How do I prevent custom metadata from being sent to the device?

[PatNY]

I made a custom field called "Notes" which basically consists of a lot of random notations to myself concerning the book source or conversion steps or whatever. One of the main reasons I broke this info out from the comments field was to keep it from appearing in Stanza on my Touch. But now I see it is appearing on the information screen along with the comments.

Is there some tweak I can make to Calibre to keep custom data from being sent to the device?

[chaley]

Are you talking about seeing your 'notes' in the content server? If so, then you are asking that the content server not show custom metatada, at least for you?

[PatNY]

chaley, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by content server here. I assumed content server was Calibre's process for making books and information available to devices or to other PC's over the web.

I'm referring to what ends up on my device, in this case my Touch (using Stanza) . There is an information/summary page in Stanza for each book that shows the thumbnail, author, title, tags, and comment field. It does not show ISBN, dates, or some other custom metadata such as the comma separated field. But it appears it now shows all long-text custom metadata fields.

I set up two custom notes fields -- one for miscellaneous notes to myself and the other for other info such as long author interviews. Now both these fields are appearing on the summary page, and they appear before the comment field where I put the title's synopsis, so if you want to read that, you have to scroll a long ways down.

The very reason I set up a custom notes field was to segregate extraneous information such as book sources and technical conversion notes from the comments field where I had previously put them after the synopsis. I didn't want these notes to show up on my device and I wanted to also keep the comments field uncluttered. Now, having these notes show up anyway defeats that purpose and makes it even harder to quickly skim through a title's synopsis as the notes appear before the synopsis, not after as they did before I put them in the custom notes fields.

Is there not some way to tweak a Calibre file or setting to keep these custom notes from being sent to the device? Ideally, there would be an option for every custom field to decide if it gets included with the other information when sent to the device.

Alternately, could an additional option be included under custom field types? Long text that will never be sent to the device?

Also, why is it that some custom data fields and some default data like ISBN and publishing dates do not show up on the summary page on the device but all custom long text fields do? It seems somewhat arbitrary.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by PatNY

chaley, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by content server here. I assumed content server was Calibre's process for making books and information available to devices or to other PC's over the web.

How do you get the books onto your device? There is no 'stanza' device that I know of.

The reason I ask is that I cannot know what is happening until we work out the chain from the library to what you see. If could be a device issue, a conversion issue, a content server issue, or something else.

EDIT: What version of calibre are you running?

[PatNY]

chaley, I send books to the Touch from within the Stanza app on the Touch using wi-fi as described here:

http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual...-iphone-itouch

I am using Calibre 0.7.19 which I think is the latest.

[chaley]

You are using calibre's content server. That I can do something about.

What I can do is provide a 'tweak' where you list fields not to be included in content server output. I will do the work in the calibre custom field beta, which will become the production release in a week or so. The tweak name will be something like 'content_server_ignore_fields'. I will almost certainly include the ability to ignore standard fields, such as comments and rating.

[PatNY]

chaley, I now realize you are not familiar with Stanza so I took a screenshot on my Touch that may help explain things.

It shows the summary page from within Stanza for a book that has no custom metadata. All the default metadata fields within Calibre for this book are filled in (except for series). But for as long as I can remember since I've been using the Stanza app, the only thing that shows up on the summary page in Stanza is author, title, series (if applicable), tags, and what's in the comments field. Nothing else, including ISBN or dates. And this was fine.

I created two custom long notes fields and now whatever is in them shows up below the tags and before whatever is in the comments field, which is where I put the title synopsis. So if I put something really lengthy in the long notes field, that is what fills the screen and I have to scroll way down to get the book synopsis.

Thing is, some custom data does not show up on this Stanza page -- ie, things in a comma separated text field. Nor does some default data like ISBN or dates.

So, is this Stanza deciding what to show and what not to show? If so, is there anyway I can circumvent that when it comes to custom long notes fields which I would like to keep only on my PC in the Calibre database?

[PatNY]

chaley, I posted the screenshot before I saw your latest reply.

Thanks soooo much! That would be awesome if you would make that tweak. As a small way to say thanks I've added a cat avatar. I see you like cats and have been enjoying your cat pictures.

Thanks again!

[chaley]

Given what you have told me, you are using calibre's content server to transfer books, and you are not using a calibre release that puts custom fields in the OPF. As you are seeing custom field information (fields that you created), that implies very strongly that stanza is getting its information from the content server.

The attached screenshot shows what Stanza will see for a book in my library. Calibre's content server currently publishes to stanza (or anyone else using the OPDF version, as stanza does) all non-empty custom fields. As you can see, calibre is sending comma-separated lists for all multiple fields, including tags. I infer from your comments that stanza would not show all the tags. That sounds like a stanza bug.

The only thing I can do is change calibre to allow you to limit what fields are sent to stanza via the content server. I certainly cannot change what stanza does with the information.

EDIT: Cross posting bites again! You are welcome! Nice cat, too.

[itimpi]

Stanza does not seem to look at the metadata inside the ebook file if it is transferred from an OPDS compatible server (as Calibre content server provides). Instead it takes all its values from the OPDS catalog.

[chaley]

Implemented, a bit differently than I originally thought.

This code is in the serializer (beta) branch, which will become production in a week or so.

The tweak documentation is:

# Set custom metadata fields that the content server will or will not display.
# content_server_will_display is a list of custom fields to be displayed.
# content_server_wont_display is a list of custom fields not to be displayed.
# wont_display has priority over will_display.
# The special value '*' means all custom fields.
# Defaults:
#    content_server_will_display = ['*']
#    content_server_wont_display = ['']
# Examples:
# To display only the custom fields #mytags and #genre:
#   content_server_will_display = ['#mytags', '#genre']
#   content_server_wont_display = ['']
# To display all fields except #mycomments:
#   content_server_will_display = ['*']
#   content_server_wont_display['#mycomments']
content_server_will_display = ['*']
content_server_wont_display = ['']