lepisma / Org Books

#+TITLE: org-books #+AUTHOR: Abhinav Tushar

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Reading list management using org-mode. A sample list lives on my wiki [[https://lepisma.xyz/wiki/readings/reading-list][here]].

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** Quickstart org-books is available on melpa.

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp ;; Set path to the reading list org file (setq org-books-file "~/my-list.org")

;; A basic template file can be generated using the function `org-books-create-file'. #+END_SRC

• To add books manually, use org-books-add-book function. To add from urls, call org-books-add-url (or use org-books-cliplink if url is in clipboard).

• To give ratings, go to the entry and call org-books-rate-book.

• While filing a book, org-books-file-depth tells which headings are to be considered as a category (like fiction or something).

• org-books-add-to-top (default t) tells whether to add the book at the top or bottom under the selected heading.

** Adding new source A /source/ for books provide a /details function/ that takes certain input (like a url in case of amazon) and returns a list of title, author and props. props is an alist which gets added to the entry as org properties. Here is the output from amazon's:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :exports both :results output (print (org-books-get-details-amazon "https://www.amazon.in/Algebra-Chapter-Graduate-Studies-Mathematics/dp/0821847813/")) #+END_SRC

#+RESULTS: : ("Algebra: Chapter 0 (Graduate Studies in Mathematics)" "Paolo Aluffi" (("AMAZON" . "https://www.amazon.in/Algebra-Chapter-Graduate-Studies-Mathematics/dp/0821847813/")))

With the details function defined, you need to write the url pattern it accepts and add it to the variable =org-books-url-pattern-dispatches=. Check variable's docstring for more details.

As of now there are the following sources:

• Manual (input: title, author etc.)
• Amazon (input: url)
• Goodreads (input: url)
• Openlibrary (input: url)
• ISBN (input: ISBN, dispatches openlibrary url source)

** Using org-capture For a more flexible setup, you might just want to use org-capture, possibly with a little help from functions present in this package. Directly using capture gives you much more flexibility over the structure and organization of entries. Here we describe a few capture /templates/ that can be used:

*** Manual entry

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (setq org-capture-templates '(("b" "Book" entry (file "some-file.org") "* %^{TITLE}\n:PROPERTIES:\n:ADDED: %<[%Y-%02m-%02d]>\n:END:%^{AUTHOR}p\n%?" :empty-lines 1))) #+END_SRC

*** Using url from clipboard

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (setq org-capture-templates '(("b" "Book" entry (file "some-file.org") "%(let* ((url (substring-no-properties (current-kill 0))) (details (org-books-get-details url))) (when details (apply #'org-books-format 1 details)))"))) #+END_SRC