[chaley]

Originally Posted by sheygetz

Thank you eschwartz.
I seem to have an odd problem with my testing this on a separate column. (All the deleting/ copying to the PW for test runs gets a little tedious.)

...

If I test the other bit , {author_sort}: {title} , this produces mixed and very odd results, I get
"Pausch, Randy: The Last Lecture"
which is fine, but also
"Paul: Starman: David Bowie, Trynka"
which isn't because Trynka is the authos's LN.
Also
"Adams, Douglas: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide"
but then
"Alan: The Line of Beauty, Hollinghurst"

So, some entries are correct, most are not, but come out "FN: title, LN". I haven't been able to find a pattern in this. But it gets weirder still: I then found out by chance, that instead of right-click column head, add-your-own-columns etc. I can edit the template directly by clicking on it twice. And editing one entry changes it for all of the books.

This is correct behavior. There is one template for the entire column.

Now, if I double-click the Hollinghurst example it shows the correct "template value" in the edit window, i.e. "Hollinghurst, Alan: The Line of Beauty". Again: The Edit Template window has the value right, but on closing it, the actual columns shows the wrong value as given above.

I don't get this, has anyone else encountered this at all?

My guess is that you are using a "like tags" column for your testing. In this column type commas are significant, telling calibre that one tag has ended and another started. In your Hollinghurst example, one tag is "Hollinghurst" and another is "Alan: The Line of Beauty". These two tags are then sorted into alpha order, putting "Hollinghurst" after "Alan...". Douglas Adams comes out right because Adams sorts before Douglas.