Collections vs. Smart Filters: do you need both, or is one enough?

[petrjahoda]

Hi everyone,

there was a brief discussion about a feature (Collections) for justRead.app and would love to hear how you actually organize your library in practice.

Right now justRead.app has filters: think of them as smart, rule-based shelves. You create a filter called "Sci-Fi", set the rule to tag = scifi, and every book with that tag shows up automatically. No manual curation needed. As far as I know this is not in Apple Books.

The request was for collections: manually curated groups where you decide exactly which books belong, regardless of tags or metadata. Like a reading list you hand-pick. Apple Books calls them Collections.

The question I'm wrestling with: are these two genuinely different needs, or does one make the other redundant?

I'd love to hear from you:

- How do you use collections (or folders, or ...)?
- Is there something you can't do with filters/tags in justRead.app that only a manual collection would solve? (I can add more filter options)
- Do you find yourself wanting to group books in ways that don't map neatly to any metadata? A "mood" list, a "lend to a friend" pile, books from a specific recommendation or something like that?
- Or do you just tag everything and let filters do the work?

I'm genuinely trying to understand how readers think about organizing their libraries before deciding whether to add collections or just add more filtering options (or maybe rename filters to collections).

Thank you for your feedback.

[JSWolf]

If you support series, you may still want collections. Especially for books in a group that are not part of a series. Kobo supports series and collections and they both have their uses.

[petrjahoda]

Hi, thank you.
justRead.app already has series support, so that part is covered. But I take your point that collections would fill the gap for groupings that don't fit any metadata, is that what you mean? (like "Recommendations from my friend XY" and you put three books in there)

Do you have a concrete example of such a group from your own library?

[Richard Moody]

I know we discussed this before, but for me collections that i can use for my own categorisation, is very important. E.g a collection of poetry books, or certain non fiction categories. I have collections of unread books, TBR next, unfinished books, etc Tagging through Calibre is too cumbersome to set up and maintainA. and because some of these collections are highly personalised, filtering wouldn’t work.
One example, if I start a book, and dont finish it, I can delete it from my “Currently Reading” collection, and move it to my “Unfinished “ collection.
And the ability to copy a book into more than 1 collection is very useful. So I might have a book in overall library, copy it into say, poetry collection, and also Unfinished collection.

Anyway, 1.3 looks good. Any thoughts on dates for 1.4 and grids?

[petrjahoda]

Hi Richard. So you described in more detail what I thought.
This means I will keep filters for automatic (like all with tag scifi) and add collections for manual (just like you described).

It will be, with grids in version 1.5 as I have to push a quick version 1.4 with few bug fixes.

[Richard Moody]

Thank you!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Hi, thank you.
justRead.app already has series support, so that part is covered. But I take your point that collections would fill the gap for groupings that don't fit any metadata, is that what you mean? (like "Recommendations from my friend XY" and you put three books in there)

Do you have a concrete example of such a group from your own library?

One such collection that I have is called Standalone. That's for books not part of a series.

[petrjahoda]

OK, thank you both, I get what I wanted now and it will be in 1.4. I am now solving that sync problem.

[petrjahoda]

Syncing finally fixed, my apologies for this, see latest version 1.5.
After fresh install (for example on another device) you should see syncing right away after start.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Syncing finally fixed, my apologies for this, see latest version 1.5.
After fresh install (for example on another device) you should see syncing right away after start.

Does hyphenation work in publisher mode or do you need to release 1.6 tomorrow?

[petrjahoda]

Hello JSWolf, I did not touch the Publishers Style.
Publisher style is publishers style.
If Publisher decided to have hyphenation, it is it there.
If he decided to not have hyphenation, it is not there.

The same goes for other parameters.

[peaceridge]

For my clarity. Tag filters are for tags that come into JustRead? Can I create a new tag while in JustRead? I have a category I call ReRead. I won't know if a book goes into that category until after I read it. Then if I really like it (and obviously want to reread it at some time) I want to put it in Reread. Is there a way to do that?

[petrjahoda]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

For my clarity. Tag filters are for tags that come into JustRead? Can I create a new tag while in JustRead? I have a category I call ReRead. I won't know if a book goes into that category until after I read it. Then if I really like it (and obviously want to reread it at some time) I want to put it in Reread. Is there a way to do that?

Tag are what comes with the book (from Calibre).

For this ReRead those planned manual collections will be exactly what you need.