Add books uses full title instead of title

PiperKev · 05-01-2023, 10:26 AM

A behavior I've noticed with the 6.16 update is that calibre now adds a book's subtitle to the title when adding a book. This is a personal quirk of mine, but I like to keep my books from Standard Ebooks updated (They update their books VERY frequently!), and I use the "Find Duplicates" plugin to quickly identify and delete the duplicates after I add the updated books. Now, since this this new behavior started, a book with a subtitle and the same book without the subtitle read as different books, so I can't use the "Find Duplicates" plugin. Is there a way to tweak calibre to just use the title instead of both title and subtitle when adding a book?

theducks · 05-01-2023, 11:39 AM

AFAIK nothing has changed.
Calibre reads the metadata in the book as part of the add. That is what you get.
(I do find the supplied data to vary wildly , even for the same author and series)

There are a few USER "Adding Actions" configurable. but you have to do those 'filters'

DNSB · 05-01-2023, 12:35 PM

As theducks said, it depends on the metadata downloaded for the book. For instance, Amazon is very fond of stuffing the title, subtitle, series and genre into the title field. calibre will simply place that title field information into it's title field as it's done since the first calibre version I ran over a decade ago.

PiperKev · 05-01-2023, 12:54 PM

Thanks, everyone. I'll have to take it up with Standard Ebooks to see if they changed anything!

theducks · 05-01-2023, 02:33 PM

FWIW
The 'standards' are

lame at best, which leave sources attempting to make up for their significant limitations by cramming stuff into the designated fields

No Series???
No Subtitle???
After all these years

Unfortunately, a common subtitle separator is the colon. 90% of the time, that works but what do you do for the other 10% (a reason many things do not let Otto do the job)? And some are just trash (IMHO): 'A Novel', A....

PiperKev · 05-01-2023, 04:18 PM

Alex Cabal (Standard Ebooks Editor-in-Chief) responded:

"Nothing has changed. You can inspect the metadata source yourself and
its git history to confirm."

So it looks like there WAS a calibre change to how the metadata is read when adding books. Any ideas on how this can be addressed?

Quoth · 05-01-2023, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

As theducks said, it depends on the metadata downloaded for the book. For instance, Amazon is very fond of stuffing the title, subtitle, series and genre into the title field.

And now authors/publishers on Amazon are putting part of the blurb in the title. Crazy.

I don't think it's Amazon but the uploaders.

ownedbycats · 05-01-2023, 04:55 PM

I tested with this book "compatible epub": https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/wi...es-for-freedom

I got the 'full title' as well: "Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery"

The only reference to the subtitle seemed to be on halftitlepage.xhtml

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" lang="en-GB" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-GB">
	<head>
		<title>Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom</title>
		<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
		<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
	</head>
	<body epub:type="frontmatter">
		<section id="halftitlepage" epub:type="halftitlepage">
			<hgroup epub:type="fulltitle">
				<h2 class="first-child" epub:type="title">Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom</h2>
				<h3 role="doc-subtitle" epub:type="subtitle">The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery</h3>
			</hgroup>
		</section>
	</body>
</html>

jhowell · 05-01-2023, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I tested with this book "compatible epub": https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/wi...es-for-freedom

I got the 'full title' as well: "Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery"

Calibre will combine a title and subtitle declared in the OPF metadata of an EPUB 3 book into "title: subtitle". It has been that way for years.

The OPF from that book has:

Code:

<dc:title id="title">Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom</dc:title>
<meta property="title-type" refines="#title">main</meta>

<dc:title id="subtitle">The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery</dc:title>
<meta property="title-type" refines="#subtitle">subtitle</meta>

And so "Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery" is the title that calibre produces for it.

ownedbycats · 05-01-2023, 08:20 PM

Oh I see the subtitle in the OPF now. I had case-sensitive search turned on.

DNSB · 05-01-2023, 09:11 PM

Not to mention that the OPF also has:

Code:

dc:title id="fulltitle">Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery</dc:title>
   <meta property="file-as" refines="#fulltitle">Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom</meta>

In theory, the refines for #fulltitle should have the title display as Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.

PiperKev · 05-03-2023, 12:45 PM

I actually downgraded to 5.15 and it still happened, so maybe it's not new, I'm just not observant... :-D

DNSB · 05-03-2023, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PiperKev

I actually downgraded to 5.15 and it still happened, so maybe it's not new, I'm just not observant... :-D

Part of this may be the publishers getting a lot more enthused about stuffing everything into the title field. I just downloaded one ebook for my wife which had the title, subtitle, series, series index, "A Novel" and a short synopsis in what was supposed to be the title field. It only takes a few seconds to fix but annoying to keep losing those seconds.

OTOH, why was it felt necessary to include "A Novel"? Are we supposed to be so under-informed that we need that information? If nothing else, at 26,540 words, it definitely falls into the novella word count. Though what gets called novellette, novella, short novel and novel seems to vary wildly. Animal Farm for instance is generally called a novel though it's 30,000 words puts in squarely in the novella size space.

PiperKev · 05-05-2023, 01:13 PM

Does anyone know of a way to make calibre use only the title, not the full title?

05-01-2023, 10:26 AM	#1
PiperKev Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: KOA3 JB	Add books uses full title instead of title A behavior I've noticed with the 6.16 update is that calibre now adds a book's subtitle to the title when adding a book. This is a personal quirk of mine, but I like to keep my books from Standard Ebooks updated (They update their books VERY frequently!), and I use the "Find Duplicates" plugin to quickly identify and delete the duplicates after I add the updated books. Now, since this this new behavior started, a book with a subtitle and the same book without the subtitle read as different books, so I can't use the "Find Duplicates" plugin. Is there a way to tweak calibre to just use the title instead of both title and subtitle when adding a book?

05-01-2023, 09:11 PM	#11
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 46,103 Karma: 168961902 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Not to mention that the OPF also has: Code: dc:title id="fulltitle">Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery</dc:title> <meta property="file-as" refines="#fulltitle">Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom</meta> In theory, the refines for #fulltitle should have the title display as Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.

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05-01-2023, 11:39 AM	#2
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,043 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	AFAIK nothing has changed. Calibre reads the metadata in the book as part of the add. That is what you get. (I do find the supplied data to vary wildly , even for the same author and series) There are a few USER "Adding Actions" configurable. but you have to do those 'filters'

05-01-2023, 12:35 PM	#3
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 46,103 Karma: 168961902 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	As theducks said, it depends on the metadata downloaded for the book. For instance, Amazon is very fond of stuffing the title, subtitle, series and genre into the title field. calibre will simply place that title field information into it's title field as it's done since the first calibre version I ran over a decade ago.

05-01-2023, 12:54 PM	#4
PiperKev Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: KOA3 JB	Thanks, everyone. I'll have to take it up with Standard Ebooks to see if they changed anything!

05-01-2023, 02:33 PM	#5
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,043 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	FWIW The 'standards' are lame at best, which leave sources attempting to make up for their significant limitations by cramming stuff into the designated fields No Series??? No Subtitle??? After all these years Unfortunately, a common subtitle separator is the colon. 90% of the time, that works but what do you do for the other 10% (a reason many things do not let Otto do the job)? And some are just trash (IMHO): 'A Novel', A....

05-01-2023, 04:18 PM	#6
PiperKev Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: KOA3 JB	Alex Cabal (Standard Ebooks Editor-in-Chief) responded: "Nothing has changed. You can inspect the metadata source yourself and its git history to confirm." So it looks like there WAS a calibre change to how the metadata is read when adding books. Any ideas on how this can be addressed?

05-01-2023, 08:20 PM	#10
ownedbycats Custom User Title Posts: 10,952 Karma: 74999999 Join Date: Oct 2018 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H2O, formerly Aura HD	Oh I see the subtitle in the OPF now. I had case-sensitive search turned on.

05-03-2023, 12:45 PM	#12
PiperKev Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: KOA3 JB	I actually downgraded to 5.15 and it still happened, so maybe it's not new, I'm just not observant... :-D

05-05-2023, 01:13 PM	#14
PiperKev Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2020 Device: KOA3 JB	Does anyone know of a way to make calibre use only the title, not the full title?

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