Visible 'Book'-level 'Edition' list data

General
1

When on a Book page, viewing the list of editions, could we have additional properties showing so that each item can be identified uniquely?

Currently, I look at a Book and can see a list of virtually identical Edition items. It’s not possible to know which is, say, the first printing, first edition without opening each one until I find it.

It would be good to have more columns in that table. I’d add at least impression, printer’s key, publication year (as opposed to first-published). Ideally it could be dynamic, showing as much data as necessary for each row to be shown to be unique. If there is more than one row with exactly the same data showing, it needs another column to become unique.

An image in there would be nice, too!

Hope that makes sense.

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2

I’ve added some titles, but how do I create a list of my collection?

3

Collection is read-only right now. For people who have asked me to restore it from Bookogs, you’ll see it. I’ll make it editable soon, and put an “Add to” button on the edition pages. Coming soon!

4

That’s do-able. I’ll look into your suggested fields and see how it looks.

5

@xceque can you post an example book page where the list of editions could use more identifying fields?

6

There are two mass market paperbacks for The Past Through Tomorrow.

See Stranger in a Strange Land.

7

Here:

https://ctlgs.org/c/books/book/487154/the-warlock-of-firetop-mountain/

I’ll likely be doing a lot of editing of this series, as I have a lot of them, and they’ll get quite a long list of printing impressions. It’ll be hard to work out which is which without more details, and at least one image.

8

Thanks for the examples. I added thumbnails to this list.

In the date column I think it is showing the first one entered on the edition. I’ll verify and look into prioritizing it like “This Edition Printed”.

I could also display other things like location or one of the credits. Any suggestions?

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9

Thanks for that! This is faster response than discogs. I’m not used to it :smiley:

I’d like to see impression number at least added. If impression number is allowed to be derived from printers key and/or print history, and doesn’t have to be given directly as a stated impression, then that’d be great.

Perhaps a truncated, but expandable Notes column.

Is there a ctlgs equivalent of discogs’ FTF? Something that could be used as a free-text identification/differentiation field so that someone browsing could hazard a good guess at which printing they’re looking at in any given row.

10

And the ability to sort the list would be good. Each time I refresh a Book page the list of Editions changes order :smiley:

11

Are these still on the radar? Notes column, impression number column, sorting (plus column headers and remembering sort order).

If a row could be double height the notes could fit in a single sub-row under the other data and the image could be at least twice the height. It’s a bit too small to be any use right now.

A short story is not an edition of a book or magazine
12

@Burnett

Okie… I’ve been having a good old think about this as I’ve quested through Firetop Mountain, faced the perils of the Citadel of Chaos, and had a nice leisurely stroll through the Forest of Doom.

Extra columns, headings and sorting are really required to make the Book page sane. Currently it’s… well, just look at this: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - Books - ctlgs
and this: The Citadel of Chaos - Books - ctlgs
and this: The Forest of Doom - Books - ctlgs

I’m sure it’s clear how difficult it is to find a specific printing from those.

Ideally, I’d like columns which would represent properties that would fall-back to other properties if they weren’t filled.

ie: Property < Fall-back Property < Another fall-back property < etc

Publisher/Imprint column: Imprint < Publisher
Edition column: Edition No.
Impression column: Impression/Printing No. < Printer's Key
Date: Reprinted (most recent if multiple) < This Edition Published < First Published < Copyright

It would be great if the page could have its Editions grouped by the Publisher/Imprint column. Even better if grouping could be user-customised.

It also would be good to have column headings and be sortable; including by column within column. ie, sort within the previous selected sort, and remember the sorting per user. If the sort can include the table row id (or similar) as its least-important column, then it would at least also always sort rows that appear identical in the same order consistently. Currently, for rows which show the same data, the sort order keeps changing with each page refresh.

And can you please make the image larger!!

Perhaps the entire site could utilise the full width of the browser’s viewport on every page? Even if it’s just in a user ‘wide UI’ option.

btw, on Books - ctlgs when Config is clicked it has always produced a 500 error. I don’t know if this is a user settings panel or an admin-only thing that’s accidentally not hidden for normal users.

In an ideal world I’d also like the notes field to be visible, truncated but expandable individually, on each Edition item, but appreciate that might be tricky to fit in without more UI jiggerypokery.

Being able to enter a filter under each column header would also be fantastic. That way we could show only rows that match all the values entered into all the filters for each column. Being able to filter by properties not shown as columns would be nice to have too.

If filtering could also utilise get parameters so they are part of a url, we can build a link to a subset of editions, for example for linking from a gift-market boxed set which includes titles from only select publishers and editions.

Obviously I’m biased or limited in my requirements by largely considering only the things I want to add, so hopefully others are going to have some insights, too. Or maybe no-one else has encountered a Book with an unmanageable number of similar Editions yet.

Other views would probably also benefit from a similar arrangement - ie, Periodical Title, Series, Collection, Wantlist, etc.

13

Oh, and a column that indicates whether the Edition is in your Collection, Read, or Wantlist. Like the discogs beans, or whatever they’re called.

14

uhmmm i haven encountered a person who has so unmanageable number of similar Editions.. are you the author or the editor??? hehehe

Oh!! I thought it was just to me!!!

You think in search results in a normal table with columns… but you can think in Cards as search results. Try to imagine, maybe it is easier in that way to add all the “data” you want to show in the previews

notes is a trash bin of text needed but with a lot info. I understand your “truncanted” option, but maybe truncated is not enough to differenciate the Edition you are looking for. I am sorry, i am into no showing textareas in the previews. Only fixed and mandatory fields. You should able to find the right Edition by Number/Year of the edition or reprint. In your example is imposible.. all of them are in 1983… how many times it was printed in that year?? WOW!!! But they should show 1st reprint… 2nd reprint.. etc..

15

I did, and I’m into no showing Cards in the previews. Unless the card is the full width of the viewport. In which case it’s no different to a row with a subrow (as I already suggested was possible).

This highlights the shortcomings of the current columns. The book was published in 1983, then reprinted in 1983, then again, and again, then 1984, then 1985, etc. However, at some point they stopped including the reprint date in the book, so the only date left is the first published date of 1983 again. So they show as 1983 again.

Each book has its own (mostly) unique impression number derived from a print history or printer’s key, but impression number is not shown in the list, and so lots of them look the same in that list. The current columns are not sufficient to differentiate Editions from one another.

One of those publishers (Wizard Books) doesn’t even use an impression number, or even anything similar, and printings can only be identified by minor variations in the content of the copyright information, and cover design. The best that can be managed there is to show edition number as well. And, possibly, the note.

I’m not expecting perfect, just something useable.

16

I think a feature similar to Discog’s “Free Text Format” would be helpful here…

On Discogs it can be used to record any notable differentiating features, and crucially it displays in the master view.

It’s very open to interpretation as to what should go in the field, which is both a positive and a negative. But, I think that key collectors (I am looking at @xceque) could establish something that makes sense for them - and explain their approach for others on the related book page (if needed).

I would NOT call it “Free Text Format” here (I feel that title is a bit woolly).

Perhaps names like:

  • Edition Details
  • Edition Identification Details
  • Edition Summary
17

I think that sort of thing could be very useful. I might even have mentioned it up-thread. Or maybe another thread.

Although, with some of the publishers, I’m not really sure what I’d put in one! I have already come up with my own reference code for each printing that I use to manage the data & images that I’d already compiled, but it’s geared towards being short, and I don’t think I could expect anyone else to adopt the system! I think, however, it would work in conjunction with the expansion of the columns, and grouping by publisher/imprint I’ve suggested.

I think that, basically, people will want to see editions sorted in some sensible order - the original publisher first, followed by subsequent ones in order of those editions being first published. Within each publisher, sorted by impression (derived by whatever means, be it print history or printer’s key, or by some FTF-a-like). Perhaps also the publisher groupings should themselves be grouped by language, with the language of original publication first.

If there’s to be a marketplace in the future, making it easy to find the specific copy you’re selling, or trying to buy, would be essential. That’s just not possible right now. Even simple stuff like trying to add more data to specific Editions, or finding out which printings I’ve forgotten to add to my collection, is currently more trouble than it’s worth.

18

Implementing a sensible sort method will be challenging given that most of the data entry fields are free text and optional.

Alpha-numeric sort is easiest, but will not always produce natural results.

Consider these five printer’s keys for impressions 1 through 5 (natural ordering):

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
4 6 8 10 9 7 5
6 8 10 9 7 5

And lexicographical sort (2, 1, 4, 3, 5):

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
4 6 8 10 9 7 5
4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
6 8 10 9 7 5

And that’s only one typical format of printers key, we also have examples like
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1, and things like 84 85 86 87CM20 19 18 17 16.

It’s usually easiest for a human to derive an impression number from this data for an individual edition (and record it elsewhere in the system), but it’s the sort of open-ended that’s a challenge to get right.

19

I agree, and there will be no solution that is ideal for all scenarios, but I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse not to put in some effort to make it better than it currently is.

Improvements in increments are going to work best; improve it, try it for a bit, improve it some more, try it for a bit more, etc. As long as the will is there to keep improving things, we’ll get closer to as-good-as-it’s-going-to-get for as many scenarios as possible.

Step 1, add publisher, imprint, impression number and edition number, and make the image a useful size. That would at least make things a little bit better. It can’t be that hard to add a sortable table, even if the data in it is sorted without regard for its content type at first, it’d be better than it is now.

When I was a developer, back in the day… *goes all misty eyed* …I used to use the Yii framework a lot and it did stuff like that out of the box in the auto-generated demo pages.

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20

Thanks for all the feedback and ideas here. I agree with improving in increments. This system is easy to change so we can iterate to what works best.

@xceque I’ll take a stab at your Step 1 suggestion soon.

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