[GUI Plugin] Manage Series

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Only save series indexes for the last selected series column in the dialog
• If multi-select rows to assign an index, clicking Cancel will cancel asking for any further changes

The first change listed above is the key one and should address the problem reported by dwanthny and possibly others who were using this plugin with more than one series column.

In previous releases, if you used the dropdown to switch to an alternate series column to manipulate the values in that, it would also potentially change series values applied to your main series column from the initial sort/display in teh dialog (unless you knew/remembered to click the "Restore Original Series" column).

Now, only changes to the last selected series column in the dropdown will be saved to the database.

[Wyndham]

Firstly let me add my thanks for this plugin

I have been using Calibre to store and manage my audiobooks (in a separate library) and wondered if you had given any thought to some small adaptations to the plugin for Audiobook needs.

Specifically, most Audiobooks are split into two, three or more 'books' (when in m4b format). This is because the iPhone, and possibly other handheld devices, don't cope very well with single large audiobooks, even though these play well enough on a desktop (PC). On a smartphone they play, but are silent.

The request I have is for a way to be able to specify the series without numbering increasing. e.g. Select three book and label each of them (e.g.) Bolitho [1]

The attachment shows two different ways I have set up series details in my Audiobook library in Calibre - Still undecided which to stick with...

There may be other things that could be done, or better ways of doing this, so I just put it forward as an idea.

[Wyndham]

Typical!

Post a query on the forum, and then afterwards find out the plugin already has a way to do this... *blush*

The attached screenshot illustrates one way to do this that I discovered.

I would still ask anyone to respond if I have got it wrong or if there is a better way.

[kiwidude]

@Wyndham - the Lock series index option is the appropriate approach. You can multi-select with this to go through and lock multiple items at various index values at once. One thing I "could" possibly do is add some radio buttons to that dialog (for use when multiple items are selected), which would say something like:

For each book selected:
- Prompt me for each series index (default)
- Lock to original series index
- Lock to new series index
- Lock to single series index value above

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@Wyndham - the Lock series index option is the appropriate approach. You can multi-select with this to go through and lock multiple items at various index values at once. One thing I "could" possibly do is add some radio buttons to that dialog (for use when multiple items are selected), which would say something like:

For each book selected:
- Prompt me for each series index (default)
- Lock to original series index
- Lock to new series index
- Lock to single series index value above

Yes

I had been using the Create button to insert Empty Books in the proper places.
And while I could set the Title, I could not change any of the other info shown (except index )

[kiwidude]

@theducks - ahhh, you spotted my deliberate lockdown of those fields then

I allowed title editing because I figured people might be doing cleanup to strip stuff series info out as part of making it in a series.

Authors I didn't really think people would want to change - and enabling it would mean I had to wire up an authors dropdown inside the grid which was more work.

PubDate I can see people more likely wanting to change on this screen, but I didn't want to have to deal without figuring out the UI for it .

That just leaves the New Series column, which in this case is being automatically populated by the magic underneath, life would get horribly complicated if I allowed in-cell editing on that. Particularly since one of my personal dislikes about the equivalent calibre column that sparked this whole plugin is how clunky it is to edit the value of with the square bracket pain.

Another possibility is to turn that column into just a numerical column (not displaying the series name), thereby allowing you to just double-click and type in a fixed series index value, treating that as a shortcut to doing a "lock" of that row to an assigned index.

I welcome any suggestions to make it all a bit less clunky/more useful - not saying I will implement them all of course but if there are some heavy users of this dialog out there that have some suggestions, feel free to vote up or down...

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@theducks - ahhh, you spotted my deliberate lockdown of those fields then

I allowed title editing because I figured people might be doing cleanup to strip stuff series info out as part of making it in a series.

Authors I didn't really think people would want to change - and enabling it would mean I had to wire up an authors dropdown inside the grid which was more work.

PubDate I can see people more likely wanting to change on this screen, but I didn't want to have to deal without figuring out the UI for it .

That just leaves the New Series column, which in this case is being automatically populated by the magic underneath, life would get horribly complicated if I allowed in-cell editing on that. Particularly since one of my personal dislikes about the equivalent calibre column that sparked this whole plugin is how clunky it is to edit the value of with the square bracket pain.

Another possibility is to turn that column into just a numerical column (not displaying the series name), thereby allowing you to just double-click and type in a fixed series index value, treating that as a shortcut to doing a "lock" of that row to an assigned index.

I welcome any suggestions to make it all a bit less clunky/more useful - not saying I will implement them all of course but if there are some heavy users of this dialog out there that have some suggestions, feel free to vote up or down...

1) It is (still) useful just the way it is
1.5) It is not klunky

2) The (New) Series Name is at the Top, so Numeric only is with me. (for the New value. I would still like to see the OLD name. EX merging 2 series: which I have done without any pain )
Being able to set a 1 time fractional directly would be nice (Thinking onf my mix of regular and Omnibus series)

BTW Using your Plugin to rename a series insted of rename in the tag browser, has none of that ways, ugly renumbering side effects

[kiwidude]

@theducks - Yeah my 9 out of 10 times for using this plugin is to rename a series - for the reasons you have stated since calibre tends to muck things up. I have a similar "complaint" when you rename a series in the single Edit Metadata dialog as it is the same problem. The use case being your other books in the series are called "Foo", you do a metadata download and it gives you the right series index but calls it "The Foo". While in that dialog you rename "The Foo" to "Foo", and calibre decides that is an excuse to then go and overwrite the series index to make it whatever number would be last+1 in the series, rather than the value you had/just downloaded. Rather annoying.

Anyways - back to things I can control. . I know you are a big user of this plugin so I was interested whether there was anything in particular you find yourself repetitively doing that could save you a few steps. Would the changes to the lock dialog I suggested above be useful?

I would definitely keep the old series column as is. It was just the new series column I was thinking could be made into an editable numeric only one.

Your comment about "1 time fractional" - are you talking about the "Start at" number at the top? As I looked into that not so long ago and there was a world of pain associated with that. The two main problems from memory were that (1) the plugin will default this textbox to the current lowest in the books you have selected, and (2) how does the plugin try to guess what your increment is? Whether a number is fractional or not is used by the plugin to default a hierarchy that it can preserve, by working on the assumption that anything fractional before you opened the dialog up should stay fractional by default. Since a de facto convention in calibre has been to put short stories as .x in a series, and I would suggest is the largest use case. Trying to then imply that fractional has "other" meanings like the 1.23 omnibus etc just makes it all fall apart, and means users just wanting to rename a series will have their numbering potentially screwed up.

I understand that if you were managing some magazines, and wanted to use 2012.01, 2012.02 etc then being able to specify 2012.01 as "Start at" could be handy. But then 2012.10 for a date based series vs 3.10 for a short story in a conventional series have totally different meanings when it comes to setting increments/preserving indenting. All just way too hard

As I posted once before you can work around all this for this particular case using the assign series index function or locking at original values and unlocking those you want to change. It is a couple more clicks but I can't see an easier way around it...

[Wyndham]

I like the idea, and am also grateful that I wasn't shot down for raising the topic

Another thought occurred to me:

If selecting 2, 3, 4 and sometimes 5, audiobooks which are part of the same title, it would be nice to be able to specify that the number should not increment. Perhaps a checkbox next to "Start At"?

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Put checkbox option on the Lock Index dialog when locking multiple series rows to allow setting all remaining to the specified index value
• Add a new context menu option of "Lock old series index" as a fast way to lock series index values to their old values for selected books
• Allow editing the pubdate column for books on this dialog.
• Fix bug where column headings for series columns were not correctly displayed on first opening dialog
• Fix bug where context menus not always updating until selection changed

@Wyndham - as per the screenshot, just select multiple books you want to have the same value, and then check the checkbox to do it in one step.

[Wyndham]

I have just tried this and wanted to cry with happiness!

Thank you very much *applause*

[MSWallack]

I've got a lot of books, many of which are part of a series. I'm looking for a quick(-ish) way to get a list of missing books from my series. I'd love to be able to just click a button and get a report telling me that Series A is missing book 2, Series B is missing book 4 and 7, and so forth. I don't suppose that this plugin can do that (and I've somehow managed to miss that functionality...), can it? Is that a feature that could be added to the plugin?

[kiwidude]

@MSWallack - the Quality Check plugin does this

[JSWolf]

Can this plugin fix series numbering? Lets say I have books in a series number 1,2,3,4,5...

I want to add one as 1. I want all the others t be renumbered as 2,3,4,5,6. Also, if I wanted to add in one as 3, I'd want them renumbered so the new 3 is 3 and the old 3 is 4,5,6.

Can this be done or can you make this be done in an update?

[kiwidude]

@JSWolf - that is the main point of the plugin You can drag/drop books into a new order, move them up/down using Alt+arrow keys or on screen buttons etc - just make sure you have all the books you want to be part of the series selected before you launch the Manage Series dialog and then have at it...