New Features: Charts and Graphs is released! part 2

Continuing discussion to a new thread. Check out some of the recently added graphs under Books -> Reading Dates!

Responding to https://www.librarything.com/topic/334487#7587903 I wish there were an option to look at the data itself, not prepackaged visualizations of the data.

and

https://www.librarything.com/topic/334487#7587907 You can view the data in tabular form by clicking on the chart; a popup will open with the chart and the data displayed in a table.

But the graphs are still huge.

On top of which, if I do that with, for example, "dead or alive" authors, it just gives me the numbers. I want to see the actual list of dead/alive authors, as we used to. Same with gender.

Why can we not have the option to hide the graphs and charts?

>2 lilithcat: You can see the list of authors by going to the appropriate page under Authors on the side navigation (Dead or Alive or Gender).

ETA: But now you can also click through and see the books in your catalog that fall into those categories too!

>3 knerd.knitter:

1. The graph takes up the entire screen on my desk top, which is why I want to hide it. I have no use for graphs or charts.

2. That's not as easy to work with as a simple list.

Any chance to add "Part 2" or something to the title of this thread? Otherwise it is very confusing in the lists...

>4 lilithcat: As I said, you can still see the list of authors on the Author -> Gender or Author -> Dead or Alive pages; it's just not on the overview.

>6 knerd.knitter: I don't want to speak for people, but I think some of the complains is that it is no longer a one click to see everything situation. It's two or more clicks, and they aren't liking the change.

Did not comment right away because I wanted to try using this for a bit first.

It represents a lot of work on the part of you guys and it looks pretty.

I feel curmudgeonly saying that the extra loading time is a downside for me. Is there going to be a "how to navigate graphs & charts" feature, please. Clicking on a category to search inside, waiting a dialup length of time for it to load images, realising it doesn't hold the subcategory wanted, clicking out, going through the palaver over several main folders.. this is frustrating. Personally, the stats I checked most compulsively were male/female authors (nicely findable) number of books purchased in aug 2021, july 2021, june etc (is it there? Or should we get the number by fiddling with the "your books over time" chart?) and, what I miss but can't find, where did you get that book, amazon xthousand, chain bookstore, xthousand, oxfam xhundred. The latter 2 are probably in there somewhere but I cannot see them.

I appreciate that the site needs to entice members. As a text nor visuals person am probably non representative.

>8 nessreader: I found the From Where graph, hidden under Books -> Cataloging, about 3/4 of the way down the page. It's a big round graph, that when clicked then opens with the long stat list.

>8 nessreader: You can get to the Entry Date chart under Books -> Cataloging, and that's also where the From Where chart is. You can also filter by entry dates now, by clicking on Custom in the bar at the top and then putting in a year for Added In.

>9 gilroy:.
>10 knerd.knitter:
Thank you both so much! I was slightly obsessed with those 2 and grumpy that I couldn't find them.

Love it. Love it all. I am like a kid with a new toy.

>6 knerd.knitter:

I am seeing big multi-colored circles on those pages that take up the entire screen and it's really annoying.

I do not understand why LT has chosen to make it so difficult to find and edit information when it was so easy to do that previously.

If we could simply hide the graphs, it would make life a lot easier.

sub

>13 lilithcat: I can't really figure out what you mean. I look at those pages and see a colored circle that takes up about 5% of the broswser window. Or are you looking at a phone?

>15 anglemark: Well, I don't know what lilithcat's setup looks like, but I know that on my screen the circle graphs do take up enough space in the browser window that I have to scroll down before I see the data in list format. So the lists are "below the fold", as it were, while the visual graphs are getting front and center space. I suppose it can be mildly annoying to have to scroll down past the graph, but I've already gotten used to it myself.

>16 shadrach_anki: I think there are two separate views that get mixed:
- The overview pages look good on a big screen (a few graphs one after the other) on the same line where applicable.
- Opening the details pages indeed takes most/all of the screen for the graphic before you get to the table with the data at the bottom even on a big screen.

>15 anglemark: On a details page? They are well sized on the overview pages but the details ones? Those things are huge even on my laptop screen.

>17 AnnieMod: Yes, unless you mean the popout extreme detail, but there are no author names there, so I assume that's not what you mean. This is what it looks like for me:



I have a larger than average display, but I can't see how that circle can take up the entire screen on a smaller display. Of course, I have never owned a small laptop, so I have a hard time imagining what it looks like on that. Perhaps I and the developers use significantly larger displays than most LT members?

>18 anglemark: The pop out/extreme details pages have tables though - the Dead or Alive has the number of dead/alive which you can click on to show you the books in your library from that group. And some of the others have pretty extensive tables (per month and per language and so on) which are searchable and are easy to use for fixes - except you need to scroll to get to them. :)

I have to acknowledge that I have a large(r than normal) cell screen, so take this screen shot with a small pinch of salt:



I can see someone with a smaller screen only seeing the graph and not understanding the need to scroll up to see the grid beneath. Honestly, it's not 100% intuitive. But then more than half of LT is not intuitive.

>20 gilroy: "But then more than half of LT is not intuitive"

So you like more than half of it less than half as well as it deserves? Or is it the other way around?

>15 anglemark:

I'm on a desktop.

>21 bnielsen: None of the above.

>18 anglemark:

On my desktop, I see only the graph. In order to see the text, I have to scroll down. At first, I didn't even realize it was there.

>21 bnielsen: Hobbitsssesss!!!

An example of my standard view of the page (desktop computer, Chrome browser. My laptop in Firefox behaves similarly):



As you can see, the lists are below the fold. But in my case, at least, so is the bottom of the circle graph, so that gave a second visual clue that I needed to scroll, beyond the scroll bar on the right of the window.

Is there a way to track visits to my library? And perhaps also how long people stick around looking at our holdings? We're a non-lending library, so I can't measure usage or interest by books checked out or requested.

>26 shadrach_anki: I see even less than that on a regularly sized laptop on this screen - about 40% of the circle is under the fold. I do not expect it to look nice on a phone but on a desktop, it just makes no sense.

>27 pcahc:

By "visits to my library" do you mean views of your catalog? Or are you looking for something like a digital guestbook for in-person patrons? (FWIW I don't see a ready solution for either.)

>27 pcahc: You might look at the TinyCat view - LT itself doesn't care much about people coming to look at a catalog, but TinyCat is all about visitors/borrowers. I don't know if it has the stats you're looking for (or any stats, really) but it's a more likely section.

>27 pcahc: Some people have put maps on their profiles that track visits. Of course that would be visits to the profile. I have no idea where they get the maps from.

I am once again asking you to remember that I come to this site for words, not pictures. The graphs do take a noticeable time to load. Here's a screenshot on my laptop:

https://www.librarything.com/pic/8538608

Due to popular demand, we have added a "Text Only" mode to the Charts & Graphs pages that will simply display the tabular data that was already showing in the popup directly on the screen. Try it out!

>33 knerd.knitter:

Thank you! With whipped cream and a cherry on top!

>33 knerd.knitter: I love that if you hover Text Only, it says "Remove Joy"
When in Text Only, hover over and it says "Add Joy"

>33 knerd.knitter: Thank you so much. It is faster and I'm not into pictures except every so often!

>33 knerd.knitter: Thank you so much. It runs faster and most of the time the numbers tell me what I want to know.

Posted here. https://www.librarything.com/topic/334830

<3

It seems the 'overview' text is now clickable as well as icon. I was meaning to ask for this but I have received it in any case. Much appreciated.

>40 tallpaul: Not sure where that text is you're referring to.

>35 gilroy: LOL! That's hilarious!

>29 paradoxosalpha: Views, or visits to the catalog. Traffic, in short. And yes, it would be traffic on the TC version that I'm interested. Apologies on not having been more specific.

https://www.librarything.com/stats/Avron/physical is currently showing the correct units for height and volume, but the wrong units for weight (although me having deleted all data for the relevant books may have impacted that).

The comparison table is showing the correct values with the wrong units.

https://www.librarything.com/pic/8558876

>44 Avron: The boxes at the top are randomly selected from the numbers at the bottom of the screen. The How Tall is Your Book Stack? table issue was a bug; thank you for finding it. The fix should be out in a few minutes.

>46 anglemark: I LOL'ed.

Maybe this should be an RSI, but I'll put it here for the mo. Could you guys add totals to the charts, please? I've been doing my own spreadsheets and charts for my year of reading wrap ups and I might not have to keep separate a spreadsheet if this new feature captures the data I want to track.

Examples - Your chart



Chart from my spreadsheet -



I'm not too fussy about where the totals are put, so long as they are readable.

You can see the counts on the tabular view which you can access by clicking on the chart itself (or using Text Only mode will just display the tables)

I know I can see them in a list on the bottom if that's what you mean. Also that mouseing over shows the count, but I'd like the totals on the chart itself as in my example.

TLDNR: Can you use a different map projection for the countries graph?

I've been waiting for the world view graph for so long, and am so pleased to finally have it, that it seems churlish to ask if a tweak can be made, but here it is anyway...

The map is in Mercator protection, which distorts the relative size of countries, making those at the equator appear smaller than they actually are in comparison to those countries nearer the poles. As Mercator produced his map to aid ocean-going navigation, and as it seems unlikely any LT users are relying on it for that purpose, I wonder if a map with a projection that more closely represents the true size-relationships of countries (e.g., Philips) might be used.

One vote for the Dymaxion one-world-island-in-one-world-ocean map!

>52 paradoxosalpha:

Aesthetically it would complement the new charts & graphs, too.

Currently, they use Mercator on narrow screens and plate carrée on wider ones, which makes some sense in terms of efficient use of screen space.

>52 paradoxosalpha: Ahh - an animated graphic that would unfold it different ways from an icosahedron!!

There's something weird with cover view graphs on my collections.

Most egregious is the {TV / Movie} collection
Book Covers graph at the bottom of the page. No Cover currently at 11, Amazon-provided at 9 (both numbers subject to change in the next few days as I continue updating records). There should be more than 300 total across whatever categories are present (most are actually custom uploads from members).
Other collections have issues with the total count as well but not as obviously wrong.

Overall I love this! I can see several areas where I need to improve my data, mostly for titles that I entered way back when.

Not fond of the "loading screens", where colors are moving on the screen. It would be better to just display "loading . . ." in gray font, or something.

How often is this data updated? I add original publication date in the Common Knowledge for my books, but the total number of books with No Date does not decrease.

>58 rgurskey: Depends on which data - this specific part of it seems to have issues and either never updates or updates rarely. :)

To: kristilabrie, knerd.knitter, timspalding
Same with gender, dead or alive, nationality, etc. in LT.com and LT.de

>60 birder4106: Sorry, what's your question exactly? I'm not sure which post (if any) you're referring to. Thanks!

>60 birder4106: gender generally updates immediately on .com, but is not recognized from .de.

Can't find any examples right now, so this may have been fixed.

>61 kristilabrie:: I was refering to >58 rgurskey: and >59 AnnieMod:.

And I just saw in :
LT.de (https://www.librarything.de/stats/birder4106/overview) and
LT.com (https://www.librarything.com/stats/birder4106/overview), Fiction vs. Nonfiction, Not set=114.
But: More than 100 had already been set. The rest I just have been set. They still appear as unset.
???

>62 MarthaJeanne: Thank you MarthaJeanne. In that point I was wrong. There were just two autors without gender information. Both are set now.
But for me it is still a bug if information is not being transfered (or at least shown) from LT.com to LT.de (or: .fr, .it, .se, .at, .au ...) and vice versa.

>63 birder4106: Okay, thanks! I'll alert the developers about this question, and let them know an answer is needed.

Yes, it's a bug, but a known issue. Several of us jumped in to help someone get his authors recognized some time back.

MarthaJeanne:

"Known issues" to members are, sadly, not always "known issues" to staff.

>63 birder4106: At the moment, Fiction vs. Nonfiction only looks for the "Supergenre" fields "Fiction and Literature" and "Nonfiction"; none of the other genres are considered. Even though, I understand, General Fiction and General Nonfiction seem like they should be included, that is not the way that it is currently written.

>66 lorax: I've just reopened https://www.librarything.com/topic/335099#n7603636

>68 MarthaJeanne: Thank you MarthaJeanne for reopenig the bugreport.

>67 knerd.knitter: Thanks for the hint. That explains a lot.
In my opinion this is a bug that should be fixed.

If LT staff does not see this as a mistake, I suggest dividing genres into two classes.
Into the super genres of fiction and non-fiction. Maybe even "Fiction/NonFiction" and "NonFiction/Fiction" for mixed ones.
And the "normal" genres such as romance, horror, technology, business etc.

If there is already a change in the process, one could consider keeping the age groups (children's books, young adult ...) in their own class.

>69 birder4106: You should go back and read into all that was related to the Genre situation, starting with this thread:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/333142

And it's two continuations.

Thanks> 70.

I followed the discussion, understood the most widely read and understood a lot. I don't understand English very well and I'm sure I miss a lot of subtleties.
In the course of the discussion, however, I also saw how many posters were not happy with the new feature. Neither do I. And so I tried to show my point of view and a suggested solution.

I'm not particularly worried about this. But if Hawaii is marked as part of the USA, why isn't Greenland marked as part of Denmark? That is the current legal status

(On the nationalities graph).

>72 Nicole_VanK: Probably because it is an autonomous territory.

>73 anglemark: Ah...

I have skim-read the replies for both versions of this lengthy thread. I have briefly played with the overview page.

The graphs are attractive and load OK on this MacBook Pro with Chrome and a cable Internet connection. I haven't tried other variants.

On the "donut" graphs (like media) it would be very helpful if clicking on the region would perform a search against my catalog for the category. For example, if I have books with undefined media types, I could focus on updating them. On another graph, if I have covers with low-resolution, I could resolve that.

A large portion of my books are juvenile series books and a very large percentage of these are house (publisher or packager) owned pseudonyms so the gender and alive does not apply to them. On the gender donut graph the two infinitesimal categories of unknown and non-binary are so tiny that they are hard to get to. If they were separated, it might help.

Throughout LT there should be ways to identify your unit preferences. Although I live in the U.S. where English units are common, I find it much easier to enter decimal weights and lengths in metric units. My digital scale, for example, puts out pounds and ounces and this is useless without a calculator for entering the weight of a book. Meanwhile, LT only accepts decimal portions of pounds. If I set my units to metric, I want that in every input and display unless I change it.

For the landmarks, it seems like one could have silhouette images of each and some indication of a pile of books. The bar chart is OK but not all it could be.

There's probably more but I will discover them when I play with it some more.

Note that we are still waiting for vital functionality such as a complete round-trip export-import for backup purposes as well as the mythical "editions layer." These have been talked about for years and years along with the whole LT2 project. As we know, "two weeks" is not just a request to stay home to bend the curve at the beginning of the pandemic, almost two years ago. It has special meaning on LT for features and bug fixes.

James

ETA: I note that if I click down one or two levels on individual graphs that I can pull up the desired search. It just doesn't work from the initial view of the graph.

It seems to me that some areas of common knowledge might get some attention from people who are disturbed to find missing, incorrect, or incomplete data on the view of their own collection's pages. Hopefully not too many edit wars will result.

A bit late to the discussion, I know (and I confess I haven't read the rest of the thread(s)) but I just wanted to make a comment about consistency. The graphs and charts are colourful and fun; but the colour key is not consistent over different types of charts.

For instance, 'children't books' in my collection shows as blue (kind of French blue) on the pie chart for Genres. But then it changes to red on the bar graph for Entry Date by Genre. And on the Dewey Decimal pie chart (I know this won't quite match up anyway), Literature is indigo coloured.

I feel that the first two, at least, should show the same colours for the same categories.

I tried re-reading the whole thread but gave up.
I’ve been doing a fair amount of cataloguing lately and have come across some things that I think need fixing.

* While we can now choose to show metric instead of imperial measurements, there is still “square feet” (no metric volume available) on the Measurements subpage (top of page, “Volume”).
I still think we should be able to collapse chart sections we find useless/uninteresting/etc. I get annoyed every time I have to scroll past “Dewey Decimal Numbers” and “Basic Cover Colours” (which is completely useless as it doesn’t even represent the actual covers of my books).
* I still think the Genres chart would be more correct if it was a doughnut instead of a sunburst chart. Sunburst doesn’t show the correct size of the genres.
* For the charts showing measurement (on the Measurements page), please make the numbers in the list (on the more detailed info view) clickable. I supposedly have 128 books that are over 7,5 centimetres thick! That’s most definitely not true and it’s be much easier to fix that if I could click and be directed to a catalogue page with those books (like you can for other statistics). I also apparently have about a dozen books that are 60 centimetres tall - that’s nearly twice as tall as the book I know to be my biggest one.
It’d be so much easier to fix erroneous data if I could quickly go to it. (Yes, I know I can go through the catalogue, but again - easier.)

Speaking of cataloguing, and not actually about the Charts & Graphs page, when you LT2-ify the catalogue page, could you pretty please make it possible to see when the status of a book was changed (when it was moved to a specific collection)? A lot of the books I have started out as books in my wish list, and when I’ve purchased then I immediately move them to Your books to avoid double copies. But it can take a while to get to the rest of the data editing. Case in point - I’m working on adding data of when and where Ive bought books, but receipts have been lost and I can’t figure out which books were purchased when. I can look at my bank statement and see that I bought something at a specific show on a specific date, but can’t see WHAT I bought. If I could see the date (or at least be able to order books by when they were added to the collection) it would be very helpful.

77>

It’d be so much easier to fix erroneous data if I could quickly go to it. (Yes, I know I can go through the catalogue, but again - easier.)

Do you know that you can sort your catalog by height or thickness?

>78 Foretopman: Yes. Like I said, I know you can go to the catalogue, but if I’m on the charts page and spot something it’d be so much better if I could just click on it and be directed to the erroneous measurement. Just like I can be directed to lots of other things from the charts page.

>77 PawsforThought: there is still “square feet” (no metric volume available) on the Measurements subpage (top of page, “Volume”)

The items at the very top of the page are randomly displayed from the data at the bottom. Volume is displayed in metric under Facts at the bottom of the page

As far as making the numbers clickable, that would not be a simple thing to do as there is no way to search your catalog with those values the way you can with others; the best solution is to do as Foretopman mentions and sort your catalog.

And I don't think we store the information about when you moved items from one collection to another.

"still “square feet” (no metric volume available"

Square anything is not volume.

>80 knerd.knitter: That’s a shame, because it’d be really good information to have, at least for me. In fact, it’d be more important than when I added a book to the wish list.

And the measurements at the top can’t be that random as the first one (height) is always in metres (at least for me) and the second one (volume) is always cubic feet. The other two (weight and pages) do change a bit, but the first two stay the same.

And I don’t like to change the order in my catalogue, which is part of why I don’t want to go that route.
And I might be really stupid, but how can a catalogue not be searched for information that is clearly there? If the information can be pulled from one page and displayed on another, surely you should be able to link back to where that information was taken?

>81 MarthaJeanne: I’m aware. My brain went on auto pilot. I obviously meant cubic.

>81 MarthaJeanne: This one's for you... :-)

A Positive Reminder - J.A. Lindon

A carpenter named Charlie Bratticks
Who had a taste for mathematics,
One summer Tuesday just for fun
Made a wooden cube side minus one.

While this to you may well seem wrong,
He made it minus one foot long,
Which meant (I hope your brains aren't frothing)
Its length was one foot less than nothing.

In width the same (you're not asleep?)
And likewise minus one foot deep;
Giving, when multiplied (be solemn!)
Minus one cubic foot of volume.

With sweating brown this cube he sawed
Through areas of solid board;
For though each cut had minus length,
Minus times minus sapped his strength.

A second cube he made, but thus;
This time each one foot length was plus:
Meaning of course that here one put
For volume; plus one cubic foot.

So now he had, just for his sins,
Two cubes as like as deviant twins:
And feeling one should know the worst,
He placed the second in the first.

One plus, one minus - there's no doubt
The edges simply cancelled out;
Likewise the volume, nothing gained;
Only the surfaces remained.

Well may you open wide your eyes,
For these were now of double size,
On something which, thanks to his skill,
Took up no room and measured nil.

From solid ebony he'd cut
These bulky cubic objects, but
All that remained was now a thin
Black sharply-angled sort of skin

Of twelve square feet-which though not small
weighs nothing and fills no space at all,
It stands there yet on Charlie's floor;
He can't think what to use it for!

Oh, I forgot something else I’d love to have changed in the catalogue.

Could we, please, have the ability to choose which original publication date is shown in the catalogue? Or be able to change it? Right now, it’s not editable in the catalogue (only the CK) and ALL the info in the CK is imported to the catalogue, resulting in cases like below, which is not exactly useful.

The Hobbit: 17 original publication dates, most of which are identical.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: 41 original publication dates
Crime and Punishment: 12 dates
James and the Giant Peach: 18 dates

Oh, and this also applies to original title (also from CK).

I’d like to be able to just see the one date, the very first time the work was published in whatever language it was first published. I know other people want to see other things then me, so the ability to choose would be greatly appreciated.

And by the way, how does the abundance of OPDs affect the stats shown in the charts section? Are they all counted?

>77 PawsforThought: could you pretty please make it possible to see when the status of a book was changed (when it was moved to a specific collection)

Well, here's the thing: If you are moving it from wishlist to your library, couldn't you just edit the acquired date before you move it? Then you don't have to remember that information. It's already added. And you can sort by acquired date.

>85 gilroy: That’d be great if I could go back in time and do that to books I purchased (and subsequently changed status of) a year or more ago.

>82 PawsforThought: second one (volume) is always cubic feet

When I refresh that page the Volume one changes. The height one I think does stay the same.

>87 knerd.knitter: Mine doesn’t change ever. Whether I’ve refreshed or even tried a different device.