Announcing Bookshelves - Free Web App at Online Book Club!

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Re: Announcing Bookshelves - Free Web App at Online Book Clu

Post by Scott »

ryanj1 wrote:A small box to affix "BC" or "AD" to publication dates would be very useful. They might also be utilized as search criteria :)
You should be able to do that by typing in the year as a negative number.

-- 09 Feb 2015 12:57 pm --
gali wrote:
Scott wrote:-- 08 Feb 2015 02:58 pm --

Well do you usually find you already have the books sorted by genre before you submit them, such that you want to choose a genre and 'mass add' a bunch of books only from that genre? Or are you looking to add them one-by-one but on a single screen If the latter, what might be even more helpful than changing the mass-adder would be to create a new page for mass-adding genres to books. I am thinking of a page that would on one single page list all the books from one's own shelves that do not have a genre with a selection box to select the genre for each and then submit the form. In fact, the same thing could be done with release year.

This re-raises the issue of whether or not there is other important meta-data besides genre and release date that rather than having to navigate to each book's page?

members might like included not only on the individual pages for books but also for sorting and searching purposes. Adding in any other meta data if desired now would ensure it is properly included in these other new tools.
When I use the "mass add", I add books by the same genre.

I like your second idea, adding books one-by-one on a single screen rather than having to navigate to each book's page.
It will make it easier to add many books at once and less tiresome.
Okay, I will make a tool to list all of one's own books that do not have genre and/or release date so that the member can add that data all on one page.

I will do this tool separately from the mass adder if that is okay. I am not completely sure how meta-data like genre and release year will work in the future so it could over complicate the mass adder. We previously discussed the idea of adding a tagging mechanism of some sort. That might integrate better with the mass adder in that one could tag the whole list.

I am working on making pages for all the different member-submitted authors right now. So I may not get to the genre-adding tool until tomorrow or so.

Might I also take this time to say I am so impressed by what has been done with Bookshelves, not by me but by the members. It's starting to grow into a really awesome member-created resource. We already have thousands of member-submitted books, and and then those books have member-submitted data like cover, original release date, genre. This means we have a unique resource that doesn't exist elsewhere. The closest things are automated book data tools based on ISBN number. The biggest problem with those is that each different edition of a book gets a different ISBN. So for instance if you plug in the ISBN for a recent paperback of Animal Farm and it might make it seem like Orwell wrote it in 2014!
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Post by gali »

Great, thank you and no rush. :)


The Bookshelves are awesome indeed! :)
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Post by Ryan »

Scott wrote:
ryanj1 wrote:A small box to affix "BC" or "AD" to publication dates would be very useful. They might also be utilized as search criteria :)
You should be able to do that by typing in the year as a negative number.
I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain. Do you simply mean typing "-144", for example?

And the Bookshelves are wonderful indeed! But the forum itself is expanding wonderfully as a whole. It's very nice to be part of it and to know that our ideas and input matter -- that's the best thing about it and which makes this site different from all others :)
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Post by Scott »

ryanj1 wrote:
Scott wrote:
ryanj1 wrote:A small box to affix "BC" or "AD" to publication dates would be very useful. They might also be utilized as search criteria :)
You should be able to do that by typing in the year as a negative number.
I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain. Do you simply mean typing "-144", for example?
Yes, that's what I mean. If you type -144 as the year, it will come out as 144 BC. I just took another look and I think it would not have worked before but it should work now.
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Post by Ryan »

Scott wrote:
ryanj1 wrote:
Scott wrote:A small box to affix "BC" or "AD" to publication dates would be very useful. They might also be utilized as search criteria :)
You should be able to do that by typing in the year as a negative number.
Yes, that's what I mean. If you type -144 as the year, it will come out as 144 BC. I just took another look and I think it would not have worked before but it should work now.
Awesome! Thanks :)

-- 13 Feb 2015, 21:41 --

I've noticed a problem with modified books recently. When a user reports a book and supplies a correction, the older incorrect book isn't deleted and a new improved one is created instead of the older simply being corrected. Is there anything you can do about this?
"Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection" -- Victor Hugo.
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Post by Scott »

ryanj1 wrote:
Scott wrote:
ryanj1 wrote: You should be able to do that by typing in the year as a negative number.
Yes, that's what I mean. If you type -144 as the year, it will come out as 144 BC. I just took another look and I think it would not have worked before but it should work now.
Awesome! Thanks :)

-- 13 Feb 2015, 21:41 --

I've noticed a problem with modified books recently. When a user reports a book and supplies a correction, the older incorrect book isn't deleted and a new improved one is created instead of the older simply being corrected. Is there anything you can do about this?
The old version is not merged with the new version until the report is resolved. Really all it takes is that a moderator check the report and approve the merger of the two spellings of the book into the single, corrected one.

That is because otherwise, for instance, some vandal could come along and say that Harry Potter is a misspelling of "Poopy Pants" and then everyone who previously had "Harry Potter" in their shelves would find that they now have "Poopy Pants" in their shelves.

What I will change right now is make it so for the reporting member, the old version of the book is replaced with the new version in their own shelves.

-- 14 Feb 2015 05:47 pm --

Once I have the moderator control panel working well and easily, I will probably enable many members to become moderators for Bookshelves.

However, with the improvements to the storage of authors in the database, I need to work a little more on making the reporting work well.

-- 16 Feb 2015 07:40 pm --

Cool Update: I made a simple yet powerful addition to the custom sort page. You can now also use it to ONLY browse books in your own shelves. I imagine this will occasionally be very helpful for members with lots of books in their shelves, such as if they want to see all the books from a certain genre in their shelves or see all the books missing cover images from their shelves or some combination of those or other filters.

I am also almost done adding a custom ordering feature for one's own shelves.

-- 17 Feb 2015 12:04 am --

Another Big Update: I implemented a custom ordering feature to Bookshelves. This means each member can manually choose the order of the books in their shelves (overriding the default which is to sort alphabetically by author name). There are ways to do this currently. When viewing your shelves, you can click the small 'bump to top' link below any book to move it to position 1 in that shelf. Or you can change the position on the book's page by entering the number in the appropriate field and clicking update position. Book's without a position will be listed as position 0 and will be listed alphabetically by author on Your Shelves after any books with a position specified by you. It is presumed that books on your previously read shelf are listed from favorite to least favorite for the purpose of creating a 'top 3' list.
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Post by Gravy »

A few things regarding the bookshelves:

Is the genre adding page still going to be added?
Could we have a section for key-word tagging?
And I have an error book on my page...on my 3 star shelf...?
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Post by Scott »

Graverobber wrote: Is the genre adding page still going to be added?
Could we have a section for key-word tagging?
And I have an error book on my page...on my 3 star shelf...?
1. I just created and added it. :D You can find the link when viewing your own shelves (assuming you have books that lack genre information).

2. I still need to develop a keyword tagging feature.

3. I fixed the error but unfortunately I'm not sure how it occurred.

-- 09 Mar 2015 03:24 pm --

Now that I have genre counts on the 'view shelf' page, I think it would be cool to let members filter a different member's shelf by genre. I am trying to decide the best way to do this. Perhaps it could be done with the custom sort page. Just like you can now you use the custom sort to sort through only your own books, I could make it so you could click a link on a member's shelf to custom sort through their books.
"That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much only as we possess." - Henry David Thoreau

"Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco." Virgil, The Aeneid
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Post by Gravy »

Scott wrote: 1. I just created and added it. :D You can find the link when viewing your own shelves (assuming you have books that lack genre information).

2. I still need to develop a keyword tagging feature.

3. I fixed the error but unfortunately I'm not sure how it occurred.
Awesome!
Thank you! :text-thankyoublue:
Scott wrote: Now that I have genre counts on the 'view shelf' page, I think it would be cool to let members filter a different member's shelf by genre. I am trying to decide the best way to do this. Perhaps it could be done with the custom sort page. Just like you can now you use the custom sort to sort through only your own books, I could make it so you could click a link on a member's shelf to custom sort through their books.
This sounds cool 8)
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Post by gali »

Scott wrote:
Graverobber wrote: Is the genre adding page still going to be added?
Could we have a section for key-word tagging?
And I have an error book on my page...on my 3 star shelf...?
1. I just created and added it. :D You can find the link when viewing your own shelves (assuming you have books that lack genre information).

2. I still need to develop a keyword tagging feature.

3. I fixed the error but unfortunately I'm not sure how it occurred.

-- 09 Mar 2015 03:24 pm --

Now that I have genre counts on the 'view shelf' page, I think it would be cool to let members filter a different member's shelf by genre. I am trying to decide the best way to do this. Perhaps it could be done with the custom sort page. Just like you can now you use the custom sort to sort through only your own books, I could make it so you could click a link on a member's shelf to custom sort through their books.
I just used the genre adding page and it is great!! Well done! :)
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Post by Ryan »

gali wrote:
Scott wrote:
Graverobber wrote: Is the genre adding page still going to be added?
Could we have a section for key-word tagging?
And I have an error book on my page...on my 3 star shelf...?
1. I just created and added it. :D You can find the link when viewing your own shelves (assuming you have books that lack genre information).

2. I still need to develop a keyword tagging feature.

3. I fixed the error but unfortunately I'm not sure how it occurred.

-- 09 Mar 2015 03:24 pm --

Now that I have genre counts on the 'view shelf' page, I think it would be cool to let members filter a different member's shelf by genre. I am trying to decide the best way to do this. Perhaps it could be done with the custom sort page. Just like you can now you use the custom sort to sort through only your own books, I could make it so you could click a link on a member's shelf to custom sort through their books.
I just used the genre adding page and it is great!! Well done! :)
Indeed! It's silky smooth. Great job! :mrgreen:
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Post by Gravy »

One little thing :shifty:

Could we have a way to reset our shelves to the original, alphabetical order?
I keep accidentally 'bumping' my books :oops:
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Post by Scott »

Graverobber wrote:One little thing :shifty:

Could we have a way to reset our shelves to the original, alphabetical order?
I keep accidentally 'bumping' my books :oops:
Absolutely! I should have this done within a day or two.

-- 13 Mar 2015 12:02 pm --

Just to make sure this convenient, would it more meet your needs to have a button to reset the sort order of the your entire shelves or a way to reset just a certain book.

I'm thinking if someone has hundreds of books in a shelf, they may want to keep track of the top 10 or so using the sort order but then want the rest of the books sorted normally. If they accidentally bumped one of those other hundred books to the top, they may not want to reset the whole sort order and have to fix those 10. On the other hand, if someone does want to reset the whole sort order, it could be tedious or practically impossible to go to each book and reset the sort order 1 by 1.

I think that there is functionality for both options. I ask which would be better for you so I know which feature to make more prominent.
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Post by Gravy »

Scott wrote:Just to make sure this convenient, would it more meet your needs to have a button to reset the sort order of the your entire shelves or a way to reset just a certain book.

I'm thinking if someone has hundreds of books in a shelf, they may want to keep track of the top 10 or so using the sort order but then want the rest of the books sorted normally. If they accidentally bumped one of those other hundred books to the top, they may not want to reset the whole sort order and have to fix those 10. On the other hand, if someone does want to reset the whole sort order, it could be tedious or practically impossible to go to each book and reset the sort order 1 by 1.

I think that there is functionality for both options. I ask which would be better for you so I know which feature to make more prominent.
I had the thought (as I was stupidly bumping books :lol: ) that being able to reset the number to 0 would help. But having a button to reset all the shelves would work as well. Maybe someone else would have a preference?
Either would work for me :mrgreen:

-- 14 Mar 2015, 16:37 --

@Scott
One more question:
How should 'complete works' be dealt with in bookshelves?
Not everyone reads complete works, so should there be 'complete works' as well as individual entries?
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Post by Scott »

@Graverobber I have made it so you can enter 0 as the sort order and that will erase the sort order for that book and put it back to the default. I will now work on creating a button to reset the sort order for all your books with the choice to just do it to one shelf or to all your shelves.

I'm not sure what you mean by complete works. I'm guess you mean when a book is published that combines multiple works together. Can you give me a few examples?

For the most part, I'd prefer to keep each work separate, but it depends. For instance, many times Henry David Thoreau's essay Civil Disobedience is published in a single book along with Walden. Moreover, there is usually a unique introduction for that particular book. But on Bookshelves I have entered each different work as it's own.

However, in other cases, especially when it is many short stories or essays, it might make more sense just to refer to the combined works.
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