[GUI Plugin] Reading Goal

[ownedbycats]

They already are user-definable. I was only suggesting #B4B4FF as a default.

[ownedbycats]

Possible bug: I think the change added in 1.6.7 (when deleting the last record, create a new updated one immediately, instead of waiting for the next interaction) got regressed. My steps to replicate:

1. Have a book with no read-date and a progress of 0.
2. Add a date to the last-read column and then open Edit Reading Goal.
3. Delete the empty-date 0% record.

Upon pressing apply, a new dated one should appear but it didn't until I closed and re-opened the dialog.

I found this bug after I had the 0% entries for my two most recently-started books go missing. The first time I thought it was some user error but then it happened again.

[thiago.eec]

. I'll fix it.

[thiago.eec]

Version 1.7.6 - 04 Nov 2024

- Fix a regression introduced in the last release that broke records management, preventing it to create a new updated record immediately, when the last record is deleted

[ownedbycats]

thank you!

[ownedbycats]

Question: What happens to 'pages' on existing entries if I change the page-count on a book? Had to recount the pages because I noticed my Count Pages settings were messed up.

EDIT: It seems the main book record gets changed (at least for the current year - updating previous years didn't seem to work) but the progress subrecords don't change.

So there's a few oddities such as 200 pages/day on a book that'd gotten recounted to 180 pages, but just a minor annoyance - I can always fix it via JSON if it starts bothers me too much.

[thiago.eec]

Back when the database was designed, some choices were made:

• The current year would be constantly updated to reflect the current status of your books.
• Past years (and abandoned books) are not updated, since this would slow down the plugin over the years, having more and more books to sync; not to mention rereadings, where the current date would not match past years.
• Read pages are stored as integers, not as a percentage of the total.

So, changing the page count only affects the main entry in the current year. Records are not updated because they reflect a moment in the past. The read pages in the current years' records could be update if they were saved as a percentage, but that's not the case (and changing it at this point would be too much work for litle gain, since past years are not updated anyway).

[ownedbycats]

Yeah, that makes sense. Considering the nature of eBooks, the 'pages' really only matter for my paper books anyways.

[ownedbycats]

Out of curiosity, I decided to decide whether it was possible to retroactively create a challenge for a previous year.

My steps;

1. Take a backup of the JSON.

2. In challenges_dict, duplicate this year's "Books Purchased in 2024" challenge. I then edited the name, timestamps, and reset count and progress:

        "Books Purchased in 2023": {
          "count": 0,
          "end": {
            "__class__": "datetime.datetime",
            "__value__": "2023-12-31T04:00:00+00:00"
          },
          "progress": 0,
          "start": {
            "__class__": "datetime.datetime",
            "__value__": "2023-01-01T04:00:00+00:00"
          }
        },

3. Check the "custom challenges" dialog to make sure the newly-created challenge appeared.

4. Go to a book from 2023's goal, and edited it:

      "challenges": [
        "Annual",
        "Books Purchased in 2023"
      ],

However, here is where I got stuck. I expected the 'count' and 'progress' to automatically update itself; it didn't, so I edited them to 1 and 100. When I next opened Edit Goal, it reset both back to 0 and the challenge appeared for the current year (with no books):



I've just reverted to my backup, but I'm curious whether I missed something here that could've made it work.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

2. In challenges_dict, duplicate this year's "Books Purchased in 2024" challenge. I then edited the name, timestamps, and reset count and progress:

The new challenge must be added to 2023's 'Summary', not 2024's.

P.S.: You will be able to see the challenge and it's books selecting it under 2023, but the 'Custom challenges' dialog only shows the current year info.

[ownedbycats]

Ah, a silly mistake there. I got it working now. Perhaps for the future, the option to switch years in the Challenges dialog?

EDIT: I also noticed that the count and progress in challenges_dict need to be updated manually - I half-expected that though.

ANOTHER EDIT: This is making me become very good at editing JSONs without accidentally blanking the files.

[ownedbycats]

New question: On the years that were added retroactively, the challenges_dict is empty (no annual goal, just "challenges_dict": {}. However, I found that I had to add both an "Annual" and "2022 purchases" in order to get the latter to appear in Edit Goal.

Why does this happen? Is is offset by one to keep Annual from appearing in the dropdown?

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Perhaps for the future, the option to switch years in the Challenges dialog?

I'll look into it.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

EDIT: I also noticed that the count and progress in challenges_dict need to be updated manually - I half-expected that though.

Past years are not updated, remember?

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

New question: On the years that were added retroactively, the challenges_dict is empty (no annual goal, just "challenges_dict": {}. However, I found that I had to add both an "Annual" and "2022 purchases" in order to get the latter to appear in Edit Goal.

Why does this happen? Is is offset by one to keep Annual from appearing in the dropdown?

1) You can add challenges only for the current year, so anything before 2023 will have a blank 'challenges_dict'.

2) When Challenges were added to the plugin, a one time update was performed to add the 'challenges_dict' key to past years, but they were left empty. This way we can have a general code for challenges.

3) From there on, every year has an 'Annual' challenge that includes all the books, plus the others created by the user. Every book added to the current year goal is also automatically added to the the 'Annual' challenge. So, the plugin expects this. This is why you have to add to 'Annual' too.

[ownedbycats]

Yeah, I need to remember that. Just to keep track: when updating existing book record in a previous year using 'add to goal', does it touch anything other than Genres?

For what it matters, I did manage to get the "books purchased in..." challenges put together for 2020 - 2023. Somewhat thankfully, anything earlier than that I wasn't tracking the read dates.

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Just to keep track: when updating existing book record in a previous year using 'add to goal', does it touch anything other than Genres?

Yes. If you use 'Add to goal' for a book that is already present in a previous year, the book will be fully updated (except for reading records, which are immutable).