Chapter 8. Questions and Answers

Author names should be separated by a semi-colon, like so: Brian W. Kernighan; Dennis M. Ritchie. Don't include the word "and" or anything similar, even if you have 20 authors. If you have the auto-format option checked, then the last name will automatically be shown first for each author.

Other properties which allow multiple values, like "genre" and "keywords", are entered in the same way, with a semi-colon (;) separating each value.

Yes, most certainly. Find the file tellico-printing.xsl which should be in the $KDEDIR/share/apps/tellico/ directory. You can copy that to $KDEHOME/share/apps/tellico/ for personal modifications. You'll have to know XSLT, but modifying that file is how you change the printing layout. HTML is generated from the file, and the easiest way to change the appearance of the printout is to modify the CSS in the top portion.

Be aware that the tellico-printing.xsl references another file, tellico-common.xsl, that contains some common XSLT templates. If you copy tellico-printing.xsl to $KDEHOME, you must either modify the <xsl:import> element to point to the actual location of the tellico-common.xsl file or copy the common file as well.

To allow grouping by a field which doesn't allow grouping by default, check the "Allow Grouping" box for that particular field in the "Collection Fields" dialog.

Stuff like:

Tellico::updateCollectionToolBar
GroupView::setGroupAttribute - author
GroupView::slotAddCollection
QCheckBox::property( "title" ) failed: property invalid
or does not exist

is debug info. At compile time, this can be stopped by compiling with the --disable-debug flag. You might also want to use --enable-final, too, which takes a bit more memory when compiling, but is more efficient when running the application.

The last message is slightly different, it just means your Qt™ installation was compiled with some debugging information.

Or, if Tellico is already installed, run kdebugdialog and make sure that "0 (generic)" is unchecked. That turns off debug messages from all generic KDE apps i.e. those not distributed officially by KDE.

Right-click on the header bar. You can also drag the headers to re-order the columns, and click on them to sort by that field.

Internally, the checkbox fields in Tellico are saved as "true", so if you'd like to filter to show only the science fiction books which you've not read, for example, then you have two rules. Make sure the "Match all of the following" button is checked. Set the first rule to have "Genre" "contains" "Science Fiction" (no quotes) and the second rule to have "Read" "does not contain" "true" (no quotes).

Also, the quick filter in the toolbar will match any field, and if there is a non-word character, the text is interpreted as a regular expression. So if you quickly want to filter your books to show those by Weber or Bujold, then type "weber|bujold" (no quotes) in the toolbar.

Entry templates should be saved in $KDEHOME/share/apps/tellico/entry-templates/ for access for a single user or $KDEDIR/share/apps/tellico/entry-templates/ for access by everyone. Templates in $KDEHOME will override any files by the same name in $KDEDIRS. The entry templates can be set on a per collection-type basis in the settings dialog.

Templates for the Report Dialog are saved in $KDEHOME/share/apps/tellico/report-templates/.

KDE programs look for data in the locations defined in the $KDEDIRS environmental variable. If you install in /usr/local for example, but $KDEDIRS is empty or just /usr, then Tellico won't be able to find the files it needs. This is particularly true for SuSE®, for which you should compile with --prefix=/opt/kde3. Alternatively, you could add a line to your .profile file to set $KDEDIRS. Check the documentation for your shell.

Tellico uses the bibtex property to know how to export bibtex fields. If you want to add additional fields to export, such as an abstract, open up the Collection Fields Dialog, and click the Set Properties button. Add a bibtex property with value abstract. Then, when you export to bibtex or bibtexml, that property will be used for the bibtex field name.

Due to a trademark conflict, Bookcase was renamed Tellico in September 2004. Tellico 0.12 was then released, which was identical to Bookcase 0.11, except for the name change.

I thought about several other names, a few of which were connected with book collections. However, Tellico can handle more than just books, and besides, this is a hobby, so I chose a neat-sounding (to me) name, one taken from a town close to where I grew up.

The terms of agreement for accessing the Amazon.com Web Services require all images pulled from the service to be linked back to Amazon.com, as well as an additional link. The Amazon.com associate's ID is necessarily included, so any referral payments are duly collected.

Part of the reason I started Tellico was to learn C++. I didn't know SQL at the time, and at the moment, I only have a faint knowledge of how to use it. Simply put, Tellico didn't start out as a relational database, and that won't change until sometime in the future when I get around to learning SQL and have the time and motivation to change the data model. If that bothers you, well, don't use Tellico then.

Of course, anyone is welcome to make any changes they want to with the source code.