[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[Atherton25]

So I updated the plugin a few days ago, and then again today. For some reason, since the one a couple of days ago my replace metadata for the sites (which has worked for years) is no longer working. I generally have it replace the url with a better name IE www.royalroad.com -> RoyalRoad I'm not exactly sure which update did it, and I haven't screwed with my personal.ini until today, trying to get it to work (when I updated the plugin to the most recent version). Is there any reason this might have happened @JimmXinu ?

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Atherton25

So I updated the plugin a few days ago, and then again today. For some reason, since the one a couple of days ago my replace metadata for the sites (which has worked for years) is no longer working. I generally have it replace the url with a better name IE www.royalroad.com -> RoyalRoad I'm not exactly sure which update did it, and I haven't screwed with my personal.ini until today, trying to get it to work (when I updated the plugin to the most recent version). Is there any reason this might have happened @JimmXinu ?

TL;DR:

Use publisher instead of site.

Long answer:

A bit of safety checking I should have put in place years ago:

2026-02-02
...
- Make some metadata entries immutable

FFF will not allow you to change these entries anymore:

• authorId
• authorUrl
• seriesUrl
• storyId
• storyUrl
• langcode
• numChapters
• site
• anthology
• newforanthology
• cover_image

They are used internally very frequently or exclusively and I've seen a few remarkably difficult to find problems over the years from users changing them.

A few others, such as rating, are also used internally in some adapters, but I changed the code to explicitly use the 'raw' version because I recognize they are not objective, technical information and thus more open to interpretation.

[ericar13]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

As mentioned, there's no specific string concat mechanism, but replace_metadata can do a lot. Here's one approach.

First, don't change FFF's site metadata entry--it's assumed to be a domain name and used internally in epub metadata. So we'll make a copy.

Second, I assume you don't actually mean it when you say an arbitrary string. You want Worm fics specifically.

[defaults]
add_to_extra_valid_entries:,cat_site
include_in_cat_site:site

add_to_replace_metadata:
 cat_site=>^(.*)$=>WormFic - \1&&category==Worm
## Add more lines for Star Trek, Warhammer, whatever.
## Be aware you could get more than one then.

It's honestly probably easier to turn it around and copy category and append site name, but this is what you asked for.

And you use custom_columns_settings to populate the Calibre column with cat_site. You said you have that part already.

I'm trying to do something similar and can't seem to get it to work!
Basically, I am trying to extract the first ship in the ships list, transform it, and then save the transformed value to my custom column. I do not want to alter the original ships metadata at all.

Here's what I'm trying currently, but still no luck:

Spoiler:

[defaults]
## Normalize main ship names for collections column
add_to_extra_valid_entries:,pairing
include_in_pairing:ships
add_to_replace_metadata:
pairing=>^([^,]+),.*$=>\1
pairing=>Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov=>Hollanov
custom_columns_settings:
pairing=>#collections

The fic I am trying to download is from AO3.

(I am brand new to both FanFicFare and MobileRead, so sorry if the formatting is a mess or anything )

[Atherton25]

Edit. Dup. Refreshed page and it reposted.

@JimmXinu
Alright, so the "Make some metadata entries immutable" was it. Didn't realize what it did, and that I had written the replace metadata wrong. It just always worked. And now, it's working again. Got them all switched over to Publisher. Hopefully I don't have another one written wrong that that'll screw with, but if something weird pops up later on a I'll know what to check. Or, I'll spend some time tomorrow going through them tomorrow and seeing of something else corresponds to the entries you targeted/fixed with the update.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ericar13

I'm trying to do something similar and can't seem to get it to work!
Basically, I am trying to extract the first ship in the ships list, transform it, and then save the transformed value to my custom column. I do not want to alter the original ships metadata at all.

First tip, when posting wrap ini examples in [code] tags to preserve spacing. And it's best practice to always include an example story URL. I'm much more likely to offer a working solution with a concrete example.

Second, replace_metadata operates on each value in an entry's list. If you want to save only the first value in the list, you need to operate on the pairing_LIST.

[defaults]
## Normalize main ship names for collections column
add_to_extra_valid_entries:,pairing
include_in_pairing:ships
add_to_replace_metadata:
	pairing_LIST=>^([^,]+),.*$=>\1
	pairing=>Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov=>Hollanov
custom_columns_settings:
	pairing=>#collections

Note that all pairing lines will be performed to first construct the list and then pairing_LIST lines after that, regardless of order in replace_metadata.

Note also that, by default, lists such as ships (and pairing) are sorted alphabetically. The first entry in the list is not going to be the first listed by the author unless you also set:

keep_in_order_ships:true
keep_in_order_pairing:true

[Elaine T]

This is something I occasionally want to do and I don't think there's a way: download the comments along with the story on Ao3.

Am I wrong - is there a way to add that functionality to FFF? That is, If I'm not the only person who sometimes finds discussions in the comment strings interesting enough to want to keep. Right now I'm doing copy and paste into Word then edit book and add that file.

[JimmXinu]

Downloading comments is not likely.

FFF is designed around metadata, stories, and chapters. Comments don't fit in the existing paradigm, especially with regard to updates.

Looking at AO3, comments are paginated and threaded. Paginated means it's not just a single additional network hit. I'm seeing comment counts as low as 40 with multiple pages. Stories with more pages of comments than chapters are not just possible, but likely.

Threaded means comments are not in chrono order. There'd be no updating like chapters--only downloading and overwriting all comments every time.

Further, every site implements comments differently. Looking at forums like SB/SV/etc, that's basically full thread download, which is a line I don't want to cross.

And in general, with all the problems we see downloading at all, adding more network traffic is not a good idea, IMO.

[Elaine T]

ok, thanks for the detailed reply. I had the idea it wasn't workable, but wanted to confirm since occasionally I get things wrong.

[tsumtsum9]

Hi! I've been using FFF in previous years with AO3 which was great. Recently, it wasn't working after coming back to it a couple years later but I found the mirror workaround with archiveofourown.gay and it worked great the past couple weeks. Today it stopped working all of a sudden? The error comment in the log appears as:

"HTTP Error in FFF '403 Client Error: Forbidden in url:"

which appears for individual fic urls and series. Is this an FFF error or because of AO3?

[JimmXinu]

I added that to FAQs just yesterday morning:

Why am I having 525 or 403 errors downloading from archiveofourown.org(AO3)?

[ownedbycats]

Minor thing: It's the twice time I accidentally pasted series url in the Download URLs dialog. Perhaps a prompt of whether the user wants to get URLs?

[bpothier]

Good news!
The patch added for Halloween contest still works for their new Valentine's contest (the "Author=(Hidden)" stuff).

[cheshyre]

Q: Option to include AO3's Full-Page Index in EPUB?

In AO3, the Chapter navigation button includes an option for a Full-Page Index, which loads a single-page TOC for the work.
(URL format http://archiveofourown.org/works/WorkID/navigate )

The useful thing about this page is that it includes the date each chapter was posted.

Would it be possible for FanFicFare to include this page as a table-of-contents?Ideally, it would remap the chapter links to the correct anchors in the EPUB, but I'd settle for it as an end-of-work static text index.

Thanks.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by cheshyre

Q: Option to include AO3's Full-Page Index in EPUB?
...
Would it be possible for FanFicFare to include this page as a table-of-contents?Ideally, it would remap the chapter links to the correct anchors in the EPUB, but I'd settle for it as an end-of-work static text index.

Not as such. But effectively, yes.

It is possible to configure FFF to generate and include an explicit ToC page with include_tocpage: true under [epub] or [archiveofourown.org:epub].

From defaults.ini:

[epub]
...
## epub carries the TOC in metadata.
## mobi generated from epub by calibre will have a TOC at the end.
include_tocpage: false
## When set to 'true', tocpage is only included if there is more than
## one chapter in the story.  If set to 'always', tocpage will be
## included even if the story only has one chapter.
#include_tocpage: always

It's also possible to configure FFF to include the AO3 chapter date in that ToC file. Again, from defaults.ini; copy, uncomment, and customize as desired:

[archiveofourown.org]
...## AO3 chapters have 'date' available for each chapter.
## These can be used with custom output (see
## https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/wiki/CustomOutput ) or with
## chapter_title_*_pattern settings.
## Examples for html & epub:
#[html]
#tocpage_entry:
# <a href="#section${index04}">${chapter}</a> ${date}<br />
#[epub]
#tocpage_entry:
# <a href="file${index04}.xhtml">${chapter}</a> ${date}<br /><br />

## The 'date' value for chapters mentioned above can be formated with
## datechapter_format.  Otherwise it will default to
## datePublished_format
#datechapter_format:%%Y-%%m-%%d

There are other settings if you want to add ${date} to the metadata ToC:

## chapter title patterns use python template substitution.  The
## ${number} is the 'chapter' number and ${title} is the chapter
## title, after applying chapter_title_strip_pattern.  ${index04} is
## chapter number padded with leading zeros (mostly for internal use)
## such as 0001.  ${index} == ${number} for backward compatibility.  A
## few site adapters add additional chapter metadata.

## The basic pattern used when not using add_chapter_numbers or
## mark_new_chapters
chapter_title_def_pattern:${title}

## Pattern used with add_chapter_numbers, but not mark_new_chapters
chapter_title_add_pattern:${number}. ${title}

## Pattern used with mark_new_chapters, but not add_chapter_numbers
## (new) is just text and can be changed.
chapter_title_new_pattern:(new) ${title}

## Pattern used with add_chapter_numbers and mark_new_chapters
## (new) is just text and can be changed.
chapter_title_addnew_pattern:${number}. (new) ${title}

[Harrow]

Hi, I've been having issues for a few days with certain fics not adding the newest chapters when attempting to update. I updated to the newest release version and I have tried several things including selecting "Overwrite Always" when updating as well as deleting the fic entirely from Calibre and re-downloading a fresh copy but for some reason even when I do that the newest chapters won't download.

The only thing that seemed to work was creating a new Calibre library in another location, downloading the impacted fics there, and then transferring them over to my normal library. I attached 2 debug logs, one for a failed download in my old calibre library and one from a successful update in the new one (60 vs 61 chapters downloaded) if the comparison is any help.

Thank you in advance! This tool is an absolute lifesaver.