Help with Sorts??

[anthony.burton4]

Hi,

I'm having a lot of problems getting Author sorting to work - everything I try, the results seem to be contrary to expectations.

I have 2 books by J A Jance. I have been trying to set the Author to "Jance, J A", and that's how I want it sorted too, so I want the same value in the Author Sort field.

I have tried the tweak to "Copy" the author field into the AUthor sort field, but this doesn't seem to work as I expected, so I have stuck with manually entering the value each time - this works and I end up with the same value in both fields which I what I want, but for some reason, the Author sorting still ignores this. So although the value in the author sort field is also "Jance, J A", it appears at the top of my list as though it was still the "previously" auto-generated Author sort value of A, Jance, J.

I double check this by examining the meta data of each of the two books, and the AuthorSort field IS correctly set, so is there a 3rd "hidden" field somewhere containing the real data that Author sort uses??

Can I add that the checkbox to "Automatically set Author sort field" appears to do the opposite of what it suggest, I would assume that not checking this would mean that the author sort value is whatever I type, when in fact I have to check the box in order to manually enter data and have it retained.

I am using the latest version of calibre.

Thanks,

Tony

[Manichean]

Calibre sets the author sort field automatically to "lastname, firstname", so, if you had "J A Jance" in your author field, author sort would automatically be set to "Jance, J A", which should give you the sorting you want. In other words, don't use the author field for something the author sort field was designed to do.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by anthony.burton4

I am using the latest version of calibre.

What is the latest version of calibre?

If I understand correctly you want the Author and Author_sort fields the same. Given that, fill in all of the Author fields the way you want them. When complete set the tweak to copy. Restart calibre. Now go to the tag browser, right click on authors and select Manage authors then select recalculate all author sort values (see attached).

Your done. You can also manually edit in the manage authors box.

[Gary Young]

I have had this problem. In my case it turned out that in copying the author field into the author-sort field, I somehow inserted a leading blank space in the author sort field. This can be easy to do, and is impossible to see on the screen.

Calibre then correctly sorted this book to the top of the authors list, because in computer sorts, blank spaces come before the letter A.

Check the book metadata to see if you have accidently entered [space]Jance, J. A.

Gary

Originally Posted by anthony.burton4

Hi,

...so I have stuck with manually entering the value each time - this works and I end up with the same value in both fields which I what I want, but for some reason, the Author sorting still ignores this...

<snip>
Thanks,

Tony

[chaley]

Originally Posted by anthony.burton4

I have 2 books by J A Jance. I have been trying to set the Author to "Jance, J A", and that's how I want it sorted too, so I want the same value in the Author Sort field.

I have tried the tweak to "Copy" the author field into the AUthor sort field, but this doesn't seem to work as I expected

Could you indicate what it is you expect, and what it is doing? Also, note that for tweaks, case matters. The value must be 'copy', not 'Copy'.

, so I have stuck with manually entering the value each time - this works and I end up with the same value in both fields which I what I want, but for some reason, the Author sorting still ignores this. So although the value in the author sort field is also "Jance, J A", it appears at the top of my list as though it was still the "previously" auto-generated Author sort value of A, Jance, J.

I double check this by examining the meta data of each of the two books, and the AuthorSort field IS correctly set, so is there a 3rd "hidden" field somewhere containing the real data that Author sort uses??

Books and authors each have author_sort fields. You set the value for a book using the edit metadata functions. You set the author_sort for an author using the method that dwanthy pointed out.

When a new author is entered, calibre computes that author's sort value and stores it with the author. The tweak you mention is used to control how the value is computed.

When a book's author_sort value must be computed (new book or user request), calibre uses the following steps:
1) Get the list of authors for the book.
2) For each author, get its author_sort value
3) Concatenate all the author_sort values in the correct order
4) Store the result into the book's author_sort.

Can I add that the checkbox to "Automatically set Author sort field" appears to do the opposite of what it suggest, I would assume that not checking this would mean that the author sort value is whatever I type, when in fact I have to check the box in order to manually enter data and have it retained.

I confess to being confused by this paragraph.

From your description, I assume you are using the bulk metadata dialog. My experiments show it behaves as follows:

a) Check box is not checked.
Whatever I type into the author_sort text box is stored with the books being edited.

b) Box is checked and author_sort box is empty.
The author_sort value for the books is recomputed from its authors. The steps are:
1) Apply the author changes, if any.
2) Compute the book's author_sort as described above.

c) Box ix checked and author_sort is not empty.
Same as a). The check box is ignored.

What different behavior are you seeing?

[kathyfitz]

Did you try converting the files to whatever format you want after changing the metadata? Even if it is already in that format, reconvert it. That will save your changes.