Send to Device with series order

[silverraven]

I really could use some help please! I need to send to device for my mom. She has an Astak EZ Reader, if that makes a difference. I need them ordered like
Elizabeth Lowell (author)
St. Kilda (series)
Wrong Hostage 01
Innocent as Sin 02
etc

But, for some reason I keep ending up with
Elizabeth Lowell
St. Kilda
1
Wrong Hostage
2
Innocent as Sin
In other words I have a folder named 1, then I have to choose it, then it shows up the book.
I know I am probably missing something very simple, but is there a way to do what I want? Or do I just need to rename the books with their series number in them, and then only have author and series folders.
By the way, love coming to this forum just to read all the posts. You guys are amazing! I need to take a month and just read through start to finish so I can understand all the power of this program! Keep up the good work!!!
S

[Dopedangel]

I personally use this

{author[0]}/{authors}/{series}/{series_index:0>2s}. {title}

It puts the books by

A\Author\Series\01 Title

something I would recommend compared to what you have shown above as
this will sort the books by series number as well.

or you can use this

{author[0]}/{authors}/{series}/{series_index:re(^(\d)(\.|$),0\1\2)||. }. {title}

it will also sort your short stories properly if you have them in a series

[silverraven]

Thanks, I'll give it a try!
S

[chilady1]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I personally use this

{author[0]}/{authors}/{series}/{series_index:0>2s}. {title}

I am just curious as to where you put this code? I use Calibre but not very familiar with this code and more importantly where to place this? Last question, this will order the books by the number? Thanks!

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by chilady1

I am just curious as to where you put this code? I use Calibre but not very familiar with this code and more importantly where to place this? Last question, this will order the books by the number? Thanks!

Yes it will order the book by series number.

You put the code depending on how you send books to your device.
If you use save to disk then just go to calibre preferences> select saving books to disk or send to device if your device is detected by calibre.

If you have and use multiple devices with calibre you can also set different templates for your devices in plugins>device interface by selecting the plugins for your different devices

[silverraven]

I think it is going to work! I had to change author to author_sort because mom gets the Harlequin Presents every month, and I need them all to be under one folder, not under different ones according to author(sooo many different authors!!). So I changed the author sort on all the Harlequins to reflect the month: Harlequin Presents Nov 2010 to keep them all together under H. Easier for her to find them that way.
OK, so when I have to put books on my neighbors Sony 600 (she and mom share the Harlequins), do I need to put this anywhere different for her device, and will it work for the Sony? I know they have collections, and I seem to remember reading that they go by Series to set up Collections, but I would love to have hers under A B C too. It just makes the whole reader so much neater.
Thanks again for your help, you have saved me hours of headache!
S

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by silverraven

I think it is going to work! I had to change author to author_sort because mom gets the Harlequin Presents every month, and I need them all to be under one folder, not under different ones according to author(sooo many different authors!!). So I changed the author sort on all the Harlequins to reflect the month: Harlequin Presents Nov 2010 to keep them all together under H. Easier for her to find them that way.
OK, so when I have to put books on my neighbors Sony 600 (she and mom share the Harlequins), do I need to put this anywhere different for her device, and will it work for the Sony? I know they have collections, and I seem to remember reading that they go by Series to set up Collections, but I would love to have hers under A B C too. It just makes the whole reader so much neater.
Thanks again for your help, you have saved me hours of headache!
S

I don't have a Sony but from what I have read it uses collections you can play with metadata plugboards that should be the place to look I think. Their are many sony users you can ask in the sony forum they would be able to help you more.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by silverraven

I think it is going to work! I had to change author to author_sort because mom gets the Harlequin Presents every month, and I need them all to be under one folder, not under different ones according to author(sooo many different authors!!). So I changed the author sort on all the Harlequins to reflect the month: Harlequin Presents Nov 2010 to keep them all together under H. Easier for her to find them that way.
OK, so when I have to put books on my neighbors Sony 600 (she and mom share the Harlequins), do I need to put this anywhere different for her device, and will it work for the Sony? I know they have collections, and I seem to remember reading that they go by Series to set up Collections, but I would love to have hers under A B C too. It just makes the whole reader so much neater.
Thanks again for your help, you have saved me hours of headache!
S

Although I am pleased that you found a way that works, my suspicion is that you are doing things the hard way.

From what I understand, for your mom's Aztek EZ, you want the file names (folder names) to be something like HP Nov 2010/Title. I don't know how the Aztek menus work or where it gets its data, so you might want this in book metadata, but that isn't a problem.

For your neighbor, you want a set of collections. Unfortunately, your example of A B C doesn't match what you were talking about for your mom, so I am not sure what the A B C means.

I think that the best way to do this is to create a custom text column (single value, not tags-like). Doing it this way preserves author_sort for what it is meant for, and increases the flexibility you have when sending books to your device.

To be specific, create the column. For illustration, lets call this new column '#sortby'. Put the information in the #sortby that you want to sort on, in your example "Harlequin Presents Nov 2010".

For the Aztek, set the save template to something like

{#sortby}/{title}

With this template, when you send the books to the device they will be put into folders named by the information in #sortby. For example, if the Harlequin Presents Nov 2010 set includes the title The Silken Spy, then the book would be stored in

Harlequin_Presents_Nov_2010/The_Silken_Spy.epub

There are several other options, such as using plugboards if the Aztek gets its information from book metadata.

For the Sony, you have several choices. The easiest is to add #sortby to the list of fields from which collections are made. If you do this (in preferences -> plugins -> device plugins -> Sony), then calibre will make a collection for each value in #sortby, and put the books in the collection by title. Using the same example, you would have a collection named Harlequin Presents Nov 2010, with the title The Silken Spy inside that collection.

I won't go into the other choices, because in the end I am not sure what you really want to do.

[silverraven]

Although I am pleased that you found a way that works, my suspicion is that you are doing things the hard way.

I had to laugh at this. Yes, if I can find the hard way, I usually do!!
Let's see if I can describe how I would like both readers to look when choosing books. I would like to have main folders that are the letters of the alphabet. Then under that I would like the authors. Then I would like to have series title, then the number of the book and name of book. For example:
H
Harlequin Presents Aug 2010
01 Snowbound
02 Bride for Tonight
Harlequin Presents Sept 2010
01 Lucky at Love
02 Love's Embrace
I
Greg Isles
Turning Angel
Dead Sleep
J
Lisa Jackson
The Morning After
Iris Johansen
Dark Summer
Dead Aim

Does that explain it better? The above listed method works on mom's Astak, but if there are easier methods I'm all ears!! I had no idea you could use the custom columns for sorting when sending to device. I have so much to learn about this program. And I have to figure out how to do this for a Sony 600 too.
S

[itimpi]

Note that on the Sony the folder structure on disk is irrelevant. You search by Title or Author from the embedded metadata, by date added to the Sony, or by Collection.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by silverraven

I had to laugh at this. Yes, if I can find the hard way, I usually do!!
Let's see if I can describe how I would like both readers to look when choosing books. I would like to have main folders that are the letters of the alphabet. Then under that I would like the authors. Then I would like to have series title, then the number of the book and name of book. For example:
H
Harlequin Presents Aug 2010
01 Snowbound
02 Bride for Tonight
Harlequin Presents Sept 2010
01 Lucky at Love
02 Love's Embrace
I
Greg Isles
Turning Angel
Dead Sleep
J
Lisa Jackson
The Morning After
Iris Johansen
Dark Summer
Dead Aim

Does that explain it better? The above listed method works on mom's Astak, but if there are easier methods I'm all ears!! I had no idea you could use the custom columns for sorting when sending to device. I have so much to learn about this program. And I have to figure out how to do this for a Sony 600 too.
S

I think I have it.

First, I suggest that you name the Harlequin Presents series slightly differently, so that they sort correctly. For example, Harlequin Presents Sept 2010 could be Harlequin Presents 2010-09. This way they will sort in year order. You also might want to shorten Harlequin Presents to something like HP, so that it fits in the reader's display better.

Second, put whatever you use for the HP series into the series column. Number them appropriately.

Now create a new custom column with the type 'Column built from other columns'. I called it #comp2, but you can call it whatever you want. Put the following into its template:

{series:lookup(.,series,author_sort)}

This will get the value from the series column, if there is one. If there isn't, then it gets the author.

For the Astak, use the following for the save template:

{#comp2[0]}/{#comp2}/{series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}

This gets the first letter from the #comp2 field (author or series), adds a slash, adds the entire #comp2 field (again, author or series), adds a slash, adds the series index if there is one, then the title. The result would be

H/HP 2010-09/01 - Lucky at Love
J/Jackson, Lisa/The Morning After

Remember to change #comp2 to whatever you used when you created the custom column. Note that it is possible to use the author name instead of the author sort, but it requires creating another custom column.

For the sony, there are several choices. The easiest would be to make a collection for each value in #comp2. To do this, add #comp2 to the list of fields to make collections from in the device plugin preferences. Take out series and tags.

If you want the sony to show the series number with the title, then create a plugboard with the following content:

format: device-db
device: PRS505
template: {series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}
destination: title

This will make the sony menus display 03 - Title if a book has a series index.

I am away for a while, so won't be able to help more. I hope others in the forum will pick up.

Good luck.

[silverraven]

Wow, I am again amazed by all of your brains and generosity with time! I will give this a go tomorrow and see if I can figure it all out.
Thanks again!!
S

[Ayle]

Can anyone help? I'm trying to see the books sorted by author, then series, in "see all"
Is there a way to set calibre to make that order?

[itimpi]

Assuming you are talking about the Sony, then that view is ordered by title I believe so that it will not display as you want unless you massage the titles to include the information you want to sort on

However if you go into Collections, then with default settings each series should be represented by a Collection, and books will be ordered according to the Series Number field within that collection

[Ayle]

yes, the sony 650. I've been moving it around, but sorted by author is as good as it gets.
Collections are kinda messy no? Since I download the metadata, there are more collections than books in my reader. I can live without it, just opening the books, but it would be nice to be able to set them in relative order.