epub output metadata

[troymc]

Not sure if this has been brought up before - but I didn't find it in a search.

Calibre seems like it may have an issue with multiple dc:creator entries with differing opf:role's.

As an example:

Zelda Pinwheel's "Three Men in a Boat" epub has 2 dc:creator entries, one author & one illustrator:

<dc:creator opf:role="aut" opf:file-as="Jerome, Jerome K.">Jerome K. Jerome</dc:creator>

<dc:creator opf:role="ill" opf:file-as="Frederics, A.">A. Frederics</dc:creator>

When imported into Calibre, it only lists Jerome as the author - which I think would be Ok. (a book with multiple dc:creator opf:role="aut" entries will show up with multiple authors as expected)

However, when Calibre updates the metadata in the epub to send it to a device (or save to disk, etc) it ends up sending the illustrator as the only author:

<dc:creator opf:role="ill" opf:file-as="Frederics, A.">A. Frederics</dc:creator>

Troy

[kovidgoyal]

It doesn't do that. Look down in the OPF file the role="aut" entry will be near the bottom of the <metadata> section.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It doesn't do that. Look down in the OPF file the role="aut" entry will be near the bottom of the <metadata> section.

Oops, I see that now!

hmmm...well after Calibre sends it to my 505, both the Sony & Calibre show the author as 'A. Fredericks'.

So, I'm guessing then that the Sony is probably picking the 1st dc:creator to use as the author -- and that's the author Calibre shows when looking at the device - not necessarily the one from the epub?


Troy

[kovidgoyal]

yup sony only supports a single author.

[troymc]

gah! I hate having to work around broken implementations - like ADE & Sony firmware - particularly when they're so slow and seemingly reluctant to fix anything.

Can someone tell me if the newer Sony model's firmware suffers from this bug? Do other ereaders see this?

Now that I'm aware of this I see many other instances of this in my libraries - Plato's works showing up with translators as authors, a collection of John Locke's works showing with the editor as the author, etc.

From what I can tell, the OPF standard requires no specific order to metadata elements. Unfortunately, if there is a de-facto standard being set that the first listed dc:creator is the "primary author" [that may be an overly-broad statement] it may need to be worked around until there is a fix in the standard [ie. a way to specify primary author.]

Can Calibre *not* re-order the metadata when it updates it? It looks like it's removing the original entries and then re-adds them at the bottom of the metadata section.


Troy

[kovidgoyal]

Easy enough to do