Books On Track discussion

Hello everyone!

As those of you who have received the group message know, the Books On Track website (aka https://booksontrack.net) was officially launched today!

It has been a long journey till here and I've been working non-stop for many months now, so I will let you explore the site and leave your comments and impressions below, while I go get some much needed rest.

Thank you all again for your patience until now.

Enjoy the site!

Yay!!!! Well done you!

I'll be checking it out tomorrow as its going on 2am here :D

Question, I know I submitted a few series/authors that were missing during testing. Any idea when they will be added? Do you need "librarians" that will help add these things? I'd be happy to volunteer for that job :)

Thank you so much!! well done! is there a way to hide series you've dropped from the "My series" page?

Lady Salford wrote: "Thank you so much!! well done! is there a way to hide series you've dropped from the "My series" page?"

Did you drop them or remove them? I removed some series that I don't want to follow anymore and they are not in My Series anymore.

Congrats Thenia! 🤩 🥳🤩

I look forward to more books being added to flesh out my series on the site, but we have been without FF for ages now so a little longer to wait will not hurt me!

Thanks for working so hard and learning new skills to do this, I just hope that you haven't burnt out in the process, especially having had to move (countries!) in the midst of it all.

This is so great Thenia.

You are absolutely a rock star! Thank you so much for all of your had work!!!

YAY!!!
Fantastic!!
Congratulations,
and a million thank yous!

Exclamation marks are wholly inadequate indicators of the appreciation and excitement I wish to express.
It's been hard to get back into my printed matter groove since FF went down, and then our city libraries went dark in the spring. AND my hard drive with my lists hard-failed (clean-room recovery required!) I have been subsiding on online short stories for far too long now.

Finally, now our libraries are Open(!!) to reserve and drive-by pick-up our books, and our angel Thenia has restored our ability to get back on Track with all of our series and authors.
First browse was a joy - great layout, super-clear.
I can't wait to get my list loaded and see what new books I've missed.

Crafting a single-user system for this is hard enough; multi-user, amazing; multi-user web-based? Genius. Not to mention Patient, Creative, Generous,..
Thank you Thenia.
I hope every visitor/registrant uses the Donate tab.
Often.
:)
Best wishes -
- g

Thank you, Thenia! You are an absolute treasure :) and the website is awesome!

Thank you! I love seeing my series laid out again. I really appreciate all the hard work I know you've put into the site.

Yay! What's the URL?

Ann wrote: "Yay! What's the URL?"

https://www.booksontrack.net/calendar...

Well done, congratulations

I sent a message about this through the web site, but apparently the site doesn't like my FictFact file or I'm doing something wrong. I went right after I got the email about it going live and joined and uploaded the "FictFact.csv" file I have. It's been hours and I still don't have any books looking as though they are there.

Thank you for the kind words, everyone! I'm glad you like the site. :)

I will look into answering any questions I missed later, since I have to run now, but I wanted to let you all know that I updated the import process to accept FictFact export files as well. (Please read the instructions before you do!)

I've also added an FAQ section with some of the most frequently asked questions so far, which you can find here: FAQ.

D'oh. My apologies for the really dumb question about the URL ... not sure why I never saw it in the OP of this thread. My bad!

Site looks great ... will have to explore.

A comment/question: I took my fictfact data file and massaged it into something useful with excel. And have expanded it since with multiple sheets in the spreadsheet, etc. Wondering if there'll be a way to upload something like that? I'd have to simplify it back into a single sheet, of course, but that's not hard. I'm not sure I kept my original fictfact data file. :(

If not, no worries. It's not like I don't have time to re-enter stuff. :)

It looks good Thenia.

I probably won't add my exported file as it was too huge & unweildly, so I've just entered a few series & authors I want to keep track of. I'll add to them when more authors/series are added :)

Great work!!!!!

Thenia, congratulations!! Well done, and thank you so much for this labor of love. I'm thrilled it's live - you did it! Even with all the moving, pandemic, etc. :D I'm so thankful to have this tool at my fingertips.

So ... I have my fictfact data file that I downloaded when they closed. Tried to upload it and got a message about incompatible format or something. And to use the GR csv file.

My question: how do I find that? It's probably obvious and I missed it ... but I've just been all over the GR site and I'm not finding it.

Ann wrote: "So ... I have my fictfact data file that I downloaded when they closed. Tried to upload it and got a message about incompatible format or something. And to use the GR csv file.

My question: how d..."

Hi Ann. I don't know how it would be done on a mobile device, but if you're on a computer, scroll down to the bottom of your shelves (on the left) and you'll see Tools. Choose "Import/Export" to get to the csv file. :)

I'm curious as to what the GR csv file will do. For example I have a lot of books listed as to read that aren't series. Will that mess up something?

Has anyone tried importing their GR csv? Does that load all of their series even if those series aren't on the bot site yet?

I had the same error message Ann did when I tried to upload my fictfact file. I uploaded my goodreads one and it was very fast. Considering I have a pretty large goodreads library. But of course I have a lot of shelves I created, exclusive and so on and I don't necessary keep my want to read in the actual "want to read" shelf. So I am sure that messed things up. I have to go through and see and just clean up. Just not in the mood for that right now.
It lists 283 series and adnd 620 books. So that gives me something to start. I have no clue how close to my actual series this number is until I go through one by one. Not have the brain for that today eeeek.

I did take a quick peek and see series I know and have started and seems to be on track for those at least.

I will be so very happy and thankful if this all works out as I really missed tracking my series. So far it looks very intuitive and familiar on the tracking side of it.

Awesome job and I hope it will grow and grow.

Ann wrote: "A comment/question: I took my fictfact data file and massaged it into something useful with excel. And have expanded it since with multiple sheets in the spreadsheet, etc. Wondering if there'll be a way to upload something like that?"

If you kept the same formatting, same column names and information, then the csv should come through. Give it a try and let me know!

Sheila wrote: "I'm curious as to what the GR csv file will do. For example I have a lot of books listed as to read that aren't series. Will that mess up something?

Has anyone tried importing their GR csv? Does that load all of their series even if those series aren't on the bot site yet?"

If the books in your csv are not in the BoT database then they just won't be added Sheila, they won't mess up anything. They will just be added to a background table that I will process to find series that are not yet on the site that I need to add.

The only issue with a big GR csv is that it might take a bit of time to load.

Atunah wrote: "I have a lot of shelves I created, exclusive and so on and I don't necessary keep my want to read in the actual "want to read" shelf.."

Try to edit your csv file according to the instructions before the import page so that more of your series with a different Exclusive Shelf can be captured as well.

All you need to do is filter your csv in Excel/Google Sheets/other spreadsheet software by the Exclusive Shelf options you used that mean books to-read/read/dropped and just rename those entries to one of the acceptable values and try importing your csv again. It should be able to capture more of your data that way, without you having to manually enter all of them.

Lady Salford wrote: "Thank you so much!! well done! is there a way to hide series you've dropped from the "My series" page?"

You can't hide just one status at this time, but you can filter the Status column by Following to only see series you have started and not yet completed. (Following doesn't include series you haven't started - for those you need to filter by Not Started.)

Hope that helps!

Teri Pre wrote: "Ann wrote: "So ... I have my fictfact data file that I downloaded when they closed. Tried to upload it and got a message about incompatible format or something. And to use the GR csv file.

My que..."

Thanks, Teri .... someone else also explained it to me and I'll give that a try. :)

Thenia wrote: "Ann wrote: "A comment/question: I took my fictfact data file and massaged it into something useful with excel. And have expanded it since with multiple sheets in the spreadsheet, etc. Wondering if ..."

Thenia, I'd kept the original fictfact file pristine. Made a copy and that's the one I'd played with. I tried uploading the original and got the error message mentioned earlier.

Ann wrote: "Thenia wrote: "Ann wrote: "A comment/question: I took my fictfact data file and massaged it into something useful with excel. And have expanded it since with multiple sheets in the spreadsheet, etc..."

Did you remove the spaces from the column names? My original file had random spaces for some of them and they mess up the process.

Thenia, I didn't do anything to it .... I'll have to take a closer look. Thanks.

Thanks Thenia. Fiddling with such files is way above my skill though. I can't even open the files properly. Ann had to fix my fict fact so I could even print it out to have a record of some sorts. I kept a copy of the original though which was the one I tried uploading and didn't work.
I don't have excel, just open office and its all jumbled when I try to open those csv files. I can't figure out how to operate that stuff.

I can't even barely make spreadsheets for myself. They are very basic and its why I depend on online sites to keep track of my reading. Only other option for me is writing in my notebook. But the search function there leaves a lot to be desired :)

I'll just start with what I have now, fix up what I need fix and go forward from there. I am just happy to have a way to track again so for that thank you so very much.

This is amazing, you don't know how much I missed using Fictfact, so glad I had exported my file before it shut down. I did have a minor problem trying to upload and realised my file extension was xlsx once I resaved it as a csv it worked perfectly.
A few of my series are missing but I've waited this long I can be patient.
I will add my missing series to the suggestion area.
Once again Thank you for all your hard work really appreciated.

Sandra wrote: "It looks good Thenia.

I probably won't add my exported file as it was too huge & unweildly, so I've just entered a few series & authors I want to keep track of. I'll add to them when more authors..."

Well done, Thenia! Thanks for all your hard work creating a FF replacement for everyone!

I've been debating whether or not to import my library or do like you're doing, Sandra. Nice and clean sounds real nice, but I'm feeling kinda lazy so I'll probably just upload and deal with clean up later. 🤔🤓

I uploaded my data but think I don’t want 100 series when only have 30 still active reading.
Is there a way to wipe my account and start anew?

I don't have a way to edit a csv file. Apparently none of it is acceptable to the site OR it's somehow SO large that it's taking days to import. it's been 3 days now and none of it shows up.

Shane wrote: "I uploaded my data but think I don’t want 100 series when only have 30 still active reading.
Is there a way to wipe my account and start anew?"

I'm sure Thenia can comment on the wiping aspect (I'm not sure) but if they are already loaded you can "Remove" the series that you want to get rid of.

Shane wrote: "I uploaded my data but think I don’t want 100 series when only have 30 still active reading.
Is there a way to wipe my account and start anew?"

Shane, I just added a 'Clear your data' button that deletes all of your books and series.

Jwb52z wrote: "I don't have a way to edit a csv file. Apparently none of it is acceptable to the site OR it's somehow SO large that it's taking days to import. it's been 3 days now and none of it shows up."

You can edit a csv file with any Excel, Google sheets, or open source software like Open Office and Libre Office, or even using an online spreadsheet editor.

The import takes a few minutes to import at the most. Which csv are you trying to import? Your Goodreads export csv or your FictFact? What exactly happens when you try to import? Does it look like it's loading or do you immediately get a notification that it failed? If so, what does the notification say?

As I am working through the series that are uploaded, I noticed a lot of authors I read are not found when searching. Nor did the series get uploaded of course. As I expect the database still needs to grow. I see there is a box to put something in that is missing, but its a lot of authors and a lot of books. What is the easiest way to do that. Just put down all the authors names? Or is it better to just be patient until the authors will eventually appear.

Thanks again :)

Atunah wrote: "As I am working through the series that are uploaded, I noticed a lot of authors I read are not found when searching. Nor did the series get uploaded of course. As I expect the database still needs..."

If the data that's missing was in the file you imported, then they have already been added to a table for me to process and add to the database, so you don't have to do anything else.

It might take a bit of time, but everything will be added to the site eventually. :)

Thanks, Thenia ... that's good to know because I had the same concern as Atunah. :)

Having played with the site during the beta, the best way I found to keep everything going is to complete the uploads for all of your series and then in the "My Series" tab move the ones you don't want to track to "Dropped" and then only the "Active" series will show on the "Next Book" tab. If you remove a series it will remove all of the books in the series from your read list. I discovered this when working with books that are part of several series (eg Malazan) or reading orders that I only wanted to track the one I am using.

Thenia wrote: "Atunah wrote: "As I am working through the series that are uploaded, I noticed a lot of authors I read are not found when searching. Nor did the series get uploaded of course. As I expect the datab..."
Awesome thanks Thenia. Yes, those authors should have been all in the "read" shelf on goodreads as those are the series I am going through right now one by one. I will patiently wait and I have send you a donation as I think you need a bottle of wine, or whatever your pleasure juice is after all the work you did :)

Thenia wrote: "Shane wrote: "I uploaded my data but think I don’t want 100 series when only have 30 still active reading.
Is there a way to wipe my account and start anew?"

Shane, I just added a 'Clear your dat..."

Awesome!

Thenia wrote: "You can edit a csv file with any Excel, Google sheets, or open source software like Open Office and Libre Office, or even using an online spreadsheet editor.

The import takes a few minutes to import at the most. Which csv are you trying to import? Your Goodreads export csv or your FictFact? What exactly happens when you try to import? Does it look like it's loading or do you immediately get a notification that it failed? If so, what does the notification say?"

I upload the file, the FictFact.csv file, and nothing happens, at all. It's like I never did anything. The screen never changes after the wheel stops spinning.

Thenia wrote: Try to edit your csv file according to the in..."

I just registered today. The site looks great! Kudos, Thenia!

I would love to import my csv. I can't find an "import page" as mentioned above, or instructions to import. From the main Books on Track web page, how do I navigate to the import instructions?

Thanks!
Avid Series Reader

Update -- I just found it. In case anyone else wonders.... click on the link to your profile. The instructions to import are on the "My Profile" page (scroll down).

Atunah wrote: "I have send you a donation as I think you need a bottle of wine, or whatever your pleasure juice is after all the work you did :)"

Thank you for the donation - it is very much appreciated (encouraged even)! :)

Jwb52z wrote: "Thenia wrote: "You can edit a csv file with any Excel, Google sheets, or open source software like Open Office and Libre Office, or even using an online spreadsheet editor.

The import takes a few ..."

So after you select the file you want to import and click on the import button you see the circle loading but the page never refreshes and no message appears at the top right of your screen? Your book/series count doesn't change?

How do I export my goodreads library to import it to the website