Need a little help manipulating title for generating covers

[bittenfig]

I've got several books that have a title and subtitle, as in:

No Contest: The Case Against Competition

I'd like the "No Contest" to be used in the title template and the "The Case Against Competition" to be used in the subtitle template. The default setting is for the subtitle template to print the series and something else, so I'd like to change that. I tried doing some string manipulation, but my rudimentary Python skills are failing, and the manual doesn't offer much help for a seemingly simple operation.

[BetterRed]

@bittenfig - Is subtitle a separate column (custom)?

Are you referring to the built-in generate cover feature or the optional ==>> [GUI Plugin] Generate Cover plug-in?

BR

[bittenfig]

@BetterRed: Yes, by "subtitle" I'm referring to the template used in the generate cover feature, not custom metadata. If you click and hold "Generate Cover", the customization option appears. Under the "Text" tab, you can change the subtitle and title templates, which is what I'm trying to do. I just need it to grab the title (as in title the metadata) and for the title template, just use whatever is before ": ", and for the subtitle template use whatever is after ": " for the titles that do contain ": ".

[BetterRed]

@bittenfig - OK, what you need is a Regular Expression to pull apart the title column into the two components main title and subtitle, embedded within a Template.

See ==>> All about using regular expressions in calibre

See ==>> The calibre template language — Single Function Mode. Scroll down and you'll see this function

re(pattern, replacement) – return the field after applying the regular expression. All instances of pattern are replaced with replacement. As in all of calibre, these are python-compatible regular expressions.

I don't claim any proficiency at formulating RegEx's or Templates - I muddle through by trial and error.

But there are regular contributors here who have expertise at both, hopefully one or other should be able to provide the magic bullets.

You might find something useful in this thread ==>> Plugboard, template, and custom composite column recipes

BR

[eschwartz]

Hey, BR, thanks for the recommendation. (I was offline for the holidays, and can end up missing a lot of stuff.)

@bittenfig, I thiink this should give you what you want.

title:
Just regex the title and replace ":.*" with nothing.

program:

strcat(
	'<b>',
	re(
		field('title'),
		':.*$',
		''
	)
)

subtitle:
Use the default template (converted to general program mode) but first check for title-contains-a-colon. If so we use the title and replace "^[^:]*:" with nothing, if not, we continue as we did before. (You can also replace the test block with a blank, or do whatever else you would've otherwise done if the title doesn't have a colon.)

program:

contains(
	field('title'),
	':',
	re(
		field('title'),
		'^[^:]*:',
		''
	),
	test(
		field('series'),
		strcat(
			'<i>',field('series'),'</i> - ',
			raw_field('formatted_series_index')
		),
		''
	)
)

What do you want done if the title has a subtitle and there is also a series?