Sort by only the first author?

jhowell · 09-09-2016, 12:47 PM

I have a number of annual anthologies in my calibre library with the primary editor listed as the first author and the contributing authors listed after in more-or-less random order.

I have found it annoying that sorting the library by title and then author results in a jumble based on the particular order that the authors are listed for each anthology. This is because all of the authors are taken into account when producing the author sort for a book.

I am wondering if there exists any option or tweak to only use the first author in producing the author sort for a book, instead of all authors. I didn't see anything like that in my quick look.

ETA: I am hoping to avoid having to manually set the author sort for each one.

theducks · 09-09-2016, 01:05 PM

I made a custom Author-like Column and use Bulk mode S&R to copy/move the author list for any book with >2 {Authors}
I then created a Group search

I then use the original {authors} column (for the affected books):
Fn LName (ed), If there is no call out I show the first name shown on the cover

BTW The new authors column originally was used for Pseudonym (decoded

) or variations

of the name appearance on the cover (most common, missing middle initial)

jhowell · 09-09-2016, 02:21 PM

To further answer my own question I took a look at the calibre source code and saw that the logic to combine the author-sort values for ALL authors of a book exists in numerous places. Since it can't be changed easily to do what I want automatically, I will use a workaround.

In Edit Metadata, Search and replace
Search field: author_sort
Search mode: Regular Expression
Search for: & .+$
Replace with:

chaley · 09-09-2016, 02:28 PM

Although you have solved the problem by changing author_sort, you could have also solved the problem by using a custom column created from other columns. You would populate that column with the first author from author sort using the sublist function. That way you could have both sorts available, which of course might not be of any interest.

DaltonST · 09-09-2016, 09:18 PM

The ABCH plug-in (Author Book Count Hierarchy) is sorted by total books per co-author in your library at the time you run its job.

09-09-2016, 12:47 PM	#1
jhowell Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,496 Karma: 84420419 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Tampa Bay, Florida Device: Kindles	Sort by only the first author? I have a number of annual anthologies in my calibre library with the primary editor listed as the first author and the contributing authors listed after in more-or-less random order. I have found it annoying that sorting the library by title and then author results in a jumble based on the particular order that the authors are listed for each anthology. This is because all of the authors are taken into account when producing the author sort for a book. I am wondering if there exists any option or tweak to only use the first author in producing the author sort for a book, instead of all authors. I didn't see anything like that in my quick look. ETA: I am hoping to avoid having to manually set the author sort for each one.

09-09-2016, 09:18 PM	#5
DaltonST Deviser Posts: 2,265 Karma: 2090983 Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Texas Device: none	ABCH The ABCH plug-in (Author Book Count Hierarchy) is sorted by total books per co-author in your library at the time you run its job.

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09-09-2016, 01:05 PM	#2
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 29,798 Karma: 54830978 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	I made a custom Author-like Column and use Bulk mode S&R to copy/move the author list for any book with >2 {Authors} I then created a Group search I then use the original {authors} column (for the affected books): Fn LName (ed), If there is no call out I show the first name shown on the cover BTW The new authors column originally was used for Pseudonym (decoded ) or variations of the name appearance on the cover (most common, missing middle initial)

09-09-2016, 02:21 PM	#3
jhowell Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,496 Karma: 84420419 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Tampa Bay, Florida Device: Kindles	To further answer my own question I took a look at the calibre source code and saw that the logic to combine the author-sort values for ALL authors of a book exists in numerous places. Since it can't be changed easily to do what I want automatically, I will use a workaround. In Edit Metadata, Search and replace Search field: author_sort Search mode: Regular Expression Search for: & .+$ Replace with:

09-09-2016, 02:28 PM	#4
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,740 Karma: 6997045 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	Although you have solved the problem by changing author_sort, you could have also solved the problem by using a custom column created from other columns. You would populate that column with the first author from author sort using the sublist function. That way you could have both sorts available, which of course might not be of any interest.