Feature request / Good idea for future versions of Calibre

rahulm · 06-15-2010, 12:31 AM

hi guys,

I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi and so I have many books in the same series. I'd love to see a collapse menu to organize books in a series.

Basically, the main library pane would be exactly how it is, except if a set of books has been designated to be in the same series (let's take GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire as an example), it would automatically compact the entire series and make the item bold indicating that this is a series with a collapse button to open up all the books as a sub-menu.

Here's a crude mockup, it's the best I could do and I hope it gets the point across:

Fahrenheit 451-------------------------Ray Bradbury
The Forever War-----------------------Joe Haldeman
[+]The Farseer Trilogy-------------Robin Hobb
[+]Song Of Ice And Fire------------George R.R. Martin

Ok, now I want to expand the series and check out a specific book:

Fahrenheit 451-------------------------Ray Bradbury
The Forever War-----------------------Joe Haldeman
[+]The Farseer Trilogy-------------Robin Hobb
[-]Song Of Ice And Fire------------George R.R. Martin
-----------[1]A Game of Thrones-----------------George R.R. Martin
-----------[2]A Clash of Kings--------------------George R.R. Martin
-----------[3]A Storm of Swords-----------------George R.R. Martin
-----------[4]A Feast for Crows------------------George R.R. Martin

What do you guys think?

rahulm · 06-17-2010, 08:06 AM

shameless self bump

would love some feedback (just lemme know if it's a bad idea or if something in calibre makes it unnecessary)

chaley · 06-17-2010, 09:07 AM

It is an interesting idea, and not at odds with calibre's philosophy, at least as I understand it.

Unfortunately, it would be a royal pain to implement. The table widget that calibre uses does not support row collapsing, so it would need to be done manually. In addition, it would only work when the display is sorted by series.

If I were going to consider building something like this, I would probably permit collapsing the display based on the current sort column. That way I could collapse by series, author, rating, publisher, what-have-you. It wouldn't make much sense to collapse by title, but it would be possible. Tags would be a problem, but single-valued text custom fields would work well.

kovidgoyal · 06-17-2010, 10:27 AM

I'm note entirely clear on the use case for this. If you want to see what series are in your collection, use the Tag browser. What would be the point of seeing the first book in every serries in the book list?

chaley · 06-17-2010, 10:34 AM

The main use would be to see 'more' in the library screen. For example, if I sort on, and collapse on, authors, then I can quickly scan the library for what I am looking for. Same for series. The idea is similar to what one finds in, for example, development environments where I can collapse functions and classes to get a better picture of the organization.

I freely admit that doing so would provide almost the same functionality as the tag browser. I also freely admit that I am not volunteering to build it.

rahulm · 06-17-2010, 02:42 PM

Yeah, what chaley just said.

It wouldn't be a replacement for the great tag browser, but more of a way to make the entire library a bit more visually appealing and more organized, at least to me.

It doesn't display the first book in the series, but rather the name of the series. Upon expanding that entry, you get the entire book list.

kovidgoyal · 06-17-2010, 03:05 PM

Well, unless you're volunteering to developing a grouping table display widget, this is not likely to ever get done

rahulm · 06-17-2010, 03:08 PM

No worries, was just putting it out there. Thanks for the great app.

Gunnerp245 · 07-18-2010, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Well, unless you're volunteering to developing a grouping table display widget, this is not likely to ever get done

@kovidgoyal

Okay, where would one go to learn how to do it?

kovidgoyal · 07-18-2010, 07:35 PM

There's no place that will teach you how to do it explicitly, but since calibre uses Qt, you will have to subclass the QTableView class to implement this functionality. Qt is open source so the best place to start is to read the source code (C++) for the table view class.

06-15-2010, 12:31 AM	#1
rahulm Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 22164 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: None	Feature request / Good idea for future versions of Calibre hi guys, I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi and so I have many books in the same series. I'd love to see a collapse menu to organize books in a series. Basically, the main library pane would be exactly how it is, except if a set of books has been designated to be in the same series (let's take GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire as an example), it would automatically compact the entire series and make the item bold indicating that this is a series with a collapse button to open up all the books as a sub-menu. Here's a crude mockup, it's the best I could do and I hope it gets the point across: Fahrenheit 451-------------------------Ray Bradbury The Forever War-----------------------Joe Haldeman [+]The Farseer Trilogy-------------Robin Hobb [+]Song Of Ice And Fire------------George R.R. Martin Ok, now I want to expand the series and check out a specific book: Fahrenheit 451-------------------------Ray Bradbury The Forever War-----------------------Joe Haldeman [+]The Farseer Trilogy-------------Robin Hobb [-]Song Of Ice And Fire------------George R.R. Martin -----------[1]A Game of Thrones-----------------George R.R. Martin -----------[2]A Clash of Kings--------------------George R.R. Martin -----------[3]A Storm of Swords-----------------George R.R. Martin -----------[4]A Feast for Crows------------------George R.R. Martin What do you guys think?

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06-17-2010, 08:06 AM	#2
rahulm Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 22164 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: None	shameless self bump would love some feedback (just lemme know if it's a bad idea or if something in calibre makes it unnecessary)

06-17-2010, 09:07 AM	#3
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,034 Karma: 7257323 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	It is an interesting idea, and not at odds with calibre's philosophy, at least as I understand it. Unfortunately, it would be a royal pain to implement. The table widget that calibre uses does not support row collapsing, so it would need to be done manually. In addition, it would only work when the display is sorted by series. If I were going to consider building something like this, I would probably permit collapsing the display based on the current sort column. That way I could collapse by series, author, rating, publisher, what-have-you. It wouldn't make much sense to collapse by title, but it would be possible. Tags would be a problem, but single-valued text custom fields would work well.

06-17-2010, 10:27 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,560 Karma: 24495948 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	I'm note entirely clear on the use case for this. If you want to see what series are in your collection, use the Tag browser. What would be the point of seeing the first book in every serries in the book list?

06-17-2010, 10:34 AM	#5
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,034 Karma: 7257323 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	The main use would be to see 'more' in the library screen. For example, if I sort on, and collapse on, authors, then I can quickly scan the library for what I am looking for. Same for series. The idea is similar to what one finds in, for example, development environments where I can collapse functions and classes to get a better picture of the organization. I freely admit that doing so would provide almost the same functionality as the tag browser. I also freely admit that I am not volunteering to build it.

06-17-2010, 02:42 PM	#6
rahulm Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 22164 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: None	Yeah, what chaley just said. It wouldn't be a replacement for the great tag browser, but more of a way to make the entire library a bit more visually appealing and more organized, at least to me. It doesn't display the first book in the series, but rather the name of the series. Upon expanding that entry, you get the entire book list.

06-17-2010, 03:05 PM	#7
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,560 Karma: 24495948 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Well, unless you're volunteering to developing a grouping table display widget, this is not likely to ever get done

06-17-2010, 03:08 PM	#8
rahulm Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 22164 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: None	No worries, was just putting it out there. Thanks for the great app.

07-18-2010, 07:35 PM	#10
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,560 Karma: 24495948 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	There's no place that will teach you how to do it explicitly, but since calibre uses Qt, you will have to subclass the QTableView class to implement this functionality. Qt is open source so the best place to start is to read the source code (C++) for the table view class.

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