Exclusion searches for user categories are unreliable in Calibre 4.23

[Marja Erwin]

I created a set of user categories-- Favorite Authors and so on-- using the User Category plug-in.

@Favorite Authors:true shows every book by "Favorite Authors"

@Favorite Authors:false still shows some books by "Favorite Authors"

NOT @Favorite Authors:true also still shows some books by "Favorite Authors"

Calibre 4.23 on MacOS 10.14.6.

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Changing the component for this bug.

 assignee cbhaley
 status triaged

[Charles Haley (cbhaley)]

Does you user category have subcategories? If the user category has subcategories then @category:true and @category:false find only the items in the first level. The subcategories are ignored. If you want the category and all of its children, use @category:.true and @category:.false. Just as in hierarchical columns, the '.' tells calibre to include the children.

[Charles Haley (cbhaley)]

It works for me. Steps to test:
- create a category called "Favorite Authors"
- add two authors
- verify that @Favorite authors:true and :false return the right books.
- add a subcategory and add an author to that subcategory
- verify that @Favorite authors:true does not find books by the author in the subcategory
- verify that @Favorite authors:.true does find books by all the authors

[Marja Erwin (marja-e)]

> Does you user category have subcategories?

No.

[Marja Erwin (marja-e)]

Steps to test:

Install Plug-In. Create user category. Enable menu options to add books. Add books. Search for user category @Favorite Authors:true. See that books turn up. Search for @Favorite Authors:false. See that many of the same books still show up.

[Charles Haley (cbhaley)]

Those steps work perfectly for me. However, I might have found what it is.

If you close calibre then reopen it without touching the user categories, do the searches work?

[Marja Erwin (marja-e)]

They seem to, yes.

[Charles Haley (cbhaley)]

The User Category plugin was also fixed and released.

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Fixed in branch master. The fix will be in the next release. calibre is usually released every alternate Friday.

 status fixreleased