a single default sort for all custom columns. That way you would get the same behavior if you went from tag to custom column as you would get if you went from series to a custom column.

Originally Posted by chaley

Thanks for the feedback!

My pleasure. Really. I love "New CC Release Day".

One other thing, I like the idea that when I select "Title" from the grouping menu you show

<< Groups
Title [Autosort by Title]
....

But I really don't like it when you show all the autosorts in the top level grouping menu. Its not really needed yet (as you still have as least one more display to show the sort before you select a leaf), and because it makes the grouping menu look busy.

Would you consider taking it off the top level Grouping display, or at least having an option to hide the information? I like to see it when you drill down, but I would be willing to give that up to get it off the highest menu.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

@kaufman: thanks for the debug log. With it I confirmed that the problem is caused by skipping showing a single first letter and was able to repeat the crash.

Excellent. I'm not 100% sure what you mean, because my tags are all longer than a single character, but I am glad you found it.

Originally Posted by chaley

Small request: when you send a debug log could you erase the @multipie address? There is no reason to fill up my son's mailbox with things I am dealing with.

Sure.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

One other thing, I like the idea that when I select "Title" from the grouping menu you show

<< Groups
Title [Autosort by Title]
....

But I really don't like it when you show all the autosorts in the top level grouping menu. Its not really needed yet (as you still have as least one more display to show the sort before you select a leaf), and because it makes the grouping menu look busy.

Would you consider taking it off the top level Grouping display, or at least having an option to hide the information? I like to see it when you drill down, but I would be willing to give that up to get it off the highest menu.

The sort happens when you touch the group name, not when you drill down to a leaf. If you change the sort after touching the group name but before touching a leaf, the group will not autosort again. I think that this is correct behavior, giving the user the option of changing the sort while navigating inside the group.

I really want to know before I tap somewhere that something destructive will happen, and changing the sort is destructive. Showing nothing indicates that there is no sort and there is no unexpected behavior.

I am willing to add an option to show/hide all autosort information. Someone who checks that option is saying that s/he doesn't need the prompt. I don't want to have it hidden at the top level but not at secondary levels because sure as the sun rises we will get requests to hide it all the time. Hiding counts is a good example of this.

Originally Posted by kaufman

Excellent. I'm not 100% sure what you mean, because my tags are all longer than a single character, but I am glad you found it.

It isn't the length of the tag. It is whether in that specific case showing a first letter was skipped because there was only one first letter.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I am willing to add an option to show/hide all autosort information. Someone who checks that option is saying that s/he doesn't need the prompt. I don't want to have it hidden at the top level but not at secondary levels because sure as the sun rises we will get requests to hide it all the time.

That works for me. I don't mind hiding it all the time. Thanks.

I've been thinking about our conversation about sorting and direction. Would it be a lot of effort to add a specific direction to the default sort? I'm not sure anyone would ever pick anything other than forward sort, but it might cut down on support emails from people who didn't understand why the sort was reversing sometimes.

Another thought I had was to change the sort dialog a little so that there was a checkbox for direction instead of making the second selection a reverse. This way it would be clear which way the sort was going to go when you selected it. I'm not sure how much work that would be for you. I'm trying to only suggest low-hanging fruits.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kaufman

I've been thinking about our conversation about sorting and direction. Would it be a lot of effort to add a specific direction to the default sort? I'm not sure anyone would ever pick anything other than forward sort, but it might cut down on support emails from people who didn't understand why the sort was reversing sometimes.

I have already made changes so that sorts triggered by autosort are always in the "default" direction, the same as the first tap on an item in in the sort menu. Sorts will reverse only if tapped again on the sort menu itself.

Another thought I had was to change the sort dialog a little so that there was a checkbox for direction instead of making the second selection a reverse. This way it would be clear which way the sort was going to go when you selected it. I'm not sure how much work that would be for you. I'm trying to only suggest low-hanging fruits.

Lots of applications including calibre use "tap again to reverse". In addition, adding checkboxes to menus that already have radio buttons is complicated, and perhaps impossible.

I might be able to add an icon to the sort menu indicating the sort direction the currently marked item. My problem is that I never am sure what those arrows mean. Does an arrow pointing up mean that the list is sorted from bottom to top (i.e., descending sort) or from low to high (i.e., ascending sort)? This ambiguity is one reason I haven't bothered with trying to indicate the direction.

BTW: the default direction for dates is descending. All the other sorts are ascending.

[kaufman]

Originally Posted by chaley

I have already made changes so that sorts triggered by autosort are always in the "default" direction, the same as the first tap on an item in in the sort menu. Sorts will reverse only if tapped again on the sort menu itself.

Excellent.

Originally Posted by chaley

Lots of applications including calibre use "tap again to reverse".

That's true. Most of them do it by tapping on the column header, but at least people are used to the concept. I hadn't thought of that.

Originally Posted by chaley

I might be able to add an icon to the sort menu indicating the sort direction the currently marked item. My problem is that I never am sure what those arrows mean. Does an arrow pointing up mean that the list is sorted from bottom to top (i.e., descending sort) or from low to high (i.e., ascending sort)? This ambiguity is one reason I haven't bothered with trying to indicate the direction.

How about instead of just an arrow you use something like:



For title, author, publisher, tag and:



for series. I don't know what to use for date.

Having typed that all out, maybe its not worth the effort. People who do complex sorts will remember where they are and people who don't can just hit the sort again.

[kaufman]

Just tried something.

The program allows you to remove all of the sort types and the grouping types. You can still open the grouping menu, you just can't select anything. No issues or problems tapping. I don't think you need to change anything, I just was checking for a crash condition.

You can't remove "Date Updated (CC)" because of the search copy paste bug, but I will check that one after the next release.

In order to test this, I had to delete my custom grouping. It took almost 90 minutes to update a database of about 4600 books. Recreating it now and it seems to be going somewhat faster.

Edit: Recreating the custom grouping took about 45 minutes.

[jackie_w]

After doing some initial tests of the changes, not too much to report, but here goes:

• Autosort categories: For Series I tried autosort by 'Date published'. Although the result in the booklist seems correct, the label in the grouping drawer shows 'Series [autosort by Date Read (CC)]'. The booklist shows metadata Title, Author (series), Date published.
  

• [BUG FIX] Fix problem where spurious folders were created in CC's storage when books were deleted.

  So far, so good
  
• After updating CC in Google Play, I noticed that CC had disappeared from the Android homescreen folder I'd put it in. This wasn't a problem as it was easy enough to put it back. I just thought I'd mention it. It happened on both my Samsung devices (Note3 4.3 JB and TabPRO 4.4.2 KK)

[chaley]

Thank you all for your help!

Regarding the autosort label in the grouping drawer: yes, it is displaying the wrong value. In one place I used the position in the labels table instead of correctly using the position as translated to the internal sort identifier. I have fixed this.

Germane to this bug, I also added custom columns to the sort menu. When I first did the work I was overly tired and I created a mess. Today I stripped it all out and started over. The reason this is germane is that from the user's point of view there is an interaction between custom columns, the autosorts, what is displayed in the grouping drawer, and what is displayed in the sort menu. Just because you can group on something doesn't mean you want to sort on it and vice versa, so I needed to add the custom columns to the "Show" preferences. And then, if I can sort on a column then why can't I autosort on it? No good reason other than laziness, so I added the sortable custom columns as autosort values.

I am still working on all of this. I expect to make a new release tomorrow or, more likely, on Friday.