Step 6: Tips and tricks

Independent techniques to extend and refine your setup

The techniques on this page are modular — use any combination, in any order. None of them require the previous steps to be complete.

Metadata normalization

AO3’s tagging is freeform, which means the same ship, character, or concept can appear under dozens of slightly different names. replace_metadata in personal.ini lets you clean this up as data comes in, so your library stays consistent without manual editing.

Add these to the add_to_replace_metadata block in your [defaults] section. They run in order, so the sequence matters.

Strip fandom qualifiers from ship names. AO3 often appends the fandom in parentheses — “jack Abbott (The Pitt)” — which clutters ship tags. This removes anything in parentheses from ship strings:

ships=> \([^)]+\)=>

Standardize original character tags. AO3 uses several variants — “Original Male Character”, “Original Male Character(s)”, “OMC” — for the same thing. These collapse them:

# For ships (substring match — OC appears inside a ship string)
ships=>(?i)Original Male Character(\(s\)|s|)=>OMC
ships=>(?i)Original Female Character(\(s\)|s|)=>OFC
ships=>(?i)Original Character(\(s\)|s|)=>OC

# For character tags (whole-string match)
characters=>(?i)^Original Male Character(\(s\)|s|)$=>OMC
characters=>(?i)^Original Female Character(\(s\)|s|)$=>OFC
characters=>(?i)^Original Character(\(s\)|s|)$=>OC

Convert friendship tags to a consistent format. AO3 uses both & and / for platonic relationships, sometimes with “(Friendship)” appended. This normalizes them:

ships=>(.*)[/&](.*) \(?[Ff]riendship(?: only)\)?=>\1 & \2
ships=> - Relationship=>

Advanced cover rules

Matching on title length

Long titles can overflow a cover template designed for shorter ones. A dedicated “small text” template handles this cleanly. Place it at the bottom of your generate_cover_settings block as a catch-all — anything that has already matched a fandom rule won’t reach it, and anything that hasn’t will get the small template if its title is long enough:

generate_cover_settings:
    ${category} => [Ss]herlock => Classics Sherlock
    ${category} => Omens       => Classics Omens
    ${title}    => .{40,}      => Classics Small

The .{40,} matches any title of 40 or more characters. Adjust the number to suit your template’s comfortable title length.

Protecting custom covers

If you’ve manually set a cover for a specific fic and don’t want FFF to overwrite it on metadata updates, add a URL-based exclusion at the very top of generate_cover_settings. The first match wins, so an empty rule stops cover generation entirely for that fic:

generate_cover_settings:
    ${storyUrl} => works/12345$ =>
    ${storyUrl} => works/67890$ =>
    ${category} => [Ss]herlock  => Classics Sherlock
    ...

The $ anchors the match to the end of the URL, preventing partial matches.

Advanced GCC content tags

Generate Cover’s Contents tab accepts Calibre’s template language in the custom text field, not just plain field references. This lets you build conditional, formatted content blocks.

Conditional display. A field reference wrapped in |prefix| only renders if the field has a value — nothing appears at all if it’s empty. Useful for fields that aren’t always populated:

{series:|Book {series_index} of |}

This shows “Book 2 of Surface Tension” for a fic in a series, and nothing for a standalone.

Fallback placeholder. ifempty() shows alternative text when a field is empty — useful for keeping layout consistent when some fics have ship data and some don’t:

{#short_ships:ifempty(Gen)}

Combining fields on one line. Fields can be concatenated directly:

{#short_ships} · {#short_words} · {#short_status}

Produces something like Johnlock · 34k · ✔.

Conditional prefix with newline. The \n escape inserts a line break, useful for multi-line content blocks:

{#genre:|Tags: \n|}

Shows “Tags:” on one line and the genre values below it, but only if genre has a value.

Adding a prefix or suffix.

In GCC’s template syntax, |prefix|suffix| wraps content that only renders if the field has a value — so both the value AND the surrounding text disappear when empty:

{#short_words:|| words|}

Shows 34k words when populated, nothing when empty. The double || means no prefix, just a suffix. To add both:

{#short_words:|Length: | words|}

Shows Length: 34k words or nothing.

Likeability score

A computed column that estimates a fic’s engagement level relative to its length and structure. It’s based on the ratio of kudos to hits — high kudos per hit suggests strong reader investment — weighted by word count and chapter count to give longer, more complex fics a slight boost.

Column name: Likeability — Lookup name: likeability — Type: Column built from other columns

program:
k = field('#kudos');
h = field('#hits');
w = field('#words');
c = field('#chapters');

if or(k == '', h == '', w == '', c == '', k <=# 0, h <=# 0, w <=# 0, c <=# 0)
then ''
else
    cf = switch_if(
        c <=# 1,  1,
        c <=# 3,  1.4,
        c <=# 8,  2.2,
        c <=# 20, 3.5,
        5
    );
    wf = switch_if(
        w <# 5000,   0.8,
        w <# 20000,  1,
        w <# 60000,  1.15,
        w <# 150000, 1.3,
        1.45
    );
    round(divide(multiply(divide(multiply(multiply(k, k), multiply(cf, wf)), h), 100), 1000))
fi

Returns empty if any required field is missing or zero, so fics without hit/kudos data don’t generate a misleading score.