Glo HD Firmware 4.8.11073, Authors name issue

[Syana344]

Hi Alls

I'm searching now for several hours for an answer to my issue, but without success.

Basically, I have several Kobo readers. I wanted to update the firmware, as I'm still running a 3.19.xxx version. So I reinitialised one of the readers, which is a Kobo Glo HD and installed through Kobo Desktop the new 4.8.11073 firmware... and faced one major issue.

In the section "my books", there are three tabs 1. books 2. authors and 3. collections. 1. & 3. are working well, but the tab "authors" is running in a strange way. Instead of having one line "Name, First Name" of the author (as I have it in Calibre and was expecting it into Kobo), the device shows two separate lines : one with the First name and another one with the Last name of the author showing the same quantity of books...

I called a friend of mine having just bought a brand new Aura One... and he has exactly the same issue with the same firmware.

The only "special feature" I have in my Calibre is the customizing to see the series into the title... that's it.

Any clue where that may come from?

Have a nice day

[jackie_w]

I think the Kobo is expecting the Author name to be in the form Firstname Lastname not Lastname, Firstname. The Kobo uses comma as the separator for multiple authors.

By default, calibre has 2 different fields for Author:
authors: in the form Firstname Lastname
author_sort: in the form Lastname, Firstname

If your calibre is like this then make sure you use authors rather than author_sort when you transfer your books via calibre send-to-device.

[davidfor]

@Syana344, there has been plenty of discussion on this over the years, especially since the Authors list was added. But, basically, jackie_w is right.

Kobo is assuming that authors are in "LN FN" format. And for multiple authors, it is "FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2". In the book list, it will use an ampersand as a separator as well, but the authors list doesn't.

The other big thing is that the firmware only reads the first dc:creator tag in the OPF. And only takes the value. It doesn't look at the file-as that is calibre uses for the author sort.

Because of this, I use the following metadata plugboard to set the author:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

[Syana344]

Hey hey :-)

Thank you very very much for your answers.

What I was astonished about is that I never faced the issue before... It's why I thought it's related to the new firmware.

I'll try out the information you gave me and come back to you with a feedback. At least, I know where the issue is coming from.

Thanks a lot again and have a nice day.

[Syana344]

Hi boths,

I tried out both methods... but without success. Most probably I'm doing something wrong.

Jackie: I perfectly understand (from a rationale point of view) what you mean, but I'm unable to adapt the export parameters to fit.
I appologize in advance for the wording - as I use calibre in french, the names of the icons may not be 100% exact.

Basically, I go to Calibres preferences, select "sent to device" (third icon from the left). In the middle of the pop up, I have a field where it's written in "{author_sort}/{title} - {authors}". At the bottom, I have a list of fields, and if I understand right the explanation given, this field is meant to set up a model. I tried to change it to {authors}/{title} - {authors} but it does not change anything.
If I go to the device configuration itself, I see the same, but I don't know how to change the model to switch from "author_sort" to "authors".

Davidfor: I tried also to change the metadata table into the preferences. Basically, I have already one setting for "any format:any device = ([{series}{series_index:0>2s| | – }{title}] -> title)" Now, I changed it to: any format:any device = ([{series}{series_index:0>2s| | – }{title}] -> title), ([program: raw_list('authors', ', ')] -> authors). But... My poor Will Adams is still split into Will and Adams.

Most probably I miss something, but I don't know what... I would like avoid to change my full Calibre library to First N / Last N...

Have a nice day

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Syana344

Hi boths,

I tried out both methods... but without success. Most probably I'm doing something wrong.

Jackie: I perfectly understand (from a rationale point of view) what you mean, but I'm unable to adapt the export parameters to fit.
I appologize in advance for the wording - as I use calibre in french, the names of the icons may not be 100% exact.

Basically, I go to Calibres preferences, select "sent to device" (third icon from the left). In the middle of the pop up, I have a field where it's written in "{author_sort}/{title} - {authors}". At the bottom, I have a list of fields, and if I understand right the explanation given, this field is meant to set up a model. I tried to change it to {authors}/{title} - {authors} but it does not change anything.
If I go to the device configuration itself, I see the same, but I don't know how to change the model to switch from "author_sort" to "authors".

Completely the wrong place to look. This is how to set the file name of the book on the device. You never see this when you are using the device. And what you set it to doesn't really matter as long as it is unique and a legal file name. The device does use it in the internal database, but doesn't display it.

Davidfor: I tried also to change the metadata table into the preferences. Basically, I have already one setting for "any format:any device = ([{series}{series_index:0>2s| | – }{title}] -> title)" Now, I changed it to: any format:any device = ([{series}{series_index:0>2s| | – }{title}] -> title), ([program: raw_list('authors', ', ')] -> authors). But... My poor Will Adams is still split into Will and Adams.

I think that look right. You did press the "Save plugboard" button before closing the preferences? I'm always forgetting to do that and lose the change.

This also only affects new books sent to the device. When a new book is sent, the device imports it, reads the metadata and populates the internal database. That is then displayed when using it. Unless you change an option, when you resend a book from calibre, it replaces the book on the device and the metadata isn't reread. There is an option in the KoboTouch driver to revert to the default method that Kobo uses. This treats all replacements as a new book and removes the book from the database before importing it as a new book.

Alternatively, for books already on the device, you can use my Kobo Utilities plugin to update the metadata in the database. This has an option to use the plugboard to set the author and title.

Most probably I miss something, but I don't know what... I would like avoid to change my full Calibre library to First N / Last N...

This makes me wonder how you have the author names in your calibre library. Do you use "FN LN" in the author and "LN, FN" in the sort author? If you have a different combination, you will probably need to change the metadata plugboard.

[Syana344]

Thanks a lot Davidfor to dig with me into this issue... Great help!!

First, to answer your questions:

- Yes, I saved the plugboard. When I enter again, I see the picture 3 I attached. So this seems to work fine.

- Regarding my library. As overview of one author, I attach picture 1, so you see that all names are fromatted with "Last Name, First Name" format (including a space after the comma)

- If I open the metadata of one book, I join picture 2, I think that the author's name is corresponding to the author's sort (as it is green).

Do you see something wrong there in? I'm unable to see where the mistake can come from.

Now I tried again to export and I see that:

- The title does not contain the series anymore. Before I had "Daniel Knox 1 - Title of the book". After the change, I do not have anymore the "Daniel Knox 1" but only the title of the book.
- And guess what? The autor in the authors tab is still split.

Now as I'm trying out several possibilities, two questions raised:
- Can it be that my "old" version of Calibre interferes there? I'm still on a 2.64 version which worked really fine with the old firmware I had.
- Regarding the metadata plugboard: the tool gives me two possibilities: either to create a new one, or to adapt the existing one (which is set up for any format and any device). What should I choose?
For the moment, I modified the old one, means that on the left side, I have one single line telling
any format:any device = ([{series}{series_index:0>2s| | – }{title}] -> title), ([program: raw_list('authors', ', ')] -> authors)
But it seems that the combination of the two arguments cancel each other as after the modification, I do not see the series name anymore into the title.

Should I create a new one? I tried to think about it, but Calibre does no let me create a second table for the "any format:any device" selection. Means that I would have to choose another combination. Could "epub:Kobo" for the author be the right one?

Again ... thanks a lot for your support

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Syana344

- Regarding my library. As overview of one author, I attach picture 1, so you see that all names are fromatted with "Last Name, First Name" format (including a space after the comma)

As I suggested at the end of my last post, this is the problem.

As stated earlier, Kobo is using author names in the format "FN LN". When there are multiple authors, it expects "FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2, FN3 LN3". If the authors are put into the books in any other format, then you won't get the expected results.

And the metadata plugboard I posted won't help you as the author names are not the expected format.

All of this is why people are actively encouraged to keep the author in calibre in "FN LN". The sort author is whatever you need to do the sorting properly. And if you want to display the sort author in the calibre library, you can. There is an option in the preferences or a tweak (I forget which), to do this.

If you are staying with that format for the author, you can come up with a metadata plugboard to solve it. It basically needs to replace the comma and space between the parts of the name with characters that look like commas and a space but don't get treated that way by the device. I'm sure someone has posted something like that before. Searching for it should find it.

[Syana344]

Hi Davidfor

Thanks a lot. I'm sorry.. I misunderstood your answer. I thought the metadata plugboard would "invert" the naming and therefore solve the issue.

However, I'll search for the "sort author" option and if I don't find, go with the metadata solution.

Thanks a lot for the information and have a nice day.