2019 LT Redesign: "Your books" page

The LT redesign has a few hurdles we HAVE to jump over. One is that we need to redo the catalog page on a deep technical level before we can progress with changing much of anything else. The reason is not intuitive, but I assure you it's true—we need to put an end to the "framed" structure of the catalog page. Frames can't go where we need to go.

So, unlike many other pages, where we hope an evolutionary approach will work, we're really going to rewrite a lot of code on the catalog page. I don't regret this—it's a real "ship of Theseus" page. But it's going to be a lot of work. I'm laying the cornerstone today, but the size and complexity of the job is terrifying me a little.

So, this is your chance to tell us what to do with the catalog page.

I think we can presume a few things:

1. The basic "Excel"-like format of the book list will remain. We will work hard to make it even more "Excel"-like--more in-place editing, more editing without reflowing, etc. We will continue to allow users to show different field, sort as they like, etc.
2. The navigation bar will at least be rethought. I mean this:



3. I want to rethink "mass editing" (i.e., power editing) so that it works on every field and feels "part" of the system, not something tacked on.

So, what do you think? Some potential questions for you:

1. Do you think the Excel-like format as the DEFAULT format is still the way to go in 2019? I believe so, but this is certainly not the way apps tend to be going. (iTunes has been trying to avoid the table format for years; it's now actually going away entirely!)
2. How do you use this page?
3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you?
4. Are there any tabular sites or apps you like, and which LT should learn from? LibraryThing's tabular presentation predates almost every other online version—Google Sheets came out a year later!

It would be awesome if people could respond to these questions somewhat. If you have a particular bug you want fixed, I can pretty much assure you it's not getting fixed until the page is completed. And it won't be fixed so much as replaced. If you have a particular higher-level complaint, however, this would be an awesome time to tell me.

Ack, I don't want to be first.... okay, deep breath. And.... posting....

1. Honestly I'm not sure if a site like LibraryThing works without that excel like format. I know that even GR has the same sort of grid set up. If you start getting too graphical with the book list, it stops being a list and starts being hard or impossible to work with. (also, I don't think I even remember what the default cells are these days it's been so long since I messed with them so that I could see what I wanted to see).

2. On the top bar I use the collections drop down to go between collections. I use only two of the styles, A+B. I on occasion use Power Edit. And I use search, usually within one of the collections (and I really like that I can change collections and it will use that same search term again). In the main part of the page I use the collection drop down selector on the right side with all the other icons, but, I wish it was a little easier to change what collection individual books are in without using power edit. And, I love the double click to change the data in the rest of the page. From the CK to the page and pub date and even title on laptop/desktop. (I do wish that there was an equivalent on the mobile website version to the double click, but, that's a small thing)

I think a data grid like screen for catalogue is an essential component for me.

I don't tend to do much in-place editing. I prefer to click the link to edit. I don't use the Cover view - but I am sure that there are plenty who do.

When you click on the Tags dropdown-button (or change it to some other browse type) I don't think that clicking List again is particularly clear. Maybe there should be a Books (or something) in that dropdown button

I am not sold on the way sorting is handled. There is only a visual cue on the primary sort field, not both. You can only set the primary sort field by clicking on the headers. You are limited to two sort fields (the primary and a sub-sort).

Are in-grid resizable columns and reorderable columns too much to hope for?

>1 timspalding: 3. I want to rethink "mass editing" (i.e., power editing) so that it works on every field and feels "part" of the system, not something tacked on.


I would like a way to export csv files of the different "view" and filtered however we have filtered them.

I also think it would be nice to have an import/update option from the catalog page so that you could download a section of your catalog, make any changes you want, and then re-import it to update your books. I know that is what the power edit is supposed to do, but it is not easy to use if you find you have a large number of records that need updating but lack easy filtering. Like if I wanted to standardize the English spelling of all the authors in my catalog under the "fiction (arabic)" tag, where there are multiple spellings for many authors.

>3 andyl: Oh man, I would be toast without in place editing for sure. Especially the CK stuff like serieses, but I also use Amazon for a lot of my add books, and so, having to go all the way into the edit book page just to trim off some title or fix an author or date.

>3 andyl: The up and down arrow icon opens the box to set the sort fields. However it tends to open way below my screen for me, and it took a while to figure out that I have to scroll to find it. If you want to set both sorts with the column headings, first set the secondary sort, as the primary sort moves to secondary when a new primary sort is set.

Columns can be reordered in settings.

>6 MarthaJeanne:

Yep I know what it does and how to set the sort (it appears pretty much in the centre of my screen). I just don't think the current modal is the best way of defining the sort order.

The data grid structure is what works best for something as data heavy as our catalog. I also love being able to add/remove various fields, and love being able to have several views. What I would like is to be able to add more fields to a view. On my huge screens at work I have enough real estate and I don't mind waiting.

I use the catalog page to check my last added works and to search my catalog. When checking my catalog for last added works I have a view configured that shows me the fields I need to check/fix. Mostly these are the covers and the "From Where" field. When searching I am using the search syntax ("author:king") to find specific editions in my collection.

As a long long time user, I never use tags button and the up-down errors. I can guess what they do but have to admit I am not sure. I heavily use the different views and will sometimes use the power-edit function.

Editing in place is the major reason I use the catalog page, and would love for that to be even better. And power editing (for things like "From Where") would save me tons of time.

I don't know any other data view like web applications that work as well as, or better than LT does. Even though it is overwhelming with the amount of information, I like that page a lot.

So, I'm going to assume that by "Excel-like" you mean "tabular, with rows representing objects and columns representing fields", because nothing makes sense otherwise, even though I wouldn't in a million years use "Excel-like" to mean that. ("Excel-like" to me means "something to do basic math on rows and columns of numbers, or to pretty up CSVs before sending them to management.)

1. YES a million times. For a data-rich site like LT - which you have promised on the other thread will continue to be the case - nothing else makes sense. You've got the cover view already for people who just want the pretty.

2. For editing my books, looking at my books, sorting my books, deciding which book to read next, admiring all my beautiful books, basically for everything I do.

3. Most of it makes sense to me, but I've been here roughly since the Precambrian. One part that is confusing - not to me necessarily since I know how it works but is objectively confusing - is that while most fields can be edited in situ by double-clicking, and can be sorted, there are those odd few that can't. (Other Authors is the one that I view most frequently, and then there are the CK fields that can be edited but are not sortable.)

>4 southernbooklady:

I would like a way to export csv files of the different "view" and filtered however we have filtered them.

Thanks. I had forgotten this as a requirement, but it makes sense. This is the sort of thing I need to think about now, at the start, as it would be Hell to tack it on later.

I also think it would be nice to have an import/update option from the catalog page so that you could download a section of your catalog, make any changes you want, and then re-import it to update your books.

This is rather tougher. It goes to the whole notion that LT should be able to export as CSV and then suck what it exported back up again no problem. This is just a very tricky thing, because LT is not ACTUALLY a data grid. The data is much more complicated—not two dimensions, but, I dunno, ten? The grid is a display format, not the data. So it's hard to allow people this.

Columns can be reordered in settings.

It would be nice if this could be done on the page, but only if it was easy.

So, I'm going to assume that by "Excel-like" you mean "tabular, with rows representing objects and columns representing fields", because nothing makes sense otherwise, even though I wouldn't in a million years use "Excel-like" to mean that. ("Excel-like" to me means "something to do basic math on rows and columns of numbers, or to pretty up CSVs before sending them to management.)

Snort. Yes, I mean essentially tabular.

(Other Authors is the one that I view most frequently, and then there are the CK fields that can be edited but are not sortable.)

Some fields will call for other treatments. For example, "Other authors" is fundamentally complex--you can multiple authors with multiple roles, etc. A tabular "box" is a representation of the data, but it can't be edited in situ because the data isn't flat.

then there are the CK fields that can be edited but are not sortable

This is something to look at. There may be a technical reason for that. But I think it could be done, especially if we had a better way to show "Okay, it's working. Give it a sec."

1. Grid me. Duh.

2. Use it for many things, but notably, I've used it for mass CK edits for awards and the like. Let me spend some time poking around and thinking, but for the moment:

If I had a pony, it would be to 1) make the grid sortable by number of users with a particular work, and 2) make the number of users holding a work visible in Power Edit view. Particularly when looking at long lists of award-winning titles that I may have entered, or when looking at other peoples' catalogs, 1-copy and low-copy titles can, in many cases, suggest targets to investigate for work combining. I've found myself looking for low-copy works in regular view, adding temporary tags to them, then sorting by those tags in power edit view. A usable work-around, but very inefficient.

(There are many, many cases where a work record held by one or two users needs to be combined with one held by hundreds or thousands, particularly across languages. There are, of course, also cases where a work record held by, say, 20-something people needs to be combined with one held by, say, 30-something people, but they're not nearly so numerous. Obviously, the ideal is to empower those willing to do their own combining, but given that so much work-combining is, in practice, done by a relative handful of users, it makes sense to give that handful the filters to work more efficiently.)

3. What >9 lorax: said, basically.

4. I'll think about this and get back to you.

If I had a pony, it would be to 1) make the grid sortable by number of users with a particular work
You can - sort by Total Members.

My request would be to remember the sort with the view style, so I can define a view with certain columns and a particular sort. For example, be able to define a view with the Author column first that is sorted by author. If I switch to a different view, it would switch to the sort that went with that view.

>12 r.orrison: Ah. Learn something new every day. Didn't think to look under the sort menu, which I more or less assumed was redundant. (Probably even used it a few times for subsorts without realizing "total users" was in there since it can't be sorted in the main interface. Assumed it was only good for subsorting already-sortable columns.) Nice find.

eta In addition to an obviously sortable column (or an option to add one), would be nice to have total user numbers visible in power edit view. Even though they are sortable -- with no visual cue indicating this -- they are still not viewable in power edit mode.

Like everyone else, I don't think it's really possible to have the kind of data-rich information that the catalogue is without an "Excel-like" layout, no matter what other websites do (and also, I happen to love making lists in Excel).

I'm pretty much doing the same as >9 lorax: when it comes to the catalogue and how I use it, except I don't do that much editing (other than tweaking titles). For me, the catalogue is a combination of wishlist and book journal, it's where I add books that I either want to buy or have read/bought. I have collections for books I want to buy, books I own, books I want to read, books I've read but don't own, etc.
I don't use the import and export features or the power editing so can't comment on those.
I've mostly stuck to the basic info in the catalogue view (author, title, year, language and cover) but since I've recently started reading more series I wanted to add that column to help me keep track, but the CK series column is not great (because the CK series can be all over the place) and it's not possible to edit it. I'm currently using tags but it's not a great work around.
I'd love for there to be a way to have more than two layers of sorting. I'm currently using the "author then title starting with A" sorting system, but I'd like to be able to sort by author, then series if there is one, and then title.

I like having a handful of user-defined views of tabular data. But I'd like to be able to name my views, just the way I name my collections.

Clearer distinguishing between site search and catalogue search would help. And search working.

I've still got a miss mash of search terms from when they used to work before it all changed. Sorting within my catalogue, eg having searched for an author being able to easily see the books by series.

>15 paradoxosalpha: Another thought: what do people think about well-thought-out default views/display styles that actually show all the possible fields between them? (Matched with a "clear" option for each view to allow for custom re-racking without dragging out 13 options individually). That would be an easy way to showcase all the available data fields without making people go into "Settings" to learn they exist?

2. Use it for many things, but notably, I've used it for mass CK edits for awards and the like. Let me spend some time poking around and thinking, but for the moment:

Note to self, however, that Power Edit really CAN'T be used for CK edits. Because, wow, someone could REALLY do some damage that way!

I like having a handful of user-defined views of tabular data. But I'd like to be able to name my views, just the way I name my collections.

Yeah. I hear you. Different sort of UI called for, I think.

I've still got a miss mash of search terms from when they used to work before it all changed. Sorting within my catalogue, eg having searched for an author being able to easily see the books by series.

Like what?

>18 timspalding: Yeah, been a few years since I've actually worked with it in that capacity. And indeed, it's not possible to edit more than one CK field at a time, but there was some other reason I was using the power edit there. Let me go back and try to figure it out.

1. I absolutely like the way it looks now. It's easy to use.

2. How do you use this page?

Author/title/other authors/Publication/tags/comments/from where?/entry date/source

I often edit from that page. When I'm bored, I'll check my authors/titles to see if there's any combining that needs to be done, or use my "other authors" column to add "other authors" on the work page.

I frequently use it to find out if I have a book, or to find books by a particular author or with a particular tag.

3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you?

Well, it is odd that when I add an "other author", I have to add it separately on the work page, though I get why.

Another thing that's a bit odd is the "list/covers" toggle. If I hover my mouse over "covers", I see "show covers", and I think, "but I'm seeing covers in list view". Not sure how to reword that to make it clearer, though.

And I agree with >9 lorax:, it's weird that some fields are editable on the page and others not. I'm a great fan of consistent behavior.

I'm going to ask some focused questions:

Question About "Sets"

Here's a question that's somewhat tricky. It's fairly basic.

When when you search, select a collection or do some other "show me THESE" action, it finds everything that qualifies. Right?

The question is whether the contents and sort of the "set" should be constant until you redo the action, or if it should change.

Content example:
1. You search for everything with "Tolkien" in it.
2. You see that a book is listed as being by Tolkien, but that's wrong. So you change it to "John Smith."
3. What happens now? Should it commit the edit and then vanish the book?

Sorting example:
1. You search for everything with "Tolkien" in it.
2. You sort by title.
3. You change the title of "The Hobbit" to "Zounds! It's the Hobbit"
3. What happens now? Should it resort that book off the page? Should it keep it, but when you go forward a page, the book is there?

Another content question:
1. You search for everything with "Tolkien" in it.
2. You open a new tab and add another Tolkien book.
3. You go back to the first tab and go forward a page.
4. In theory, the book you added should be there, but is it okay if it's not—until you refresh?

I really want to go with a "static sets, static sorts" arrangement. Nothing changes unless you re-ask for a set, or sort.

Question About Default Actions

Everyone familiar with this?



Which of those do you actually care about? Do you know what they do? Do you care? Is there something missing?

>23 timspalding: Off the top of my head, I know what the bottom two and the top two right ones do. Thinking for a few seconds tells me what the middle top one does, though I've done it other ways primarily. The two top left ones, I would have to investigate/refresh my memory.

ETA: Okay. Yeah, the other two on top make sense, but I always accessed those another way.

>23 timspalding:

RE: Default Actions

I use the the "edit" one a lot, "set collections" fairly often, "remove this book" very occasionally. I do use the "review" link a fair bit also. The # of members is one that I like to see, but I don't generally click through to see who they are.

I don't think I've ever used the other two on top (if I want the work page, I just click on the title), though I know what they mean.

>23 timspalding: default actions icons: The work page vs detail page icons totally eluded me until I looked it up. Perhaps rename to something like "main work" and "your version"? I never use those icons; if I want either of those pages I'll click the book's title and go from there.

I do use the other icons sometimes, though.

>25 lilithcat: If we're doing spoilers:
Yeah, I've usually used power edit to set collections, or done it from the work page if I'm only changing one, but I see where it could be handy for some to retain it. Edit and delete I use all the time. The work and detail pages I just access by clicking the title and switching to detail at left if that's the one I want. Wouldn't miss those.

>23 timspalding: On sets: More than happy with static, nothing changes until refresh.

>27 davidgn: One note: that whole default actions column vanishes under power edit view. I wish it wouldn't. That's disorienting and irritating. If it must be modified, keep it in place and ghost actions accordingly. But please, enough with the "Hey, where'd that thing go?"

>21 davidgn: I guess the reason I was in power edit for that application was simply to add or remove the temporary tags for sorting en masse. All of which would have been obviated for me with an obviously sortable "total users" column.

ETA: And yes, make it redundant with the users/mentions data in the little default actions panel, if we're keeping that in some form. Or, less attractively and potentially more confusingly, add a sort option/icon (e.g. ↕) directly adjacent to the total users figure in that actions panel in lieu of a new column option. (For that matter, some people might want to sort by # of mentions reviews to see which of their works are being discussed reviewed most, without that option being buried in a sort menu...) Probably adding the new, redundant column option(s) is the more straightforward solution, though. It's a question of consistency.

>30 davidgn: Which brings up something. I originally had misremembered the second figure under the default actions as touchstoned mentions in Talk, not reviews. So, maybe mentions is missing here...

>1 timspalding: To #4: When I think of people doing interesting things with grids, the first thing that comes to mind is the Airtable/Smartsheet/Kintone crowd. But I don't have much direct insight into or experience with any of them to point to design cues (or really any at all, except with Airtable, which is probably the most relevant).

Inspiration (?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0lsyTaAuJE

Default actions:

I use (i.e., click on) the collections button most frequently, every time I finish reading a book.

I look at the member numbers and review numbers all the time, but I don't tend to actually click on them. Still, I'd be very sad if that information went away. (I also appreciate the darkening of the icon to show that I've personally reviewed a book.)

I rarely delete books that were added a while ago—books that I delete tend to be accidental duplicates that I remove immediately on the add books page—but I still think a delete button is important in general.

I almost never use the edit button because I edit directly in the catalogue.

I pretty much never go to the details pages because my catalogue already shows exactly the details that I care about.

I mostly get to work/book pages by clicking on the title, so I don't really need that button. Occasionally I use it when all my titles are blue and I don't want to make one purple, but that's a pretty ridiculous use case and not really a justification for a redundant button.

All I know about is the icons. The one that Zoe mentioned for reviews puzzled me for a while because I didn’t know why it was sometimes dark. I don’t remember how I figured it out. Now I like it.

>29 davidgn:

One note: that whole default actions column vanishes under power edit view. I wish it wouldn't. That's disorienting and irritating. If it must be modified, keep it in place and ghost actions accordingly. But please, enough with the "Hey, where'd that thing go?"

Yeah. I think I'm going to reduce the number of buttons there, but I think it makes sense to keep it and disable it during power edit. (Or PowerEdit works differently, so it's not a problem.) I was thinking that poweredit could add a fake book at the top that was totally blank--any changes to make to that, it made to everything.

I'm not entirely sure we need the number of users and reviews. Or rather, we can make them a field that's there by default, but not REQUIRED. I think it goes with the LT spirit to allow users to skip seeing how many users have and have reviewed a book. Also, as @davidgn says, the lack of a sort option there is annoying and, apparently, confusing.

>35 timspalding: Thoughts on >31 davidgn:? What do we think of adding touchstone mentions, to provide another tie into Talk?

>23 timspalding: The contact management system I use for work commits changes but does not resort or rebuild the original queried set. However, it DOES post a notice on the page that says "to see changes, please REFRESH this page", which does rebuild the set. It was added in response to many users complaining that their edits were not being accepted since they didn't immediately appear.

I just want to say thank you for caring about your user base enough to ask their opinions before taking on this huge undertaking.

I've been a member of LibraryThing for 13 years, it was the first website I actually paid to use and one of the few I still use on a continuous basis. I've tried out just about every other "Book Cataloging" site out there in the past but none has ever measured up to LibraryThing. No matter what form the redesign takes, I'll be sticking with it.

That said, Yes! the "Excel/Tabular" format is definitely a keeper in my opinion. I love being able to customize my display settings and data and sort the columns however I need at that moment. I do sometimes wish I could view User Lists in this section alongside the Awards and Honors. Also, being able to take inventory via Power Editing could be useful.

>35 timspalding: As long as we have the option to show that field in its current spot, under the mandatory icons, rather than taking up extra horizontal space when there's plenty of vertical space available right there.

>35 timspalding: If you're going to remove/toggle the review flag, then please add a flag to show if you have reviewed the book. I don't really bother with other members reviews, but it's useful to see whether you've reviewed it yourself.

As with others, I don't use the work or book buttons - I click on the book title.

One thing - would this - https://www.librarything.com/topic/288225 - be fixed as part of the redesign?

I constantly look at the member numbers and review information. I use the collections icon. For the others I would access the book or work from the title field, and edit or delete from there.

Content example:
1. You search for everything with "Tolkien" in it.
2. You see that a book is listed as being by Tolkien, but that's wrong. So you change it to "John Smith."
3. What happens now? Should it commit the edit and then vanish the book?

Yes. But it'd be fine if if didn't happen until you refreshed the page.

Sorting example:
1. You search for everything with "Tolkien" in it.
2. You sort by title.
3. You change the title of "The Hobbit" to "Zounds! It's the Hobbit"
3. What happens now? Should it resort that book off the page? Should it keep it, but when you go forward a page, the book is there?

Yes. But again, refreshing is fine, or moving it when you go forward a page (which is essentially the same thing.)

Another content question:
1. You search for everything with "Tolkien" in it.
2. You open a new tab and add another Tolkien book.
3. You go back to the first tab and go forward a page.
4. In theory, the book you added should be there, but is it okay if it's not—until you refresh?

It's okay if it's not there unless you refresh.

Regarding the default actions:
I really only use the set collections button; it's how I switch from "currently reading" to "read" and so on, which - depending on my mood and level of available reading time - could be twice a day or once a month. I've used the delete button a few times and the edit one as well, but not much. I've never clicked on either the work page one or the detail page one - I honestly thought they were links to reviews or something which I personally don't care much about. And if I want to go to the work page I'll just click on the title. The button I now see is a link to reviews I thought was a counter of how many people were talking about that book on LT.

>23 timspalding:

Content example
Commit the edit and vanish the book

Sorting example
Sorting example - on editing the title to "Zounds! It's The Hobbit" that book should go to its rightful 'new' place in the order. If there is room on the current page of X books it should move to that row, or if it needs to be on a different page then it should be on that page.

Another content question
Multiple browser sessions are always tricky.
You have 3 options as I see it.
1) On it automatically updates all catalogue views with the new book pretty much instantly as in the sorting example.
2) Put it in the right place in the catalogue and it will appear when paging - which is pretty difficult if it all fits on one page
3) Only show it on a refresh.

1) is really complex and I guess it will require more re-architecture than you want to do at this point in time.
2) has problems if the search set fits on a page.
3) is dead easy

Default Actions
On the catalogue I use the Work Page, Edit Book and occasionaly Delete. I pay attention to number of owners, and not really to number of reviews.

>20 timspalding: - Because I can't get series to sort properly I built a tag hierarchy, but then needed those tags not to interfere with my 'real' tags, so I added a prefix to cluster them out of the way. Changes in search mean I now can't easily pull up anything with those prefixes (!./ etc) that used to work. Maybe I should just convert them all to zzz or something. It would help if I could reliably spell author's names, or that the within catalogue search had some intuitive fuzzy logic.

Icons:
I use edit and and Collections frequently, also no. of members and reviews to less often. Still don't really understand the details page and don't use it.

Sets
All scenarios: I'd expect it to update when I hit enter. The last one is tricky, and in general I don't expect websites to cater for forward/back browser use. In general as long as it's consist across everywhere in the site I'll get used to how it works, but please don't have some static and some not.

>1 timspalding:
1. Do you think the Excel-like format as the DEFAULT format is still the way to go in 2019?
Yes, even as I hate Excel. At least for me, "Your books" is the interface for cataloging them, and Excel is the simplest way to do it.

2. How do you use this page?
As the landing page from which adding or modifying my books.

3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you?
I never quite understood while there are many possible different styles. I settled for one and stop. Apart from this, I find the page really usable. Ok, maybe the interface for changing collections for a book is a bit clumsy, but I can live with that.

>45 .mau.: 3. I have five different ones set up with different sets of information that I need for different purposes. A is my general purpose style, but I can easily switch if I need to see something else. D has all the dates. E has the entry information. (Another vote here for being able to name the styles.)

1. Do you think the Excel-like format as the DEFAULT format is still the way to go in 2019?

Yes. A sparser and more image-heavy view would be nice as an alternative, but as a default format: stick with the tabular format.

2. How do you use this page?
I do much of my editing in there and access work pages and the reviews from there, too. Browsing my catalogue looking for something to read. Filtering through tags and collections to narrow down subsets. I have viewing styles that let me access my catalogue for different purposes (general viewing; Helper-related stuff; reading-date oriented). Double-click to edit should not go away.

3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you?
Confusing: How the various buttons on the upper menu bar work. Collections is a drop-down, but List/Covers works as a toggle. (Incidentally, that toggle is worded confusingly; "Table / Covers" would make more sense). Next is another drop-down for tags/authors/series./etc. The viewing styles buttons are again organised as a toggle. Next are a few buttons that either directly perform a self-explanatory action (Power edit and show printable catalogue) or that open a pop-up menu which is organised as a series of drop-downs (sort). And finally, the "settings" button takes me to a different page. I have to remember which type of response goes with which button. The direct-action buttons are fine but I would like to see the toggle buttons retooled as drop-downs, with downward arrows at their right edge. Like word editing software (or Excel.)

4. Are there any tabular sites or apps you like, and which LT should learn from?

I'll have to think about this one.

Specific questions
>23 timspalding:
Content example: The book shouldn't vanish. I like to double-check after edits. Change after refresh.

Sorting example: keep the "zounds" book on the page (again, for double-checking), but move it into its right location when you go forward a page. (To me, that counts as a refresh of the query.)

Another content question: The first tab shouldn't change unless explicitly refreshed. Coming back from another LT tab doesn't count as a refresh anywhere else on LT.

Default actions: I know what all of those are and use all of them, except work page and detail page. I access those pages differently. Clicking on the title takes me to the work page anyhow. And while I don't use the delete button, I think there should be one by default.

1. Do you think the Excel-like format as the DEFAULT format is still the way to go in 2019?
I *love* the Execl-like format!!!

2. How do you use this page?
Information, information, information! It's essential to my LT experience.
I got different views with different fields (allowing me to check for example book age, dates read, covers,...)

3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you?
The "base information" is what makes sense to me. The button with "Tags" (and the other options) confuse me a bit, to be honest: I can click them to see what they do, but I tend to forget and never use.
You also asked about the buttons/symbols on the right side: I never really use those. When I want to edit a book, I either do it on the list or click the title to go to the work page.

4. Are there any tabular sites or apps you like, and which LT should learn from? LibraryThing's tabular presentation predates almost every other online version—Google Sheets came out a year later!
I can't think of any...

Question About "Sets"
I'm not bothered either way, but maybe it's better if it only changes after you hit 'refresh'.

One thing I would love to be able to do on this page is to filter multiple times. For example, I search for "fantasy", it will show all the books tagged with that; then I would like, still within that set, to search for all "signed". Unless there's a hidden way I haven't discovered yet, once I search again, it will forget the first filter.

>47 Petroglyph:

"Table / Covers" would make more sense

Interesting. I wouldn't know what "table" meant in that context. "List" makes a whole lot more sense to me!

Different strokes . . .

1. I think the Excel-like format as the default should definitely stay. I really don't know how the site would be usable otherwise, not with the amount of information that needs to be presented. I almost never use the cover view, because I do not find it to be particularly useful. Pretty, but that's not the same thing.

2. How do I use this page.... I think I probably go to it at least once every day to do something with my catalog. Browsing, record editing, and searching are my most common activities. I've customized all five of the user styles, and I switch between them regularly depending on what I am wanting to do at the time.

3. The interface in general makes sense to me, but I have been here for a long time so I don't know how much of that is "this is intuitive" and how much of it I have just learned over time. I find I am more likely to forget that certain options exist, especially the views tucked away under the "Tags" drop down. I love being able to define different view styles, but I find it frustrating that to change them I have to go to a different page. I also don't always remember which fields I have on which styles, but that's a user issue, not an interface issue.

Default Actions
I know what all the buttons/icons do, and I have used all of them at one point or another, to varying degrees. The set collections one probably gets the most use, followed by edit book (most of my edits get done from the catalog, but if I'm doing a lot of changes to a record I'll go to the edit page). I almost never use the delete button, but I think it is important to keep it. I can see the value of the work page and detail page buttons, but if one or both of them were removed I don't think it would be the end of the world. I really like having the members and reviews information right there in the catalog, and I like that the review bubble fills in if I have a review on the book. It's a nice visual that isn't too wordy.

ScarletBea (#48):

One thing I would love to be able to do on this page is to filter multiple times. For example, I search for "fantasy", it will show all the books tagged with that; then I would like, still within that set, to search for all "signed". Unless there's a hidden way I haven't discovered yet, once I search again, it will forget the first filter.

It's not hidden, but that doesn't mean you haven't discovered it! You just need to add your search criteria, rather than replacing them. So once you've searched for

tag:fantasy

instead of replacing that with

tag:signed

just search for

tag:fantasy tag:signed

to get the overlap.

Going all the way back to the questions in >1 timspalding:

1. HECK YES the spreadsheet is the way to go! (Sorry-not-sorry for the shouting.) It's only the best way to present and track large amounts of data! (although, see my answer to question 4). I suppose it would be okay to have something else be a default, as long as we could choose our defaults so people who like spreadsheets can keep the spreadsheet as a default.

2. I'm not sure I understand the question... I use it for everything: to search for books in my catalog, to quick edit an author or title or whatever, to power edit, to get to the work/book page, to literally do anything with my catalog. I don't understand how else it could work. Like, that page *is* LibraryThing. (Aside: I'm a librarian in real life and if my ILS would let me edit records like LT does, I would be SO much happier when I have to do catalog work.)

3. All of it makes sense and none of it confuses me, but I've been here 13 years and I'm not afraid to push buttons until an interface does what I want, so I'm probably the wrong person to answer this question.

4. Just Excel really. I started keeping my library catalog, reading lists, and other bookish data in Excel in the late '90s. Not sure of the exact date, but I was in 5th or 6th grade. And I was using what was functionally a hand-drawn spreadsheet before that. At this point, I'm not sure if I like spreadsheets because they best reflect how my mind processes information, or if my mind processes information best in spreadsheets because I've been using them for so long.

Also, >23 timspalding:

I really want to go with a "static sets, static sorts" arrangement. Nothing changes unless you re-ask for a set, or sort.

That is my default expectation when dealing with sets of data.

Re. the icons: I only ever use Edit and Delete. But I had to stop and think about what they all meant. I think I must have "icon face blindness" or something and very much prefer it when sites use their words. (Added bonus: If I want the xyz button and it's written in text, I can ctrl+F the page to find it. You can't ctrl+F an icon.)

>1 timspalding: Please keep the tabular style. I can't imagine what else could come close to working so well.

After checking Talk (which is my bookmark), Your Books is always the next stop. I check to see what books I've forgotten to add and what books I still need to add reading dates for. Check Series info. Rate books. Change Collections. Pretty much everything. I don't personally do a lot of editing in this screen but I love the option.

>23 timspalding: Sets: I'd like it to automatically refresh but I can see the argument against it. Not on the top of my list of wants, I guess.

Default Actions: The only one I regularly use is Collections and I think it's clunky. I really, really wish it pulled up as a list of options you could check on/off and then close rather than each time you click it only doing one action. I am most frequently changing from "Currently Reading" to "Read" and I'd love that not to take two steps.

All the other functions in that section I access in some other way. They don't bother me but they seem redundant. I like seeing the member & review count though.

>23 timspalding: Re: Default Actions

You bet I use 'em all.

On a related note, though, I think clicking a mouseover link "Social Info" on a book cover image to get to the work page is not very lucid. In general, I think the work page might benefit from a more transparent name:

LT work page
Site-wide work page

Similarly, the "details page" could be the "Your details page" or something else that makes the individual level of the data explicit.

>52 casvelyn: I'm with you on your answer to 4. I go way back with Quatro - I was a contrarian like the large pharma company I used to work for. They NEVER used anything that was related to Microsoft until the FDA forced their hand by going to Microsoft as their standard. That didn't last long based on the way Word worked so off they went to pdf land!

>36 davidgn:

Sorry, do you mean member mentions?

>37 southernbooklady:

Right.

>51 lorax: oooooh thanks so much!
That is kinda obvious, so now I'm embarassed I hadn't tried it...

>1 timspalding:

1. I don't have a strong opinion about the site default as long as I can set it so the tabular is my default. Tabular makes sense as a default to me, but that's probably because of the way I use the site. I like my data in an easily scannable format.

2. I use it to find things and update them. I have one view I use regularly and I swap out fields in the others when I want to see something different, and named views would be a beautiful thing. I'd probably use them more if I could remember which did what. As far as editing, I use the edit page to fix things right after I add a book, but I use the in-place editing on the catalog page whenever possible after that. I'll often update several books in a row from there, since they're usually not quite identical enough to use power edit, and I too would like at least all of the book-level data to be editable from the catalog page. My biggest issue with it is the way the page jumps around when I edit, which I guess is the reflowing you mentioned.

3. I've been using it for too long to be a good judge, but the dropdown that says "Tags" as an alternative to the apparently separate "List" and "Covers" is confusing enough that when I'm on the tag view, even now, I usually have to look at it for a second to realize what to click to get back to my books. I remember it taking a little while to realize I could sort on things not in my catalog view too.

4. I don't use very many other online sites with tabular interfaces, but I haven't come across any that I like better than LT's.

>23 timspalding:

Oh, please, please, please don't make it redo the search just because I changed something. Please don't make it move results around just because I changed something. I like that it updates the content itself (i.e. if I change the title, the new title shows for that record) but changing the actual results displayed makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of where you are, what you just did, and what you meant to do next. I've used things that do that and I really, really, really don't like them.

As for the icons, I use edit and the collection changing one, and very rarely the others. I like having the user-count on the view, but I don't care if it's always there. I'd choose to have it on my main view if it were an option that showed like it does now and didn't take up any extra horizontal space, but I wouldn't have it as a separate column if it did. I use it mostly as a cue for checking the edition combinations for items that don't auto-combine well.

>48 ScarletBea:
>51 lorax:

I'd like a ui-based advanced search that has all of the searchable prefixes in it, complete with and/or/not and grouping and date ranges (or at least greater/less-than, assuming grouping) and selectable options for the fields that have them (like the cover-source ones). And I would like my pony to have wings too, please :)

>56 timspalding: Correct. a.k.a. touchstones in talk. Similarly, a tip-off to any current "conversations about" the book might be of interest. (Should be relatively rare, as most books don't have their own Talk threads). I imagine a little flag-type indicator or something, though thought should be put into that.

>59 davidgn:

I'm dubious.

Looking at the "Conversations" link on the main book page, what I see are mostly "mentions", not actual conversations. I really do not want to see, in my catalog, the 3573 alleged "conversations" about Pride and Prejudice, which are almost entirely nothing more than inclusions in a list of what someone has read/is reading/plans to read.

>60 lilithcat: I was thinking something more like the "Conversations/Mentions" numbers at right, near the top. Just the numbers with a link. And if that's really objectionable, maybe an option to turn it off.

>61 davidgn:

Right, I get that. And if these were actual, substantive conversations, it would be a different matter. It would be something I might actually use. But I have no interest in a number that links to a zillion posts in challenge groups.

>61 davidgn: I don't particularly object to seeing it, but I do object to having it take up space. Not a problem for those with big screens, for whom it could be another column option, but I don't see it as a default. And Tim said he wants to reduce the number of buttons there.

>62 lilithcat: Well, what about the 7 "Conversations"? A lot of those are in challenges groups, too, but not all. And some of those that are do seem to include substantive conversations.

Maybe these do make better sense as a column option, though -- either separately or combined.

>64 davidgn: If I click on the 7 I just get talk. If I click on the 3574 I find only 1 about topic listed, and that is from 2015.

My two cents:

1. I'm very much in favor of the table-view as default. However, I think it would be nice to have a setting for this, perhaps one that folks could choose on sign-up as to whether they'd prefer a table view or a more pared-down, visual layout, similar to the view I think would do well on the mobile app. LT is dense, and that can be a turn-off and seem daunting to new users.

2. Aside from my staff duties, this is the page I use most on all of LT, primarily for my own cataloging purposes. It's where I do the bulk of my edits. I use the section mentioned in >23 timspalding: in cleaning up my library—if I know I've got a popular book, but it's only showing 2 or 3 other members in that little icon, maybe there's some combining I need to do.

3. The table makes sense to me. The placement of the Settings button makes sense, but by and large, the rest of the menu bar/menus does not. There's a lot that's hidden—my biggest pet peeve here is the already-covered Tags, Inventory, etc. drop-down. It defaults to whatever option you used last, but if you never use "Tags" you have no reason to even think about clicking on that.

4. I've got a few examples for you, though I'm angry that iTunes is going away, and that Apple has for years gradually made it harder and harder to see that simple, spreadsheet-like view. So, IMDB has a simple, compact view for lists, like this one: https://www.imdb.com/search/title?groups=top_250&sort=user_rating,desc&v.... Booklikes has this option, too, but it's pretty ugly (screenshot here).

I use all the icons, the edit pencil the most and the review bubble the least.

I would love static search (I'm tired and I don't want to re-read everything, but pretty sure that's what you called it). More than a few times I've done something like needing to delete a tag and then replace it, but I've done it in the wrong order and lost the records before I did the new one.

(Yes, I know I could go to the tag page and edit a tag so it will be globally changed, but I don't always want to change every instance.)

I have changed all the styles so many times over so many years I don't even know what the default columns look like.

What makes me nuts is different behaviors from different columns. Looking at my catalog right now, the Comments column wraps text a lot sooner than the Private Comments column. I find it visually awful as it often makes the height of the row annoyingly high. Or hanging too low. Hard to know how to phrase it.

Also, could we PLEASE have a column which shows date last edited? Right now I put it in Private comments, but obviously that column is not sortable, not with all the other stuff I put in it.

Also also, could the inventory dot show when it was last inventoried? I tend to do inventory in batches, by bookcase or box, not the whole thing at once. There's stuff I haven't properly inventoried since my last move; it would be nice to see by the date that it might not be current. Right now I try to put the date in Private Comments, but it's easy to forget.

1. The spreadsheet view is essential to the site. I don't know that it needs to be the default (and in particular, I'd be okay with some other format being chooseable as the default for visitors to your library) but it still needs to be the foundation.

2. I use it for 90% of what I do on the site (other than adding books and wasting time with talk. And even with adding books, I usually go to that view to edit/correct newly added books almost immediately.) I do all kinds of sorts and filters, power edit everything that can be power edited, and use tags edited through catalog view to do everything from reorganizing my library to planning a trip. I almost never edit in any other view unless I can't do it in catalog view, because having other records showing to compare it to is extremely helpful.

3. Good: The table itself makes sense to me. The collection dropdown and the list covers/toggle is pretty good. Power edit, when it works, is good and intuitive.

Confusing: The collection dropdown doesn't always behave very well (I have a moderate number of collections, and often the one I need isn't on the screen, but scrolling to make it visible moves the dropdown, and the cycle continues.)

The tags/etc. dropdown as stated above. The way it works doesn't make a lot of sense, nor does the reason those particular options are grouped together there. A lot of them are also somewhat confusing to use in terms of the way they interact with the catalog view, and/or slightly buggy.

Of the ones I use, MDS is great but kind of a confusing mishmash of old numbers and updated numbers and blanks - it probably need either reset to the original or somebody giving it a full going-over. Also, how you get moved in and out of it isn't super clear, and a lot of seemingly well-formed Dewey numbers give errors when you click on them.

Inventory is great and useful and the way it's currently implemented feels super tacked-on and badly integrated, and switching back and forth between inventory and standard catalog is a mess.

I love that we can set multiple style options, and I have never once accurately remembered which style is which. Also it's non-intuitive that the settings for those are several buttons down from the actual style options, and I always forget I need to press save after editing styles, since I'd have to scroll to see the save button.

All the things that are sortable under sort option should be sortable as columns. All the things that can be set as columns should be sortable. All the things should be able to be set as columns.

Everything that is editable (or, at least, nearly everything - maybe not covers) should be power-editable. It's such an important part of what makes this site more usable than others and it should be foundational.

Printable is not very printable. It should probably be a PDF export option or something instead.

Settings is all display styles settings, and should be near them and specify it's about display styles. Also see above about the save button.

Search is tbh not very intuitive, especially when searching for multi-word phrases and using Booleans. Also, all the searchable fields should be options in the searchable fields dropdown (for example, collections are searchable, but afaik *only* when you're searching all fields. Why?) It should be much clearer which fields are included in the all fields search, too.

All columns should be sortable. It makes no sense that we can sort by edition date but not original publication date, for example. Even something like, say, covers, ought to be sortable even if all it does is group blank covers together.

All possible catalog view filters should be accessible from the catalog view somehow - i.e., the various things like cover source and collection overlaps that are currently only accessible via stats/memes - even if it's only via a dropdown that collects them all together. It's really confusing that there are lots of catalog filters that you get to from links elsewhere on the site but can't use to filter the catalog from catalog view.

If I click through - say, to change a cover - and then back-button to catalog view, it should take me back to the entry I clicked from, not to the top of the page.

In general, things should grey out/be marked inactive when unusable instead of disappearing.

>23 timspalding:

Sets: Whatever it is, it needs to be consistent.
Specifically, it needs to work with the fact that there's often lag in indexing; i.e., if I power-edit to add tags to 75 books, and five minutes later those books still aren't showing up when I filter on the tag, it needs to be intuitive that it's because of indexing lag and not filtering behavior.

Other than that, I think >37 southernbooklady: is the correct choice.

Default actions: I use the collections, but would rather just have it as an editable field in the spreadsheet. Especially since the dropdown menu isn't always well-behaved. I occasionally but not often use the pencil, more often click through from title. I nearly always go to work pages to delete, because I want to double-extra-confirm. I use the member list, but would also prefer it as a sortable field (I know you *can* sort by it, but it's super unintuitive all around), and didn't even realized you could click through for a list until this thread. I never use the mentions (or is it reviews?) I use the first two so rarely I can never remember which is which, and nearly always just click through the title when I need those pages.

I should say I almost never use this page but I think it is essential that it stay in the the same basic format.

>66 lorannen: I like the style of both your examples, though I actually think the Booklikes one is quite nice (and not ugly).

I thought of somethings else I'd like regarding series. As it is now, if you choose to have CK series as a column, the info you get is the series name (as it is in CK) and the series number - in the same column (numer in paranthesis). I'd like for the series to be a separate column from the series number (and please let me edit them because some of the CK series names are insane). I take part in challenges and it's not unusual for a challenge be along the lines of "read the 6th book in a series", which would be easier if you could sort by series number.

>66 lorannen:
LT is dense, and that can be a turn-off and seem daunting to new users.

I've seen this, or variations of this, several times in these redesign threads, and I absolutely don't agree. It might be "daunting" for some people, but not necessarily new users, who might actually come to LT looking specifically for the dense, data-heavy, detailed cataloguing features that it has.
So I don't think there should be a "easy version" when you start, that progresses to more, but rather have the choice (if that's the way we're following) from day 1 of joining.

>74 PawsforThought: Please, no. CK should not be edited except in CK on the work page. And changing the series name on one book just messes the whole series up.

>74 PawsforThought: I didn't mean for it to be editable on LT as a whole but in my own catalog. Just like titles are.

Series isn't in your catalog - it's Common Knowledge and shared with all other users.

>78 r.orrison: It's available as a column in the catalogue, though, and since it is, it'd be nice to be able to actually use it. And if it was possible to edit (not for all of LT, just for yourself) it'd be usable. Right now, the CK series is useless to me. I'd love to be able to sort my author and series, but I can't do that when the CK series is as messy as it is.

>79 PawsforThought:

But how should that work. Work->Series is a 1 to many mapping. Take for example Rimrunners.
The series it belongs to are The Company Wars (5), Alliance-Union Universe (5), The Company Wars: Publishing order (3), Alliance-Union Universe: Publishing order (23)
How do you sort that? Just alphabetic so the very first series in the list is where it appears? Because if so you are opening yourself up to confusion as other books in the series might not be entered in the same order.

How would other CK sourced fields like Important People/Characters and Awards/Honors be sorted?

>80 andyl: I never mentioned other CK fields. I don't care about other CK fields. I care about series, and I'd like an editable column with series.
Since it'd be editable, you could choose which series you want it to belong to. And I guess if you chose not to make any changes it'd go by alphabet. I fail to see how that would make anythign confusing.

>81 PawsforThought: Not sure how that works. If, per CK, a work belongs to multiple series, you want to be able to pick just one series that YOU think it belongs to to be displayed in your catalog? And if you don't pick, it should just display what happens to be the first one in alphabetical order?

Probably technically feasible, if that's what you want, but not trivial. And I'm not convinced it's even a good idea as stated. But have I restated your thoughts correctly?

>82 davidgn: Yes, that's pretty much how I want it to be. I'm sure it wouldn't be an easy thing to fix, but it'd be useful for those of us who care about series.

Many people who want their own series information use tags for it. Then it doesn't interfere with anyone else, and they aren't bothered by other people's series.

CK is designed to be edited by everyone to be used by everyone. I like being able to get a list of all the books in a series, whether or not I own them. Oh, look, she's published a new one I haven't read yet!

>84 MarthaJeanne: I know, I do too because I have no other choice, but it's a terrible system and doesn't work the same way as a series column.

melannen (#70):

Of the ones I use, MDS is great but kind of a confusing mishmash of old numbers and updated numbers and blanks - it probably need either reset to the original or somebody giving it a full going-over. Also, how you get moved in and out of it isn't super clear, and a lot of seemingly well-formed Dewey numbers give errors when you click on them.


MDS is, of course, catalog-level data. You're free to go over your own and do whatever you want, but to "reset" everyone's would be counter to the fundamental "user level is sacred" principle of LT, and I for one would scream to the rooftops if anyone reset mine after I carefully checked everything (since back in the early days I didn't know how bad Amazon data was, and even now I sometimes use it for e-books).

1. I struggle to imagine what a non-tabular interface would be like, so maybe I'm not qualified to have an opinion on this. Do you (Tim) have an example of what an alternative could be like?

2. I mostly use it for (a) checking and if applicable correcting newly added books, and (b) for searching.

3. Most of it makes sense, though some parts I hardly ever use. I'm not sure what the "covers" view is supposed to be for.

I'd probably use the styles more if one could, as per paradoxosalpha's suggestion, name them. As it is, I use the A style the vast majority of the time, and the rest of the time I hack one of the other ones for some specific purpose, which I then forget what it was supposed to be good for, so the next time I need something similar I reinvent the wheel again.

4. Not really. The only similar thing I use is BoardGameGeek's, and I can't offhand think of any advantages of theirs over LT's.

Re: Sets, I would expect sorting and filtering to update only on refresh. If I searched for Tolkien, re-attributed The Silmarillion to Joe Biden, and it disappeared from view I'd be scared I'd somehow deleted it outright.

Re: Default Actions, I regularly use the Edit, Members, and Review ones, and occasionally the Delete ones. The rest I never use and didn't recall what they do before reading this thread. Conversations and Mentions do sound like things that would make sense here.

(While >60 lilithcat: is right that the list of Mentions is almost totally useless for books like Pride and Prejudice, in practice I mostly use the feature for books that have single digit numbers of mentions.)

>86 lorax: What I was referring to wasn't the user-level Dewey data, but the MDS cataloging info subject headers that appear at the top of the page when Your Books is in MDS mode - sorry, that was unclear. I have made my catalog dewey numebrs do exactly what I want and would also kick and scream, no worries!

But if you use the MDS mode to filter your catalog (which I also do fairly often now that I have fixed all my catalog-level data) the fact that the MDS mode (site-wide) info is half stuff from the public-domain Dewey that was preloaded into it and half updated and a lot of the lower-level categories are blanks when they shouldn't be becomes extremely clear and extremely confusing.

For example: IIRC, in the 942s, it appears the region-level numbers were updated, but the county-level ones one layer down weren't, so they're extremely confusing and contradictory and match nobody's actual call numbers. There's a lot of other places where things like that have happened, or now-offensive DDS subject names are still in place, or (especially in the lower levels, three or four decimals in) things are just blank where they shouldn't be.

AFAIK site-level Melville is not currently crowdsource-editable by the average users or I would be attempting to go in and fix at least some of the worst of those.

Also, clicking on a Dewey number in your catalog silently swaps you into MDS mode, which is kind of confusing if MDS is really a completely separate mode, and also that there's some kind of bug that means a lot of Dewey numbers give a "not an MDS number" error when clicked on even though they show up just fine under MDS mode filters.

So in terms of "things on Your Books that are confusing or unclear", MDS mode is on my list, even though I actually find the navigation really useful and go into it fairly often in my current shelving project. And I love that my Dewey numbers are user-editable and don't effect site-level data.

(Also, it's unfortunately one of the most accessible and completely free versions of the system available on the web: speaking of screaming, I had to talk library co-workers out of trying to use it as an authoritative system for fixing our local call numbers because it was the most complete version they could find on the web that wasn't clearly marked as the 1922 one. O.o )

Oh. So you're referring to the text *labels*, rather than the actual *numbers*? Gotcha.

>89 lorax:

Yes. I think there's an actual official jargon name for the category names that go with the numbers but I can't think of it this hour of the morning and I'm too lazy to look it up, but those.

I'd like to see the Print Catalogue function be made more user-friendly. Get rid of that green-print frame that gives no useful info but takes up too much room on the printout.

The sort arrows -- more than just two sorts please. 4 or 5?

And expand power edit function.

>1 timspalding:

2. I use it for specific collections to see what was added most recently. What were the last books I acquired (My Library)? What were the books I most recently added to my TBR pile (To Read)? What books have I borrowed and not yet returned (Borrowed). I also use a view with the Review field pretty frequently to consult my earlier reviews for a specific author, series, or subject matter (tag search). I used to use it to check cover images for accuracy, but I've been in a pretty satisfied place with that task for a long time. I often update tags in this page.

>88 melannen: Just to note: MDS is, in fact, freely editable by all (as are Dewmoji). The MDS announcement was here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/96986

>66 lorannen: I used Booklikes for about 3 years and I really liked their setup. I'd be fine with something like that here.

Other than that, I don't spend enough time here. I add my books, review them and check out the few people who don't have a blog. So any changes will just get a shoulder shrug, probably a holler or two as I figure out the new "thing" and then I'll keep going on...

Okay, here's one. Either fix the 150- and 200-per-page views or get rid of them. They're broken and unusable, last I checked (though that was years ago). They look okay at first, so tried to use them early on, but I soon thought the better of it as they breaks down under actual working conditions. I think I've seen this lamented in Talk since, and I don't recall any announcement of the problem being fixed. Maybe I'll go give it another test drive just to be sure, but pretty sure these are still anti-features.

>93 davidgn: ...I had never realized I could do that.

That thread is just making me more confused, though, because it states fairly strongly that we need to leave the divisions as-is from 1922 and just update the wording, and that's definitely not what's going on in places.

>95 davidgn: What was broken on it? I've been using the 200-item view forever; now I'm wondering if stuff I thought was broken about Your Books is actually just broken on that view.

>96 melannen: Obviously subsequent MDS editors didn't find/read the thread (or just did their own thing anyway).

As for the 200-view, I don't remember exactly, but things got weird fast. I guess I'll have to go back in and test when I get a chance.

>95 davidgn:. The 200 view is the only one I use. Give me an example of what the problem is that breaks under use. . .nothing has jumped out at me.

>98 ulmannc: Problems discovered during heavy power editing, moving a lot of titles about (having to do with awards work, which I used to do via batch-imports of ISBNs where possible, i.e. when published). I don't really have a test case to re-generate all the specifics, but right off the bat, switching to power edit mode changes to a 100-per-page view. And as I recall, subsequent interactions went badly as the system seemed to become confused, and somehow half in 100-per-page and half in 200-per-page.

> 97 So now I'm left wondering if I should be going through and fixing things back, or silently continuing the useful work even if it's technically illegal. :P So I guess I still think that MDS needs *some* kind of centralized help for its inconsistency, anyway!

>100 melannen: Ah. I re-read that. Actually, in many cases merely updating "wording" from the 1922 is not very useful at all because entire swathes have been re-arranged and re-purposed. So, updating to current use is more useful. I think merely "updating the wording" mostly refers to an initially-envisioned limited-scope project of getting the first three digits in working order. The amount of work done on lower levels was a useful product of user exuberance and really changed the parameters of the exercise. So, go be useful at will, but just don't duplicate the later OCLC-copyrighted wordings.

I'm throwing my responses into the pile before looking at what everyone else is saying.

1. Yes. I don't care what iTunes does, except that my knee-jerk reaction is yell about using Apple as a role model.

2. In the catalog page, I search, sort, edit, and admire my books. Despite the search field and links to my collections and Tags page from Home, I usually start any action that involves more than one book from Your Books.

3. The alphabetical options for page views don't make sense to me. I'd rather change the fields as I need them than manage multiple views. Power Edit wasn't intuitive but has been my favorite feature (outside of the app) since figuring it out. A glitchy part of edits is how a tag suggestion will hang, blocking the next row's tagf field, when it's not selected; that should stop happening.

4. Newer isn't always (or even typically) better in IT. Google Sheets is less functional than Microsoft Excel. What I'd really like is to use my keyboard more and mouse less, because keyboard shortcuts save time.

Lots of interesting stuff above.

I agree about inventory. That's something I hadn't thought about yet.

Ditto printable versions. That's a hard problem, but more might be possible now, in 2019.

I'd really like the "catalog view" edits to do the same thing as the "edit book" edits. Once in a while I have some content in my reviews where just opening them in catalog view edit and saving it changes the contents. I.e. multiple spaces turn into just one space. html entities are shown as the interpreted version and when saved &lt; turn into < and mess up the rest of the entry.
So when you redo the code please make sure that editing works on the original entered text and not on whatever the browser chose to display. "Edit book" does the right thing (almost). Current "catalog view" edit is broken.

Another quirk is the length of the search field. On the "Home" page I can't enter this search term

130804357 OR 130804418 OR 131038847 OR 131375016 OR 131387514 OR 131387530 OR 131591334 OR 131639554 OR 131893855 OR 131919271 OR 131930523 OR 132239433 OR 132239872 OR 132255834 OR 132256227 OR 132386123 OR 132404073 OR 133236739 OR 136157198 OR 137937842

without having it chopped off so it finds 13 books.

In "Your books" it works like a charm with "Search" and finds all 20 books as intended.

Anyway my message is: Kill off duplicate code and keep the code that works :-)

>1 timspalding: I'm only going to talk about the 2nd part of question 3 here. Perhaps I'll come back to the 1st part and other questions later.

3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you?

Thinking back to my being an LT novice, and watching how everyone I’ve trained up to catalogue items in LT has trouble with the interface:

Having the ‘search everything in LT’ field directly above the ‘search your books’ field is diabolical for everyone! The looks of confusion and horror when all that unwanted and indecipherable stuff from ‘Search everything’ comes up are entertaining. But having it happen several times has led to some people to be very frustrated, exasperated and angry.

The small red X at the far right of each row causes much confusion for newbies and much grief for me as a fixer-upper. Possibilities it implies: ‘You can move this row out of view by clicking the red X.’ ‘You can remove this annoying box of icons by clicking the red X’ ‘You can undo what you just did by…’ (Please remember that about ½ the people who have tried to learn how to use LT in our library have been had a very limited variety of computer experiences and are senior citizens.) I’ve made it a clear rule now that I’m the only one ever allowed to go anywhere near the red X. Helpers are embarrassed to have their mess attempts at cataloguing open to view until I clean them up, but my rule stands!

I have never been successful in figuring out how to use the ‘Take inventory’ thing. Whatever I try seems to disappear when I leave that option. I expected some kind of signal about the books’ status to remain visible.

Having a “do it” option (i.e. ‘take inventory’) in the drop-down menu that holds tags, authors, and other ‘show information pages’ doesn’t make sense to me. I’d move the ‘take inventory’ over to the group of buttons for ‘print’, etc.

There may be more, but that's all for now.

Blessings,
Bevianne

Having the ‘search everything in LT’ field directly above the ‘search your books’ field is diabolical for everyone! The looks of confusion and horror when all that unwanted and indecipherable stuff from ‘Search everything’ comes up are entertaining. But having it happen several times has led to some people to be very frustrated, exasperated and angry.

What do you suggest, though? I think we need the universal search at the top right. People just expect it there now.

* I suppose we could put the catalog search on the left, but I feel like that would effectively take over whatever was going on. It would be a very search-heavy experience.
* We could reduce either or both to a magnifying glass you had to click to search, but I don't think that would eliminate confusion, and it would make searching harder.
* We could have just one search box, with a drop-down for what you're searching. But I think people would screw up half the time.
* We could have one search box and two buttons, but I think that would be confusing too, and equally likely to yield screw-ups.

All in all, I think the only approach is to try to make them visually distinct and well integrated into their designs, and accept that it's a little confusing.

Other ideas appreciated.

The site search box says "Search site" when there's no text entered. Perhaps the catalog search box could say "Search your books"?

Edit: huh. I just looked at it before I wrote that, but now looking again it says "Search your library" which seems pretty clear to me.

Ok, found it: after clicking on the Your books tab, focus is in the catalog search box and it's blank. If I click elsewhere on the page it does show "Search your library". Not sure anything can be done about that.

>107 r.orrison: It does while the page loads, but then the focus is moved to the box and that text disappears. I think this worked as intended until that focus shift was added to the code.

>108 anglemark: The focus shift is welcomed (by me, anyway) and has helped reduce my inadvertantly using the wrong search field. But it doesn't work on mobile, and much of my cataloguing work is done on an iPad now, so it's stopped being useful for me.

Perhaps the catalog search box needs an old-fashioned external label instead of the in-box grey text. I know the in-box label is cleaner looking and I think it works fine on the site search, but for the catalog search an external marker might be useful to further distinguish between the two.

>106 timspalding: Why do you think having the catalogue search box on the left side would "effectively take over whatever was going" and "be a very search-heavy experience"?
Other than the boxes being on the same side and thus really confusing (it genuinely took me 5+ years on LT before I stopped confusing them and that's a learning curve that it *WAY* off), my main issue with the search catalogue is that - at least on desktop, I only use LT on desktop so don't know what it's like on mobile or in the app - the search box is in focus and thus starts recording any keystrokes I make as a search string. I use the space bar to scroll down the page (I'm trying to avoid using the mouse or trackpad because it's not good for my wrists) and it's annoying to get to the catalogue, try to scroll, realise nothing's happening, click somewhere that isn't a link and THEN scroll down.

I don't know if this will fit on the Your Books page or an individual work page, but as a list user I'd like a way to add to a list directly from either page or both. I know you don't feel lists are a priority, but I use them and would find this a time saver.

>110 PawsforThought:

Just press tab and then space, home, end etc will all work.

>106 timspalding: Having your library search on the left of the collections drop-down seems perfectly reasonable to me - at least with the current page design.

I tell you what would be useful in the style settings is the ability to set default sort orders and filters. So, for example, in the main view (style A) the sort should default to Author, then series, series order, then title. In my inventory view, I'd like author, series, series order, and then apply filters: inventory status = unmarked, tags not equal to *print, authors not equal to list of names.

>122 davidgn: Except I forget every time and press the space bar, because that's what I do on *every single other website*. And whether you're pressing tab or clicking is not the point, they're both extra steps that you shouldn't have to take. Take about making the catalogue search heavy, when the search box is in focus.

It'd be better if I could just press space bar without having to press or click anything else first.

>114 PawsforThought:

I only mentioned tab because it would allow you to do everything from the keyboard rather than touch a mouse.

>115 andyl: I understand that but it's still a step that shouldn't be necessary. If you don't want the catalogue to be search heavy, why on Earth would you make the search box in focus?

>116 PawsforThought: My recollection was that it was an attempt to mitigate people confusing the site search box with the catalog search box. It did help with that for me when I was using a desktop more. Now, not so much.

>99 davidgn: Thanks for the information. I haven't performed any power editing in years. I will be careful if I do.

>117 rosalita: Since people are bringing up how confusing the two search boxes are, I doubt that the attempt worked as intended.

Not only is the Search Site box right above the Search Your Books box but the Google Search box is right above the Search Site box. Can we get the Google box moved over to the left side of the screen?

For the Search boxes: I think a complete redesign that gives more placement options to the designer is probably the correct choice, but even just changing the buttons to say "Search your: books, tags, etc." would be an improvement. (The longer button text would also move the search box far enough left that it's not *directly* under, which would at least help with touchscreens.

>106 timspalding: Worth some thought. At the very least, can we make one of the search boxes oval/rounded?

>122 davidgn: That seems to have been changed with the last new design. The old design still has rounded search box for the site search and corners for catalogue search.

>120 Crypto-Willobie:

What Google Search box? I don't have one.

I think the tabular catalog view is essential and I very much enjoy seeing everything I want to see in a single glance in an order that I have set. I have always wished I could adjust the column widths, but I deal with that with putting worst-offender columns in a separate view. 5 saved views is sufficient, but I could certainly find a way to use more of them. I find the distance between rows to be just right, both with and without the cover showing in the loadout, and would not want any more white space.

I do as much editing as possible in the catalog, as I don't like the individual edit page. It's organized in a way that is incomprehensible to me and I have to constantly scroll back and forth to the fields I want so I only go there if I absolutely have to.

I have not come across any other catalog or list view on any site that I like nearly as much as LT's. I usually wish other sites would look like this and allow the direct double clicking in the cell.

As for the default icons on the right, I change collections with the drop down often, but only when I also have the collections column showing so I can see what I'm doing (I put the column on the right so it's as close to the icon as possible.) I occasionally use the pencil to get to the edit page in those times that it's necessary, but if I'm not actually changing anything I'm just going to click on the title. (I'm hard pressed to imagine a version of a loadout that doesn't have some form of the book's title in it.) I don't click on the number of reviews or users either, but I would rather they be left there since I prefer more data to be visible than less. The book and page icons I never use.

I do use the other views, such as cover view (sometimes for printing to a pdf and sending a visual list to someone.) Tag 'view' is necessary for me because I have lots of crazy tags that I mistype so regular maintenance is necessary. However, it's confusing because anytime you do anything other than rename a tag you pop back into the list/cover view, and then you have to go back to the tag page. I usually resort to either multiple tabs or split-screening to keep the main tag view open. I could get around this by typing queries in the search bar, but then I lose the convenience of seeing all the tags and that's not what I want when I go to the tag page.

I also use the take inventory and lending functions, but I feel those are differences in mode rather than in view so it's weird to me that they're all grouped under the same drop-down.

On the Catalogue Search

I think the CSS can be tightened up so that the input and button looks more like a proper input group. On Firefox the input looks to be slightly larger than the button and there seems to be a 1px vertical alignment difference. On Chrome the button looks slightly larger.

>124 andyl:

It's on my Firefox screen, but ne'mind, it was a joke anyway...

The search your books box: I use it a lot, and generally with good results. But it took me years to discover the “advanced search”-options (title, author &c). Would it be possible to make those excellent options more visible?
I hardly ever use the search Librarything box

Responding to the original post:

I definitely prefer the Excel-like grid design compared to the trendy thing of removing as much information from display as possible. In iTunes podcasts, for example, it is impossible to even see much of the title of an individual podcast episode, so there is no way to know what an episode is even about unless you download it. Google play uses circular photos that sometimes even crop off people's heads, "just to look cool" or whatever. These are garbage designs that reduce the communication of information for some arbitrary aesthetic that is dysfunctional.

In fact, this is one reason I actually prefer LT Catalog over Tiny Cat. Browsing is much quicker and efficient in LT Catalog view, IMHO (unless I'm "doing it wrong").

One thing I would change is to better differentiate the two search boxes in the upper right corner. Most of our club's members are only wanting to search our catalog, and it can sometimes be confusing.

So, we mainly use the Catalog page to browse for books. As Librarian, I also use it to make small edits.

I wish I could edit the Subject field. If I could, I would use it more than the Tags field, actually. I understand there could be authority issues there, though.

Thanks.

. Do you think the Excel-like format as the DEFAULT format is still the way to go in 2019? I believe so, but this is certainly not the way apps tend to be going. (iTunes has been trying to avoid the table format for years; it's now actually going away entirely!) Yes, I think so, unless I could see an example of something different. I like being able to see a list, and and all that relevant information spread out beside it.
2. How do you use this page? I use it to list out my books, browse my recent acquisitions to see if something jumps out that I want to read, edit information about each book, sort by date or rating or tag or whatever, to search, to pull mini-reports and see selections of my library.
3. What parts of the interface make sense to you? What parts confuse you? The teeny tiny buttons at the top have never seemed very useful. The only one I really ever use is the Tags button, when I have a question or want to edit a tag or see my list of tags. I feel like i use this feature a lot and it's important to me. Nothing is really confusing. The right hand column with the icons is not very useful except for deleting a book or playing with Collections. If I want to go to a Work page I'll just click on the title.
4. Are there any tabular sites or apps you like, and which LT should learn from? LibraryThing's tabular presentation predates almost every other online version—Google Sheets came out a year later! No, I can't think of anything. "Your Books" is probably what I use the most on LT because that's the heart and soul of the catalog for me.

>130 bostonbibliophile: Yes, I think so, unless I could see an example of something different. How about a nicely visualized zzstructure? ;-)

https://youtu.be/n22A-Say7do?t=315

(and see videos here: https://hackernoon.com/kaukatcr-an-experiment-in-language-design-for-multi-dimen... )

Sadly, probably still a few decades too early.

I totally use edit to change covers or to change misinformation picked up when adding a book - I can’t do a proper search of it shows an incorrect author or title. Delete is of course important when s book is no longer in my library.

Yes to the Excel format. It's what I use most. Love to be able to search and sort. Would like the option of seeing more records at once.

I'd like to be able to tell what the different styles are without having to click on them and have that change the whole screen.

Thanks.

Ditto for me on Excel!!

kimberk (#133):

I'd like to be able to tell what the different styles are without having to click on them and have that change the whole screen.

Yeah. A lot of people have suggested letting users name their styles as a way to do this (maybe just having the name be in the tooltip that appears on hover, rather than "Show Style X" as it does now), but if they're aiming toward mobile-friendly solutions, anything relying on hover is a nonstarter.

We can assign avatars to the different styles!

>136 Crypto-Willobie:

LOL

>134 ulmannc:
>135 lorax:
Our new design is addressing this. Soon.

Being able to sort by Library of Congress Classification number is key for me. I'm super nerdy and have shelved my physical books this way (tracking made possible by LT!! thanks!), so to lose this would require a huge full-library reorganization... (not to mention, a new organizing strategy)

Along with that, it would be awesome to be able to use the search feature to find a book in the list but then be able to see it in the context of my selected collection. That would make locating and re-shelving books a lot easier!

Best of luck on this endeavor, it sounds like a mammoth undertaking!!

Please, please, please.... do NOT change too much if you have to change anything. Library thing is one of my favorite websites on the whole Internet and I absolutely love how I can organize my books by tags and lists. I love the way the My Books page flows like a list in Excel. I would not like this to change. I dislike change. I have been using this site for over ten years and it would make me sad if this site ever changed so much that I couldn't use it the same way I have always been using it. Sometimes I get scared this site will erase my information and I feel like I need to copy and paste all my information in a word document or something....

My two cents.

If I could add one feature, it would be to search for books with multiple tags on the database. I believe this may actually already be possible but I'm not sure entirely how.

Mitsuyasu (#139):

Being able to sort by Library of Congress Classification number is key for me. I'm super nerdy and have shelved my physical books this way (tracking made possible by LT!! thanks!), so to lose this would require a huge full-library reorganization...

They have said, multiple times, that there will be no features removed. I don't think it's necessary at this point for everyone to point out particular features that we don't want removed.

Along with that, it would be awesome to be able to use the search feature to find a book in the list but then be able to see it in the context of my selected collection. That would make locating and re-shelving books a lot easier!

Yes!

sundancer (#141):

If I could add one feature, it would be to search for books with multiple tags on the database. I believe this may actually already be possible but I'm not sure entirely how.


In your own library, you just search for both of them.

tag:"unread" tag:"fiction" in the search box in your catalog will find exactly what it looks like.

In the site as a whole (it's unclear what you mean by "the database"), you do a tagmash. You can't directly access this any way that I'm aware of; you need to do a tag search for

fiction, unread

and then it will pop up results for tags that include both words, with a link at the top to instead do a tagmash.

1. Tabulae are handy -> sorting easy

2. my Use: Picture, Title, Author, Date, Tags, Comments, Rating, Started, Entry date, Collections. Use them all.
for editing, sorting, just looking at my books in varying conformations, to check, viewing other's libraries.

Navigation bar - works all right for me. but...:
Just discovered (after 10 years..) the lightning flash pictogram, have to discover better how i can use it.

Tim, I like to be able to see in other members' libraries if they have reviewed a book or not. that's an easier way here than to check each of their books separately. (or their list of reviews, or the reviews at the workpage).
By reviews of some other members i can distill where the book is really about and if i would like it or not.
The amount of reviews isn't that important indeed.

Adding feature: Another point about this: I would like to be able to sort the 'my-book-page on this: reviewed/not reviewed.

>23 timspalding: >58 antqueen: 'don't make it redo the search' ...'makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of where you are, what you just did, and what you meant to do next.'

I agree with >75 ScarletBea:

Thanks for the way you are doing this, preparing the change: thoughtful, thoroughly, member friendly, democratic. Curious how the new format will be like!

EMS_24 (#144):

Tim, I like to be able to see in other members' libraries if they have reviewed a book or not. that's an easier way here than to check each of their books separately. (or their list of reviews, or the reviews at the workpage).

Oh, that's a good one. It's one of those things that's possible, but only via an obscure method that nobody who isn't computer-savvy would figure out on their own.

(Search in someone's catalog for:

review: -""

which will find all the results where the review is not empty.) . You could also add the Review column to your catalog, but it's not sortable and if the person whose catalog you're viewing writes reviews of more than a couple sentences it gets unwieldy.

Tim, I like to be able to see in other members' libraries if they have reviewed a book or not. that's an easier way here than to check each of their books separately. (or their list of reviews, or the reviews at the workpage).

I'm not quite clear about where you want to see this information, but when you're looking at someone's catalogue, the review bubble on the right will be darkened if they've reviewed the book.

I almost never use the books page because I've found it way too frustrating to set up to my liking. In my opinion, it occupies the horrible middle position -- very customizable but just rigid enough that I can't quite customize it the way I want.

I will note that I like the tabular format, and I like the ability to view collections separately... but I really wish that I knew how to add "Entry Date" as a sortable category. I'm too lazy to add "Date Acquired" manually, but for recent books "Entry Date" serves a decent proxy for me. Scanning this thread, it seems that other people in this thread have figured it out ... how??? It doesn't appear as a field to add under my settings??

One thing that I also never figured out -- how is the secondary sorting field chosen? In other words, if I select "date acquired", which has no entries for any book, it appears to sort by star rating and then by ???. Is this customizable? Where?

I consider myself relatively tech-savy, but the book page has defeated me.

>145 lorax: >146 _Zoe_: right, But as Tim mentioned he would probably skip the amount of reviews i was afraid the picto of the balloon would disappear.

I will add that I wish we could sort by CK fields. That would be really convenient because it would be easier to see which CK fields need filling in!

>147 Kanarthi: "Entry Date" is under "Miscellaneous".
You can customize the secondary sort by clicking the "Sort" menu (up and down arrows, to left of Power Edit).

>150 davidgn: Ohhhhh, under Miscellaneous. I kept looking for it under Personal. Thanks for troubleshooting my confused questions!

I haven't had time to read this whole thread, I was on vacation, but I would like to add my two cents. I love the excel-like format. I like that I can pick which fields to show, and I even like having several different sets of fields to show, because using all the ones that interest me at once is too wide. I like that some fields can be edited directly from the your books page. I love the group edit feature (when it works). I use almost all of the fields that are available, at least to view what data I might still need to supply or correct. I also like sorting on lots of different fields including author, series, publication date, comments, entry date, reading finished date, physical properties, call numbers, and maybe others. I would like to sort on original publication date. (I know not all works have this data).

I'd like the collection used by the Your Books page instance to be a local value.

It's not uncommon for me to open a page for one collection, then open a page for a different collection, and then later, refresh the first page, only to have its current context blown away with an unexpected display based on the new current collection value.

Selecting a new collection from the pull down list should change only the current page's local value and the global current session value. However, the change should not be seen by other existing Your Books page instances - they should be using their own local collection value.

>147 Kanarthi: You can also sort by entry date without actually adding the column. So unless you want that to be one of the columns, just click on 'edit sort order' (the up and down arrow icon) and pick entry date

>147 Kanarthi: If you set a sort field by clicking on the column, the previous sort moves into the second position. To set a secondary sort, first sort by that field. Now click on the column you want as primary sort. That moves the one you set first to secondary sort.

Kanarthi (#147):

I really wish that I knew how to add "Entry Date" as a sortable category.

It's under "Miscellaneous", rather than "Personal", when you're choosing fields to add to your viewing styles.

When I use Librarything from my phone, I can't use the Lending box on the Your Books page- it doesn't let me double-click. I think it would be good if the revamped version was fully mobile-compatible.

It would be nice if I could sort my children's library collection on illustraror. I know right now that column is just "other authors".

I like to be able to see in other members' libraries if they have reviewed a book or not.

You can see this on the right side of the catalog, in whether the little speech bubble is filled or not.

But as Tim mentioned he would probably skip the amount of reviews i was afraid the picto of the balloon would disappear.

I'm not sure what the new area on the right will contain, although I suspect it will remain the same. But either way, we'll make it possible to see these things.

Ohhhhh, under Miscellaneous. I kept looking for it under Personal. Thanks for troubleshooting my confused questions!

Noted. Perhaps it should be in both.

It would be nice if I could sort my children's library collection on illustraror. I know right now that column is just "other authors".

Interesting problem.

>1 timspalding: I like the Excel-like build of the "Your books" page very much, also the different views (List, Covers), filtering possiblities (Collections, Tags) and the use of customizable styles.
Up until now I've never used the power-edit functionality. I once deleted one of my custom collections and transfered around 100 books from this old collection to a few newly created ones. Maybe that would have been easier to do via power-edit (a functionality I've not noticed up until now). I don't know if transfering books between collections is possible with the current feature. If not, implementing this might be helpful.
On the "Your books" page I often rate my books and assign them to collections or edit my tags (the Excel-like view is very helpful for copying tags between series). I also use this page to get an overview of my collections (especially "To read").

>160 timspalding: thanks!

>159 al.vick: & >160 timspalding: I used to get around this by going directly to the 'other' author's page and clicking the "you have X books and Y works by said author" and then clicking that to go back to my catalog. But some time ago, I think after the search was tweaked, it now only returns the primary author field, and none of the secondary hits.

(I still run into weird anomalies when doing author searches in my catalog, so I often click through from the author page itself even though it's extra clicks.)

>163 macsbrains: When I search my catalog for Michael Hague I get 7 titles, only two where he is the primary author.

When I go to the author page, it says I have 20 books and 9 works by the author. But when I click that statement, it does take me to only the two with him as primary.

So those 20 are presumably in the pile of "also by" where he has illustrated a version of The Hobbit, but I don't have that edition.

Yes, there is some confusion in the system. And a key to the color coding of the checkmarks would be nice if it were handy. I don't keep that in my head.

>164 2wonderY: . . . a key to the color coding of the checkmarks
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Checkmarks

Maybe instead of just a check mark the indicators could indicate how/where you have it cataloged -

YL = Your library
WL = Wish list
RU = Read but Unowned

etc.

>154 civitas: Seconded! This is my #1 complaint about how the catalogue currently works.

I use Your Books constantly and would be LOST without it when I am choosing books to read. It may be a cover or a title that draws me to it but I often find myself picking up a book, only to check my Your Books list to find that --I've already read it. I am NOT someone who really likes reading the same book twice--yes, even if I can't remember it although sometimes it hits me before long to see whether I looked it up incorrectly in LibraryThing---which is why I try hard to write a tiny review of each of the books I read. I love that I can immediately pull up an author or title and see when I read a book and how much I liked it.

I like the dense display. If it doesn't stay the default, please keep it (or something similar) as an option.
I also like that I can decide myself which fields I want to see and in which order.

I like the grid format of 'Your Books' and the tab format of LT (although - and I've pointed it out elsewhere - the tabs don't appear at the top of my 'Your Books' page, which does make it a bit awkward to navigate around LT); generally I'm happy with the current format but a few tweaks (since you ask) wouldn't come amiss.

Re posts >74 PawsforThought: to >85 PawsforThought:, I currently use the Book Crossing column (as suggested by other LTers) as a work-around for series numbers. While this is fine (as long as I don't become a Book Crosser), it would be nice to have a separate column to be able to sort by series number (ie the order within series). While I can sort by author, books are ordered by entry date. I use this most often on my phone when I'm in a bookshop and trying to fill the gaps in a series.

I would like to be able to set a default in my settings as to whether I want to use metric or imperial for book measurements (ie height, width etc). I prefer to use metric (while others might want to use imperial) but the default is imperial. I can change each book individually, but it's a pain. (I've brought this up elsewhere, too.)

>15 paradoxosalpha: Like. It would be nice to be able to name my views. I have different styles depending on what I want to look at. Oddly, B is the one I use most and I've maxed out the number of columns I can have in it, including cover view (because I like to see my books) but I use the others to ... um... I can't remember. Inventory is one, I think. So names would be helpful.

>23 timspalding: Of the icons, I use the collections, the edit and the review icons. I try to review every book I've read but sometimes life gets away from me. The darkened bubble is an easy way to check.

If I'm moving books between collections it would be more helpful (as someone else mentioned) if the drop down (or drop up) list didn't disappear as soon as I've clicked (or unchecked) one. It's a bit of a nuisance to open it again, scroll through again (especially if it's off the screen), find a collection again and click.

And, yes; when editing tags, could the box be closed once it's done? The list of possible tags usually covers the 'save' button so I have to go on to the next box and remember to come back to save.

>69 PhaedraB: Inventory date. Yes please.

Currently I'm trying to corral the kids' books which live in several locations but it's a stop-start process. So when we get back to it, the inventory button is useful - except when we come back again, I've either got to reset everything, if I want to check the books again, or pretend that red means the book is on the shelf. But the third, fourth, fifth time ... I've run out of colours.

>139 Mitsuyasu: Whereas I sort my (non-fiction) books by MDS :0)

So you asked, I answered. I hope it makes sense.

"If I'm moving books between collections it would be more helpful (as someone else mentioned) if the drop down (or drop up) list didn't disappear as soon as I've clicked (or unchecked) one. It's a bit of a nuisance to open it again, scroll through again (especially if it's off the screen), find a collection again and click."

Yes. This please. As much as i love the power of My Books, this non-stickiness drives me spare.

>170 humouress: The tabs show on my Your Books page. Are you using the old design?

There's also a setting in the fine print on the bottom of every page to toggle between "Top bar: Always visible" and "Top bar: Scrolls with page."

>172 PhaedraB: Ah. Yes, I'm using the old design.

Will look for the fine print.

I'd like to filter CK fields (like Original language) by whether they're from me or from the site CK.

I'd also like to be able to filter fields by whether they're filled or not.

I mostly use the "Your books" page to spot the bad/incoherent data so filtering is a must.

>174 Kuiperdolin: Sorting on a field shows you which fields aren't filled.

I know, it's still not as good as a true filter (for example you can't see how many entries with empty fields you have if it's more than the number of lines per page).

A bit late to the party as usual...

1. I like the Excel-like format as a default. I think I would use the "Covers" view more if it used popups. Lovin' them popups...

2. I use it primarily to check the "To read" list, change from "To read" to "Currently reading", and to switch off "Currently reading". I use the "Set collections" button to do that.

I typically don't use the other buttons (maybe deleted 1 book in twelve years) but I do like to see the counts as others have mentioned.

3. I'm not easily confused when it comes to user interfaces, but as per other comments, I dislike the two search boxes being so near each other.

I would suggest the "Search Your Library" box/button be relocated below the "1 - X of Y" count, and above the column headers. This gives some room to make it wider and allows the button to be renamed to "Search your library". Keep the All Fields etc. drop-down.

4. The only other tabular site I use as a rule is GMail. I like the simplicity.

I concur with other comments that the sort should be part of the Style. My preferred sort is Author then Pub date, but often like to sort by tags or ratings or whatever. It's a PITA to change back.