Genres using DDC, templates, and automation?

[Ersatzreifen]

I'm learning Calibre little by little, and have seen the section on creating hierarchical genres. That's all fine and dandy, but when you have a lot of books setting up genres by hand is a daunting task.

So I'm wondering if anyone has managed to figure out how to create a genres column which can be automatically populated based on the DDC? I have the LC plugin installed, and it does a fair job of finding the DDC codes and putting them in the #dcc column (although it fails with the LCC codes). I tossed together a spreadsheet with the summary of the DDC codes (DDC.xml) which can probably be used to make a lookup table, (it's a start). I suppose that templates could be used to do this, but it's all way over my head.

Has anyone done this already, or would anyone know how to go about it?

...in advance!

[eschwartz]

For starters, try posting in the calibre forums.
I have reported this thread so the moderators can have it moved.


Also, you might have more luck posting directly in the plugin thread -- I have no idea how it is supposed to work.

[Dr. Drib]

Please look over our site and post responsibly.

This thread has now been moved OUT of General Discussion.




Don
(Moderator)

[Ersatzreifen]

Why don't you use your influence to get the menu set up so I don't have to spend a week trying to find where to post? The ONLY choices presented to me were these:

* News
* General Discussions
* Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion)
* Self-Promotions by Authors and Publishers
* Reading Recommendations
* Writers' Corner

Where the hell is this elusive "calibre forums" you speak of?
If it's not obvious then don't blame me for not being able to find it!!!
What plugin thread? I don't see that either.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

Why don't you use your influence to get the menu set up so I don't have to spend a week trying to find where to post? The ONLY choices presented to me were these:

* News
* General Discussions
* Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion)
* Self-Promotions by Authors and Publishers
* Reading Recommendations
* Writers' Corner

Where the hell is this elusive "calibre forums" you speak of?
If it's not obvious then don't blame me for not being able to find it!!!
What plugin thread? I don't see that either.

I think you need to see an optician

The headings you mention are in the General section. If you go further down to the software section then you will find that Calibre has a whole sub-forum of its own. Within the Calibre area is a sub-section on plugins.

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

I'm learning Calibre little by little, and have seen the section on creating hierarchical genres. That's all fine and dandy, but when you have a lot of books setting up genres by hand is a daunting task.

So I'm wondering if anyone has managed to figure out how to create a genres column which can be automatically populated based on the DDC? I have the LC plugin installed, and it does a fair job of finding the DDC codes and putting them in the #dcc column (although it fails with the LCC codes). I tossed together a spreadsheet with the summary of the DDC codes (DDC.xml) which can probably be used to make a lookup table, (it's a start). I suppose that templates could be used to do this, but it's all way over my head.

Has anyone done this already, or would anyone know how to go about it?

...in advance!

Use the 'Derive Genres' function in either CALM (recommended) or Quarantine And Scrub. DG uses Boolean Tag rules to populate #genre. Add a Tag for each DDC to your books, and a Boolean rule for each Tag in the DG Tag Rules table. Run DG. Done.

Or, if you know SQL, simply upload your csv data into metadata.db using a SQLite tool, then run update queries using that new table matched against each book's custom column table value for DDC.

LCC and DDC are obtained using ISBNs by the Library Codes plug-in. If the web source for LCC has no data for a particular ISBN, then nothing can be done about it except try another ISBN. Regardless, most Fiction ISBNs will find nothing.

DaltonST

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

Why don't you use your influence to get the menu set up so I don't have to spend a week trying to find where to post? The ONLY choices presented to me were these:

* News
* General Discussions
* Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion)
* Self-Promotions by Authors and Publishers
* Reading Recommendations
* Writers' Corner

Where the hell is this elusive "calibre forums" you speak of?
If it's not obvious then don't blame me for not being able to find it!!!

As itimpi said, the mysterious elusive hells you allude to are "hidden" by requiring you to scroll down the page. (That page being the main forum index, where the first few choices are listed to begin with.)

Seems fairly obvious to me, no one has hidden them so I don't need to use "my influence" ( -- I did what every single member is allowed to do. The moderators actually work around here.)

What plugin thread? I don't see that either.

The one you got the plugin from. If you downloaded the plugin through calibre's builtin plugin updater (which uses the Plugin Index thread to list and cache plugins), well, the plugin updater provides links to the official support thread of each plugin.

[eschwartz]

And looking at your profile's post history, I see that every post and/or thread you have posted to date was in the calibre forums anyway -- so now I am really confused why you cannot find it. In fact, just last month you started this thread in the Calibre ==> Library Management sub-subforum.

[Ersatzreifen]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Use the 'Derive Genres' function in either CALM (recommended) or Quarantine And Scrub.

What is "CALM"? I'm not aware of that, and if it's a plugin I don't have it and can't find it.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

What is "CALM"? I'm not aware of that, and if it's a plugin I don't have it and can't find it.

He means the "Consolidate All Library Metadata" plugin.
He authored both that and the Library Codes plugin you mentioned in your OP.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

Why don't you use your influence to get the menu set up so I don't have to spend a week trying to find where to post?

<SNIP>

Where the hell is this elusive "calibre forums" you speak of?
If it's not obvious then don't blame me for not being able to find it!!!
What plugin thread? I don't see that either.

And yet, you expect others to give of their time to help you out, when you won't even take a few minutes (not quite a week) to post in the likeliest spot and then get testy when you're called on it!

Help is a favor, not a right. Manners matter.

[Ersatzreifen]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Use the 'Derive Genres' function in either CALM (recommended) or Quarantine And Scrub. DG uses Boolean Tag rules to populate #genre. Add a Tag for each DDC to your books, and a Boolean rule for each Tag in the DG Tag Rules table. Run DG. Done.

Ok, I got CALM installed and tried to use it repeatedly over the past few days, but I really don't understand what I'm supposed to do, and it's not working for me. I tried to follow the embedded instructions enumerated in the Target Library tab, but the nomenclature used isn't familiar to me so I'm having a really difficult time understanding what it's talking about.
My libraries are named "Calibre Library", "Broken-Books", and the like, but trying to run load all libraries looks like this:

Is it supposed to look like that, with 01, 02, 03 instead of full pathnames?
What does Target Library mean? It seems to be used for different things, depending on where in the instructions it's being used.
And why don't the tabs named Metadata tools and Library tools function?
I wasn't able to find any Derive Genres function, perhaps that's within the two tabs that won't open.

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Or, if you know SQL, simply upload your csv data into metadata.db using a SQLite tool, then run update queries using that new table matched against each book's custom column table value for DDC.

I don't know SQL, so I'd like to avoid yet another steep learning curve.

Originally Posted by DaltonST

LCC and DDC are obtained using ISBNs by the Library Codes plug-in. If the web source for LCC has no data for a particular ISBN, then nothing can be done about it except try another ISBN. Regardless, most Fiction ISBNs will find nothing.

I have the #lcc column and the #dcc and isbn columns too. 20,156 books, most (17,337) have isbn numbers, and most of those (13,184) have ddc numbers. But not one lcc number is present for any books, so I don't think it's a simple lacunae of data problem, more like something's wrong with the #lcc column. I do get a somewhat vague error message when running LC:


That seems strange, since the #lcc column is there.

Maybe there's something wrong with it, I don't know.

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

Spoiler:

Ok, I got CALM installed and tried to use it repeatedly over the past few days, but I really don't understand what I'm supposed to do, and it's not working for me. I tried to follow the embedded instructions enumerated in the Target Library tab, but the nomenclature used isn't familiar to me so I'm having a really difficult time understanding what it's talking about.
My libraries are named "Calibre Library", "Broken-Books", and the like, but trying to run load all libraries looks like this:

Is it supposed to look like that, with 01, 02, 03 instead of full pathnames?
What does Target Library mean? It seems to be used for different things, depending on where in the instructions it's being used.
And why don't the tabs named Metadata tools and Library tools function?
I wasn't able to find any Derive Genres function, perhaps that's within the two tabs that won't open.


I don't know SQL, so I'd like to avoid yet another steep learning curve.



I have the #lcc column and the #dcc and isbn columns too. 20,156 books, most (17,337) have isbn numbers, and most of those (13,184) have ddc numbers. But not one lcc number is present for any books, so I don't think it's a simple lacunae of data problem, more like something's wrong with the #lcc column. I do get a somewhat vague error message when running LC:


That seems strange, since the #lcc column is there.

Maybe there's something wrong with it, I don't know.

@Ersatzreifen:

Given your comments, I now suggest this:

[1] LC: confirm the configuration of LC itself, plus your custom column configuration in Preferences > Add your own columns.

[2] CALM: uninstall.

[3] Using Calibre's standard functionality, copy #ddc into #genre, so the 'genre' is temporarily the ddc.

[4] Sort by genre (which is temporarily ddc at this point).

[5] Select all rows in the GUI that have the same 'genre'.

[6] Using Calibre's Bulk Edit feature, change the #genre column of the selected books from the ddc into the real genre that you want to have.

[7] Repeat [5] and [6] until finished.


Good luck.


DaltonST

[Ersatzreifen]

So.......

are you saying that it can't be automated?

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by Ersatzreifen

So.......

are you saying that it can't be automated?

@Ersatzreifen:

No. I am saying that if someone has many problems and issues from the start, the new approach is the faster and more efficient option.


DaltonST