Sorting 'unusual' names

[travger]

I have got some authors like van Vogt and del Rey, automatic author_sort will give me Rey, Lester del.

So I corrected it manually, but now author_sort field is red.

Is there some expression or other trick to correct it so that the field will be green?
Does that red field matter at all? I'm worried that plugins that check library may not like the red field.

TIA

[chaley]

The red value means that the author_sort for the book differs from what would be computed using the authors' individual sort values. That happens when you correct the values for a specific book, but not for the author.

See http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq....es-and-sorting for an overview of how calibre deals with names. What that will (or should) explain is that you should change how an author's name is sorted using the Manage Authors dialog. Changing it there will change it in all the books written by that author.

[itimpi]

Actually, I think that the red means that the author sort field set at the book level differs from that stored in the author record. In most cases this is the same as saying it is different to the value that would be computed, but that rule falls down in the case where you have corrected the value in the Author record.

The best way to fix this sort of issue is to open the Author in the Tags browser and use the options available to set the Author sort value the way you want for these unusual authors. Then the value in the book record being highlighted in red is more useful as it indicates that this particular book has a different value to the author record. In addition changing it at the author level will also change it all associated books.

[travger]

Thank you! Now it's nicely green.

I have looked at 'manage authors', but somehow associated it only with FN-LN things. As I've no yearn to change how my authors are...

(I *suspected* it's something very simple).

[chaley]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Actually, I think that the red means that the author sort field set at the book level differs from that stored in the author record. In most cases this is the same as saying it is different to the value that would be computed, but that rule falls down in the case where you have corrected the value in the Author record.

An author's sort value is computed when that author is first seen on a book or on demand in Manage Authors. In the case of a new author on a new book, that newly computed author's sort value will be used to fill in the book's author sort. For an existing author on a new book, the existing author's sort value will be used. Correcting an author's sort value (using Manage Authors) will recompute the author_sort for any book by that author.

Thus, the only way that the red can appear is when the book's author_sort has been manually changed using edit metadata (single/bulk) to differ from what is computed using the authors' individual sort values.