A new author LN, FN question

[kraqh3d]

Comma still seems to be unnecessarily substituted though.

[kovidgoyal]

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kovid/c...revision/11289

[kiwidude]

Hi Kovid, how does that change impact existing libraries? Is it for instance the case that a path is generated only when an author is added/renamed? i.e. for an existing library you will start seeing comma based folders appearing?

Don't have an issue with it, just curious...

[kovidgoyal]

It has no effect on any existing entries. It will only affect the path calculated for newly added books, or if the author of a book is changed.

[BradWaite]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kovid/c...revision/11289

Awesome! Thanks, Kovid!

[kraqh3d]

NICE!

For the moment I took the easy way out. I put together a simple script that builds a second logical filesystem in an alternate root location. It dumps the authors table and creates symlinks between "LN, FN" and "FN LN." It was quick and dirty and met my needs.

[lathom]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It has no effect on any existing entries. It will only affect the path calculated for newly added books, or if the author of a book is changed.

I like the change, but not that I end up with duplicate directories (one with , and one with _) when adding books new books for existing authors.

Is there (or could there be) a way to accomplish a file structure refresh that brought everything up to the new standard with commas?

[lathom]

Also, what is the reason behind replacing a trailing . with _ in the file structure (but not other periods? i.e, why is it Griffin, W.E.B_ and not Griffin, W.E.B.

[kiwidude]

If you *really* want the "new" author named folder only, select the books for an author, change the name temporarily and then change it back again. That is the only way to do it currently.

As for why a trailing _ - on Windows at least it is not possible to name a folder with a trailing period.

I do wonder why Kovid didn't just obfuscate the whole naming structure completely many aeons ago - i.e. just use an author id & book ids as the folder and file names. That would stop people poking around under there and complaining about stuff not being ordered/named a particular way completely, since the directory structure would look exactly like what it is - a private set of files belonging to the calibre application. No file length issues, no character issues and no-one being silly enough to try moving files around etc. It would also mean that renaming an author/book shouldnt need to do any disk renaming/moving operations, which might help performance.

[kiwidude]

@lathom - I have added a new menu option to the Quality Check plugin which will automate renaming all your folders/files for you to include commas where necessary. See this post

[transmitthis]

Just as an aside, is there real need to have Author And Author_sort, would it not be possible to just have Author, and have the sort based on the way that is displayed.

Then just have options under a settings tab on exactly how you want it to be displayed,
FN, LN, etc

The whole thing about Authors and the ways to display them, and the settings needed to be understood before a new user can display things in a way that makes sense to them, is way too complicated.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by transmitthis

Just as an aside, is there real need to have Author And Author_sort, would it not be possible to just have Author, and have the sort based on the way that is displayed.

Then just have options under a settings tab on exactly how you want it to be displayed,
FN, LN, etc

Yes, there is a need for author_sort.

First, you might be one of the very large number of people who want to see FN LN but sort LN, FN. How do you do that without something like author_sort, either stored or computed? Second, even when displaying LN, FN (and sorting by that), there are many cases where what I see is not how I sort. For example, "von Braun, Wernher" should sort under 'B', and I don't want to see "Braun, Wernher von". The name "d'Orléans, Philippe" should sort under 'O'. Many Asian names, and in particular Chinese names, are written LN FN and should sort LN FN even though there is no comma in the name; an example is Sun Tzu which should sort under 'S'.

Unfortunately these rules are not fixed, which is one reason that the "computed" option is impractical. I know people with names of the form 'van X', some of whom insist that their last name is 'van X' and some of whom insist that their last name is 'X'. One should respect the wishes of the person whose name it is. Another reason the "computed" option is impractical is the difficulty of identifying the components of names such as "Catalina de Salazar y Palacios". We need human intervention to know what words are which part of the person's name.

If you don't care about all of this complexity then set the author sort tweak to "copy". After the recalc (assuming you have books in your library), authors will sort how they appear and you can ignore author_sort.

I agree that it should be possible to simplify the control of the various options and tweaks related to author sorting, but I am not interested in doing the work. It would take a fair amount of time and create no end of controversy for zero personal benefit.

Edit: it is worth noting that when I added the 'names' variant of the text-multiple custom column, the very first comment on the feature was a request to add the equivalent of author_sort.

[transmitthis]

Personally, I'm fine I have it displayed and sorted how I like it to be, did take me an hour when I first started using Calibre though.

That aside, I was thinking about all the new users and the many posts on the subject of the issue, usually along the lines of "I want it to display this..." If the complexity can not be simplified, then maybe just hidden. IE, have a drop down right in the tag browser, saying display by LN,FN or FN, LN etc (as it's the display of the names that most posts end up being about.

Anyhoo just an idea, no doubt there's enough people to keep on answering the increasing number of posts on the issue.

[lathom]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@lathom - I have added a new menu option to the Quality Check plugin which will automate renaming all your folders/files for you to include commas where necessary. See this post

Perfect - thanks!