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Working with Bookpedia
On selected entries
On collections
Tips & Tricks

On your iPhone / iPad
Pocketpedia

Working on Collections



Print a collection

The printing feature offers three different choices: simple text lists, cover images or templates. Printing is based on the collection you have selected but if you only want to print a few entries, you can either filter the collection with an internal search (through the search field in the toolbar) or create a new collection with those entries to be printed.
For yet more printout options, take a look at the Export feature and especially the HTML templates. They are fully customizable and can be printed using your browser's print command. The following describes how to open and save a customized print template. More details on the editing process can be found in the customizing templates section.

To edit one of the printing templates, ctrl-click (right-click) the Bookpedia icon and choose 'Show package contents'. Then navigate to Contents/Resources/Templates/. You'll see all the printing templates are prefixed with 'Printing' in the title to distinguish them from the export templates. Open the template you want to customize with a good text editor. (If you're using Text Edit, make sure you use the 'Open' command and tell it to 'Ignore Rich Text commands' so that it'll open the file as a simple text file.)

Once you're done editing your template, create a new folder titled 'Templates' inside your Bookpedia data folder (by default the Bookpedia data folder is located in your Home folder under ~/Library/Application Support/Bookpedia) and place your template in there. Otherwise it'll be overwritten the next time you download an update for Bookpedia. It's also a good idea to name your template something different so you know it's a template you customized. Just remember to keep the 'Printing' prefix so that it'll show up in the printing feature.

Export a collection

There are several different formats available for exporting your Bookpedia collection. Most of these are found under the File menu > Export Collection.
Those formats based on templates (HTML and text) are fully customizable so you can edit any of the existing templates or write your own from scratch. For more information on how to do that, take a look at the HTML section or further down at customizing templates.

.bookpedia

The .bookpedia format exports your data in XML format and includes the cover images. It's great for sending a collection to friends with Macs, so they can view it using Bookpedia. (They don't need a licensed copy to view your collection. The free trial of the program will do.)

A smaller version of this would be a .bcard file. To create a .bcard, select one or more entries in the list view and drag them out to your Desktop.

Backup

The backup command creates a copy of your Bookpedia data folder, which includes everything from the data file to the covers folder and any personalized templates or plug-ins you might have, and compresses it into a .zip file to save space. For extra security, move this .zip file to a different location such as an external hard drive.

If you ever need to restore your database from a backup, make sure Bookpedia is not running, unzip the .zip file by double-clicking it and then move the Bookpedia folder into the default location (~/Library/Application Support/). Then restart Bookpedia.
If you're on Lion, it hides the Library folder by default so to go to your Bookpedia data folder you have to use the Finder's 'Go' menu, hold down the Option key and the Library folder will appear.

HTML

The HTML export lets you to choose from various HTML templates. Once exported, the files can then be uploaded to a webpage or printed out. There are also special iPhone templates that are optimized to be viewed on your iPhone. You recognize them by their title. All the templates are fully customizable so you can change them to fit your needs or write your own from scratch.

Some templates come with a default setting for the best output. If you change those settings, a little warning triangle will appear in the export window. If you mouse over the triangle, it'll let you know why you're getting the warning. (The template will still export with the changed settings but it might loose some of its functionality.)

To export a collection using an HTML template,
Tip: If you don't want to see a preview of the export open automatically in Safari, hold down the Option key while pressing 'Save'. That'll suppress the preview action.

If you would like to edit an HTML template to include different fields or have a different layout, More about customizing templates

FTP

To export and upload your collection using FTP, the procedure is similar to the regular HTML export:
If you have done an FTP export before, you can choose to do an update of the site to save uploading time.
NOTE: Since one FTP server can be very different from the next, the program might not be able to connect to yours. If that is the case, do a regular HTML export and use Transmit or a similar FTP application for the upload.

iPod

This export option is for the classic iPod only, the one with the click wheel at the front. If you have an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad please take a look at this section instead: iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.


There are two different types of iPod templates: those with 'sorted' in the title use whatever column you have your collection sorted by as the value for the collection. For example, if you sort your collection by Genre, you'd have different subgroups in your export like 'Fiction', 'Non-Fiction', etc.

If you choose a template that has 'alphabetical' in the title, it'll be sorted alphabetically by whatever column you sort the collection by. For example, if you choose Genre as your sorting value, you would get all the Genres with A (like Fiction and Fantasy) together on one page. This would also apply if you sort the collection by Title, so you'd get all the A's, B's, etc. on one page.

If the program tells you that no iPod is connected even though it is, go into the iTunes Preferences and under the iPod tab, make sure you have selected "Manually manage music and videos". The iPod needs to be connected while you do this. (Remember to manually eject the iPod each time you disconnect as long as you have this preference enabled.)

The iPod has a 1000 note limit, so if you are going to export collections with over 1000 entries you need to use a template which will list all the entries in a single note per letter and sort your collection alphabetically. But note that the iPod also has a 4k limit per note, so watch out if you're going to include the summary or have more than 130 or so entries per letter. Another option is to export collections that are less than a 1000 together or use a third-party software that will help you split exports to the iPod.

Text

The text format provides three different options for export: tab delimited, comma delimited (CSV) or text format (.rtf, .xml or.txt). The tab and comma delimited formats are 'what you see is what you get' meaning they will export the columns showing in your list view and in that order. For the text templates you can choose a template from the drop-down menu or write your own. (Take a look at the HTML section above for more information about editing templates.)

To export a collection in tab or comma delimited format,
To export a collection with a text template,
iWeb

The iWeb export is not part of the regular export feature in Bookpedia because it works a little differently. To send a selection of entries to iWeb, you have to do the following:

Customizing templates

The template export is geared primarily towards HTML but templates can be any ASCII file. You can use XML templates, .txt, .rtf or .php.

The following paragraphs explain the basic building blocks of a template but if you have never done anything like this before, have a look at these pages for more information on getting started: How to change an export template (for the most basic approach) and Creating a template (for a little more in-depth information). Also have a look at our Extras page where you can download templates written by other users. If you create a template and wish to share it with others, please send it to support@bruji.com and we'll put it up on the Extras page.

Building blocks of an HTML template

Start by opening one of the existing HTML templates for editing: use the Export feature in Bookpedia, choose the HTML tab, select the template you want and press the Edit button. The program will automatically copy the template into the program's Templates folder (by default this is located in your Home folder under ~/Library/Application Support/Bookpedia) and prefix it with 'My' so that you will know it's a template you edited. For example, if you choose to edit the Silver template, the program will automatically create a template named 'MySilver' and show it in the Finder. Open that template with your prefered text editing program and you can get started. (If you're using Text Edit, make sure you use the 'Open' command and tell it to 'Ignore Rich Text commands' so that it'll open the file as a simple text file.)

The HTML templates that come with the program are all set up very similar. There is always a <head></head> and a <body></body> part. The head part defines the structure of the template (the how) while the body part adds the information (the what). The most important part of the body are the tags. They represent the fields of the program and you can arrange them pretty much any which way you want. To change a tag, simply replace one that's already present in the template with the one you want. For example:

<span class="head">Title:</span> <span class="text">[key:title]</span>
could become
<span class="head">Summary:</span> <span class="text">[key:summary]</span>

Fields you can have in a template

Template fields are designed to be HTML comments. That way they won't be seen on a webpage when there is no data to fill them. They consist of the format: [key:name]. The fields are pretty self explanatory and are the following:

[key:askingPrice]
[key:author]
[key:awards]
[key:borrowedBy]
[key:borrowedOn]
[key:buyerAddress]
[key:buyerEmail]
[key:buyerName]
[key:characters]
[key:children]
[key:collectionID]
[key:colorist]
[key:comments]
[key:condition]
[key:coverArtist]
[key:creator]
[key:custom1]
[key:custom2]
...
[key:custom10]
[key:customTag1]
[key:customTag2]
[key:customText1]
[key:customText2]

[key:customDate1]
[key:customDate2]
[key:customCheckbox1]
[key:customCheckbox2]
[key:dateAdded]
[key:dewey]
[key:dimensions]
[key:dueDate]
[key:edition]
[key:editor]
[key:format]
[key:genre]
[key:gift]
[key:hasBeenSold]
[key:illustrator]
[key:inker]
[key:isbn]
[key:issue]
[key:language]
[key:lastRead]
[key:letterer]
[key:lcc]
[key:penciller]
[key:price]
[key:location]
[key:marketPrice]

[key:myRating]
[key:notes]
[key:onSale]
[key:originalTitle]
[key:pageMark]
[key:pages]
[key:paid]
[key:placedForSaleAt]
[key:placePublished]
[key:publisher]
[key:purchasedAt]
[key:purchasedOn]
[key:rating]
[key:releaseDate]
[key:series]
[key:signed]
[key:soldOn]
[key:soldPrice]
[key:subjects]
[key:summary]
[key:tags]
[key:title]
[key:translator]
[key:url]
[key:volume]




Special Tags

[key:genericField] will automatically include all fields containing information in the export. No need to write out all the tags listed above, the [key:genericField] tag will do it for you automatically. This is especially useful for the Details templates.

If you want to use the [key:genericField] tag but exclude a particular field, use the [exclude:] tag. (So for example if you want to exclude your comments from the export, add the (uncommented) tag <!--[exclude:comments]-->.)

[key:coverImageURL] is a link to the cover image if you select to export images. Place it where the image link would go. For example: <img src="[key:coverImageURL]" width="100" height="140">.

[key:coverImageURLHeight] returns cover image height to use in <height> tag

[key:coverImageURLWidth] returns cover image width to use in <width> tag

[key:myRating] can be used in conjunction with an image to display the rating. The tag should be displayed as follows: src="Images/yourImageName[key:myRating].png" where [key:myRating] corresponds to the number of stars the entry has. Since the program uses a half-star rating system, this means you need stars numbering from 0-10, 10.png being 5 stars. (for example, a 3 star rating would correspond to the image yourImageName6.png). You must include the .png images in the "Images" folder for your template, see inserting images below. Feel free to re-use the stars from the templates included or make your own.

[key:incrementalNumber] creates a number that increments with each entry exported.

[key:month] - This tag will display the release month of a book (especially for the EndNote and BibTex export templates).

[key:year] -This tag will display the release year of a book (especially for the EndNote and BibTex export templates).

[global:sortedBy] - Shows which column the exported collection was sorted by.

[global:totalEntries] - Shows the total number of entries in the export.

[global:pageNumber] - Shows the page number if there is more then page in the export.

[global:totalNumberOfPages] - the total number of pages created by the export

[global:myEmail] - The "me" address book entry email

[global:myFirstName] - The "me" address book entry first name

[global:myLastName] - The "me" address book entry last name

[global:collectionName] - Shows the name of the collection.

[global:previousPageURL] - Link to the previous page of the export.

[global:nextPageURL] - Link to the next page of the export.

If you would like the Next and Previous buttons to disappear when there is no next or previous page, use the following IF statements wrapped around the [global:previousPageURL] and [global:nextPageURL] tags. Example: <!--IF_PREVIOUS_PAGE [previous page stuff here] END_PREVIOUS_PAGE--><!--IF_NEXT_PAGE [next page stuff here] END_NEXT_PAGE-->

IF statements can be used on any of the other tags as well. For example if you only want the comments title to show when there are comments to display, add this: <!--IFcomments Comments: [key:comments]ENDcomments--><

If you want to share your template with other Pedia users via the Extras page, please consider translating your field titles. You can do this easily by replacing the title with a tag of this format: [translate:...]
For example, [translate:comments] would turn the title 'Comments' into 'Kommentare' for our German users, 'Commentaires' for our French users, etc.

[global:letter] Shows the letter the collection is sorted by.

[global:dateUpdated] Shows the date the page was exported.

[global:totalBorrowed] - Number of entries currently in the Borrowed collection

[global:totalWanted] - Number of entries currently in the Wish List collection

[global:totalPrice] - Total value of the database as calculated from the 'Price' field

[global:totalPaid] - Total amount paid for the database as calculated from the 'Paid' field

[link:url] is the tag for the URL of a link, as listed in the Links tab of the Edit window.

[link:name] is the tag for the name of the link, as listed in the Links tab of the Edit window.

The [link:...] tags need to be enclosed by the tags [linksBegin] and [linksEnd]

You must also include two mandatory tags of "<!--BeginRepeat-->" and "<!--EndRepeat-->". This is the part of the file that gets duplicated for each book. Even if you're creating a file that will have only one entry you must include these tags. If you want the whole file to repeat, place them at the beginning and end of the file. These tags are necessary in non-html files as well.

Meta Tags

Although it is best to leave the options up to the user, there might be times when you want to override them with your template, for example when adding a details page or when certain settings simply make your template look better. To override the set option you have to add meta tags to the header of your HTML template. These are the options:



What do I do with images?

If your template includes images, such as background, a next button or just generally pretty pictures, place a folder with those images into the folder named "Images" in Templates and name the folder the same as your template but with Images at the end.
For example, the images for a template named "Hello.html" would be in a folder named "HelloImages" inside Templates/Images. All images must be referenced in the html as Images/imageName. If using a web design program it's best to use a folder named "Images" in the same root as your html and then rename it on installation. For a more detailed understanding, browse the already installed templates and try to mimic those.

How do I install my template?

Place your .html file into the program's external template folder, by default located in your Home folder under ~/Library/Application Support/Bookpedia/Templates. After that you will see the template in the drop-down menu of the export window.
Make sure you name the template something other than the original name of the template since the program otherwise won't recognize that there is a new template but will keep using the original one from inside the application.

For modifying or creating details view templates, take a look at the Details View section.

Find duplicates

The 'Duplicates' command found under the View menu helps you find duplicate entries in your Library and collections.


Search your collections

Use the search field in the toolbar to quickly locate entries in your Library or collections. Command-Option-F is the keyboard shortcut to get the cursor into the search field.


Use Spotlight for searches

Using Spotlight for searches in your Bookpedia database means you don't even have to run the program to find a particular entry.




Sorting a collection

In the list view you can arrange your entries alphabetically, ascending or descending, by any of the displayed columns.


The statistics

The statistics are a fun and insightful way to learn more about your collections, such as which genre you have the most or the least entries of, which entry is the most popular to be borrowed or how many 5 star entries you have.

You can access the statistics by clicking on the 'Statistics' button in the toolbar or choosing 'Statistics' from the View menu. To include a link to the statistics in an HTML export template, include the link <a href="statistics.html">Statistics</a> in the template.

You can modify the statistics by changing the color scheme (read more about that in this blog post) and even the order of sorting, eg. chronological vs count. For more information about that, please take a look at this forum post.