PRS-650 [calibre] How do I set it up so I can sort by author - Series - Title??

[BelgarionNL]

I would like to sort it in the Ereader by author then name of the series from 1 to X and then the title of the book!

Thank you

Daniel

edit: using

Latest PRS+ and Calibre

[gauchomigo]

Calibre will sort your library by any one of those things by clicking on the category. I don't know of any way to sort the books on the reader itself...

[Pinecone]

About the only way is to set up a custom column of series like data.

Then use Calibre to put the books in the order you want. Click Title, then Series, then Author. Then use Bulk Edit Metadata to populate your custom column with a Collection name and to number them in order.

Then you have to go into the Sony Plugin and tell it to create collections based on your custom column.

BTW, why do you want the books in a series in Title order rather than Series Order?

[H3lpdesk]

I'm in the same boat. I went to the plugin and tried
{series} {series_index:0>3s} {authors} {title} {author_sort}

..but all I get is the default. I must be doing something wrong!

I haven't really thought out the nicest way to sort the books on the Sony PRS T1. (nice, but very slow compared to my Androd phone), but I'd like to sort by series and then just wad through, one at a time. Well, maybe a couple of series in parallel LOL.

I'd like to have the books sorted on the Sony like
series series_number: title (author)

A bit wored but I read some series written by a bunch of different authors, sometimes an outhor takes over a series, somtimes co-authors pop up. So to get the flow of the timeline, I use Calibre series field to tags them in timeline order. I'm not too bothered about how they present, but it would be nice to know a book is book n in a series.

As well as help on how to correctly set the plugin, can someone tell me the steps from the beginning as to what to do in case I'm missing something.

At the moment, I'm going to Preferences > ASdvanced > Plugins > Device Interface Plugins > Sony PRST1 and newer devices. Am I missing something?

[speakingtohe]

Try the tweak
Specify how SONY collections are sorted
Look in calibre forum for more advice on this
Helen

[H3lpdesk]

Thanks for that Helen, but like some other members; I have been reading these forums for a while and have done many searches and am still at a loss here. Perhaps manyu of the posts are making assumptions that new people like myself don't share or perhsps it's something earlier in a thread missed or archived. So, please be patient and thropw a few breadcrumbs here as what I've tried isn't working and I'm looking for guidance.

1) I'd surely try the Tweak ..if I knw where it was and how to try it.
2) I gotta admit, I have yet to read the Sony book on how to sort the collections
I'm sure it's in there somewhere :-). It seems to be sorting OK with the few runs
that I've done, it's just that I'd like them labelled with series numbers on the Sony
screen.
3) Could you perhaps throw me a like to the correct forum (and perhaps page number)
whereupon idiot-proof guidance can be gained?

[ElsieC]

Originally Posted by H3lpdesk

it's just that I'd like them labelled with series numbers on the Sony
screen.

I am new to eReading so there may be an easier way to do this, but I edited the Meta Data and put the number of the series IN the title like this:

The Murder at the Vicarage (01)

Now, when I look at my list of books on my Sony, I can see at a glance it is #1 in a series. I could also edit the title so it displays like this:

Miss Marple 01 - The Murder at the Vicarage

although that would make some titles quite long. I understand that the series name/number is redundant when viewing my books in Calibre since I have the series and number fields set up in the Meta Data. But this was a quick and easy way to get what I wanted to show up on my Sony. There is probably a more elegant solution, but this works for me. I hope this helps.

ElsieC

[H3lpdesk]

Hi Elise, thanks for that. It's a last resort option as I have a number of series in double digists and some series pushing that! Hence the use of the [series] field in Calibre is a nicety that allows me to add books to series just by using a dropdown and it's automatically sequenced. Books in the series I just re number as 0 or whatever according to timeline fit. I'd like to title books as you say, but have Calibre do the fiddling for me, as numbering the titles is a bit of a chore, especially as I'd need to be creative with those sub-series, i.e. seried within a series where I DO use the title.

I bought the Sony reader rather than the tablet for just this purpose, as it apparently is a good match for Calibre (and yeah, I wish there was a reader out there that behaved like the Kobo and had the Calibre engine).

My p[roblem is that although I've tried plugins, I must be doing something r=wrong, as I can't get that output.

But hey, as a last resort, yerah - it'll do :-)

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ElsieC

I am new to eReading so there may be an easier way to do this, but I edited the Meta Data and put the number of the series IN the title like this:

The Murder at the Vicarage (01)

Please don't do it this way, it messes up your Calibre metadata and will cause problems with other Calibre features (e.g. metadata download, search for covers). Calibre has all the features you need but some of them are well hidden

If you can be patient I will post some basic general instructions in the next 24 hours.

[H3lpdesk]

Oops!

OK ...I'll wait and thank you for the help.

Um, If you include anything I should undo, or maybe uninstall / re-install Calibre is OK too just in case!

[jackie_w]

I can't think of any reason to uninstall / re-install Calibre unless you're running a really old version. The main thing is you should use the Calibre metadata columns for their intended purpose, i.e. Series_name [index] metadata in the 'Series' column, Title metadata in the 'Title' column.

[H3lpdesk]

It looks like we're on the same page Jackie!

[speakingtohe]

jackie_w is the expert IMO

This thread gives you a fairly good idea. Takes a bit of patience, but once it is done it is done. Your books will always appear as you wish unless you change your mind about what you wish.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ght=mikeloftus

[H3lpdesk]

Hi Jackie,

Yeah, I've been reading the threads for a few months now and have been rather patient. Still confused though, I thoiught that I'd read up on all I could search / follow breadcrumbs, and had it figured. Didn't figure though, that's why I'm looking for some basic, simple advice on the steps to take. The posts generally assume users know where things are. Maybe it's a typo, maybe I'm in the wrong place.

[jackie_w]

You'll notice, this post is very long, however it's a one-time task. Once you've set everything up you can forget about it... unless you WANT to change things, of course

As you've probably realised by now Calibre has an awful lot of features. Some of the most powerful are not immediately obvious. In addition, the more advanced features are very powerful so I won't even attempt to cover it all.

What I'll do in this post is to detail, from start to finish, the steps necessary to let Calibre manage all the Collections, sort sequences and metadata on your Sony reader. Rather than confuse you by discussing too many generalities, I'll use the way I manage my own Sonys as a worked example, where:

• most important book metadata is Author, Series_name/index, Title and Calibre tags
• major sort sequence is Author/Series_name/Series_index/Title

This scenario may not be exactly what you want, but once you have it set up you can fine-tune settings so you DO get what you want. At least you'll know which parts of Calibre to investigate further. The combination of Calibre and Sony readers is just about the best there is at the moment.

I'm not sure which Sony models you have. The following instructions are for PRS505/PRS300/PRS350/PRS650/PRS950 and PRST1. The PRST1 has some extra considerations so I'll point those out where necessary. (Instructions may also be suitable for PRS600, but as I don't have one I can't be sure)

1. In Prefs - Sending books to device, set 'Metadata management' box to Automatic.
   Read the help underneath the box for info on what each setting means. It's important to understand a setting of 'Automatic' means that Calibre is expecting you to do ALL your metadata changes in Calibre, not manually on the Sony. Calibre will handle any necessary changes on the Sony next time you connect.
2. Define how you want to CREATE Sony Collections
   You do this by customising the relevant 'device interface plugin' which is accessed via either
   Prefs - Plugins - Device Interface - SONY PRST1 - Customize for the T1 or
   Prefs - Plugins - Device Interface - SONY - Customize for all earlier models
   The box you want is labelled 'Comma-separated list of metadata fields...' I've set mine as a simple tags
   
   Some people also like to have a Collection per Series and/or a Collection per Author. In which case you need to set the box to list all the fields you want to use to create Collections on the device.
   
   A consideration about Calibre Tags...
   If you're going to use them to define Collections you may need to be careful how you populate this Calibre column. Personally, I do not download my Tags from metadata sites like Amazon. For instance if a book is a thriller set in New York about a Polish girl with a dog I don't want the Calibre Tags field set as 'Fiction, Thriller, Feminist literature, Poland, Canine, USA comtemporary, New York' otherwise that one book will be listed under 7 different Collections on the device. If you download from Amazon this is the sort of entry you will get in the Tags field. It gets out of hand. I would manually set the Tags field to simple 'Thriller'.
   However, some people like to have all these detailed Tags so they choose instead to add a new Calibre custom column (e.g. called genre). So they let Amazon populate the Tags field with as many entries as it likes and they manually populate their own Calibre 'genre' field with 'Thriller'. In this case they would set the box which defines Collections to #genre instead of tags.
3. Define how you want to SORT Sony Collections
   Now you need to setup a Calibre Tweak to control the order in which the books appear within your Sony Collections. This is a 2-part thing.
   • First add a custom column to Calibre using Prefs - Add your own columns - add (the green plus icon).
     Using Calibre's template language you can construct pretty much any template you like in here. I keep it fairly simple and use:
     Lookup name: sonysort (any lowercase name, avoid spaces)
     Column heading: Sony_sort (anything you like)
     Column type: Column built from other columns
     Template: {author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s} - {title}
     Sort/search col by: Text
     Show in tags browser: unchecked
     Show as html...: unchecked
   • Set the Sony Tweak in Prefs - Tweaks - Specify how SONY collections are sorted
     (The above new custom column will handle book Series where Series_index is 0-99. See end of post ** for a few alternative options if this is not adequate for your Series requirements.)
     In the bottom tweak window tell Calibre to use your new custom column, i.e.
     

     sony_collection_sorting_rules = [(['*'], '#sonysort')]

     which basically says, sort all Collections the same way namely as,
     author_sort - series_name series_index - title (e.g Christie, Agatha - Hercule Poirot 15 - Death on the Nile)
     
     If you want to create Collections from fields other than just Tags you have the option to sort each type of Collection in a different way. The flexibility is enormous and you will need to read the help in the top tweak window to decide what's best for you.

Display Series metadata on Sony using Metadata Plugboard
Items 1-3 are enough to manage Collections on your device when using the 'Sort by Added Order' view option. However, you will notice that although all books in a Collection may be correctly sorted by, author_sort/series_name /series_index/title it is not immediately obvious because each book only displays a simple Author and Title -- the Series info is not visible on the Sony. This is where Calibre's Metadata Plugboard feature comes in.

If you want to display Series info you've got to combine it with either the Sony Author or Title field. I've chosen to suffix it to Author for 2 reasons:

• The font is smaller so you can get more chars on the line without running off the right edge
• When viewing the full booklist (not Collections) by Author, the books should appear in Author/Series order. (Unfortunately, on a PRST1, this is not 100% reliable)

The following describes the Calibre Metadata Plugboard necessary so that all Sony book lists look like one of the attached images (PRS505.jpg or PRS650.jpg). I don't have a screencap utility on my PRST1, but it looks similar to the PRS650 image.

1. For PRS505/x50: open Prefs - Metadata Plugboard
   In 'add new plugboard'
   Format: device_db
   Device: PRS505
   Source template1: {author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s}
   Destination1: authors
   Source template2: {series}{series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}
   Destination2: title_sort
   Press 'Save plugboard' button
   press 'Apply' button
2. For PRST1: you need 2 plugboards, open Prefs - Metadata Plugboard
   In 'add new plugboard'
   Format: device_db
   Device: PRST1
   Source template: {author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s}
   Destination: authors
   Press 'Save plugboard' button
   back to 'add new plugboard' for 2nd
   Format: epub
   Device: PRST1
   Source template: {author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s}
   Destination: authors
   Press 'Save plugboard' button
   press 'Apply' button
   
   In each case, the device_db plugboard writes your current Calibre metadata directly into the Sony's book database every time you connect the Sony to Calibre. The beauty of this is that any changes you make to Calibre metadata will automatically be updated on the Sony next time you connect -- no need to resend the books.
   
   [In case you're wondering why the PRST1 needs the 2nd plugboard (the epub one) -- it's because, for some unknown reason, sometimes after connecting it to Calibre, the T1 decides to update its book database by re-reading all the metadata inside each book. The 2nd plugboard makes an effort (for epubs at least) to make the data it re-reads the same as the data it just threw away. However, the epub plugboard is only used when you send the book to the PRST1, not every time you connect T1 to Calibre.]
   
   Just a caveat here... if you're using a metadata plugboard to remap the Sony's Author field then you should make sure that Prefs - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony (or SONY PRST1) - Customize - Use author sort for author is UNCHECKED. Otherwise your plugboard info will be overwritten by the simple author_sort field.
   

** Alternate options for displaying Series info
Using an example of a book with
Author: Agatha Christie
Series: Hercule Poirot[15]
Title: Death on the Nile
The Calibre template used in the previous discussion

{author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s} - {title}

results in: Christie, Agatha - Hercule Poirot 15 - Death on the Nile

For very large book series:

{author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>3s} - {title}

results in: Christie, Agatha - Hercule Poirot 015 - Death on the Nile

For complex series, with index needing decimal point e.g. prequels or short stories between "normal" books in the series:

{author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>5.2f} - {title}

results in: Christie, Agatha - Hercule Poirot 15.00 - Death on the Nile
or perhaps

{author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>5.1f} - {title}

results in: Christie, Agatha - Hercule Poirot 015.0 - Death on the Nile

... so pick the {series_index:...} part of the template which best suits your needs and use it throughout this exercise.

...well I think that's more than enough for a first draft. See if you can make sense of it and let me know