Page 1 of 1

Distinguish between ISBN and text for adding items

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:33 pm
by Beiju
I like to be as picky as possible about which version of a book I put in my Bookpedia database, and usually scan via the iSight or, if that fails, type in the ISBN. Since this is almost always accurate, I like to leave “Add first search result immediately” checked in the preferences. However, on the rare occasions when the book doesn't have an ISBN (usually a very old one my father passed down to me or one of a stack of uncorrected proofs a friend got me at a convention), I have to type the name in by hand and often the first result is the wrong one. My solution as of now is to keep the preferences window open when I'm scanning a bunch of books, but this is far from ideal.

Seeing as the iSight appears to populate the search box with the ISBN, and not go off looking on its own, this seems like a simple thing to detect, and fairly simple to add separate preferences for both scenarios.

Here's the part where I compliment Bookpedia, and the greatest praise I can think of is that even though I tried to switch to Delicious Library 2 when a corrupted hard drive lost me my library, I ended up fighting it so often I decided to switch back to Bookpedia after only one day. Thanks for a great application.

Re: Distinguish between ISBN and text for adding items

Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:21 am
by Conor
It would be an interesting preference to only add the first search result when doing ISBN searches, but I think one that would confuse. It's better to keep preferences simple to a yes and no question and not one that involves an if. Do not worry we have thought about these things and do have a solution, check the preference for first results and then when you want to choose the result hold down the option key as you press the search button, it will override the preference for that single search (no need to keep the preference window open).

Thank you for the compliment and we are glad to have you back, we are not the jealous type.