[Merischino]

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I think I should preface this by telling you that I believe you are misunderstanding me.

In all cases, I know that Calibre has a default behavior and that as a software program in the absence of information from the user there are a set of rules it follows. Such that, importing books means it populates fields with whatever metadata (however correct or not, however complete or not) it finds in the source file. and, prior to any user entry, calibre has a set of rules for how it will treat each record in its database absent correction or update from a user.

It is also my understanding that when I hit "e" and get a metadata correction form with fields which I can change or edit data, or enter data where there is none, that my user-entered changes should overrite or supercede whatever the default behavior was that Calibre used absent my corrections/changes/entries.

That said, when up til and including now, I go into Calibre and I add a book from Anne McCaffrey that has incorrect metadata (for example, the title is a string of useless information like "data saved 02-4-12 v.x200" when what should be in that field is the title of a book. My expectation is that when I enter the title of the book into that field, erasing that meaningless string, Calibre should from that moment forward display the "title" in the "title field" in all database results tables, and that it should no longer display that meaningless string.

now, speaking for the author or author-sort field. Let's say "author" was entered as the title incorrectly upon import. I would like the display in lists to show the author in a Lastname, Firstname format e.g. McCaffrey, Anne. So, in the Author (not the author sort) field, I enter exactly what I want to see in the list. Whatever calibre displayed before I made that change, whatever rules it followed, it should now as a result of my entry always list this particular record's authoer as McCaffrey, Anne.

I understand that if I do nothing to correct the author-sort field, Calibre will perform a default procedure on what is in the "author" field, taking what's after the space and putting iti n the front, adding a comma, and putting whatever was before the space at the end. This is Calibre's default. Absent information from me, this is what Calibre will do.

WITH information from me, where I leave the author-sort field blank and I check the "automatically sort" checkbox, this is also what calibre will do.

WITH information from me, where I do NOT check that box, and I DO enter specific data which is different from what calibre's default behavior is, namely if I enter "McCaffrey, Anne" into the author-sort box, what I expect is that then it will Sort this record in a list of authors such that it will appear in the Middle of the list in a "m" location while displaying the author's name as "McCaffrey, Anne".

Wat I have been explaining is that this last statement is false in all cases in my installation of calibre. I cannot make Calibre behave in this manner unless or until I install some tweak which I understand exists and which I understand is not included in default installs of Calibre.


[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Starson17

That's what's confusing us both. What would you have seen if you immediately looked at the record using "E" and looked directly at the author and author_sort fields? When I do that, I see what I entered.

When I make metadata changes in my GUI and click "ok" and then go back into that record, I see my changes reflected in that record. When I quit out of calibre and come bak some time later, I do not find that my changes have in all cases remained. Speaking only for this afternoon, I can say unequivocally that the changes made to my calibre database TODAY but BEFORE i moved my calibre database to a new location per suggestions in this thread, when I shared the after-move metadata.db with you all of my changes were NOT reflected in the metadata.db that you looked at, whereas in the case of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra I can confirm that the db you looked at did NOT have my changes whereas the db i Was still using DID have that change. I cannot explain this. It makes no logical sense for this to be true, but that is the case.

That's not the way Calibre is designed to work. It will work that way, if you force it to with a tweak, but it's not really designed to do that.

If this statement is true, that sorting and displaying based on a lastname-first rule for both fields, is not possible without a tweak, then I am confused why we have been goign in circles all day? It seems I need a tweak. However, elsewhere I'm told that anything I enter into those two fields should work. In practice, I believe the statement that "calibre is not designed to do that" and not the statement that "calibre will do whatever you want to do with those two fields". Please understand, I don't want to fight about it... I just want to resolve whatever I can and whatever I can't, I want to learn what calibre WILL do. not what it won't do.

It will always sort based on whatever is in author_sort. All that the tweak does is control what Calibre puts into that field when you first enter a book/

actually, I find that this last doesn't prove true in my instance. It will sort based on something that will ultimately, somehow, prove to be somehow logical, because computers operate on rules. However, when I put lastnamefirst in display and lastnamefirst in sort never checking "autosort", it seems to corrupt the data that is in "autosort" and output some kind of mess into the metadata.db file that is not what anyone would ever intend. Example: i bulk-edit all Anne McCaffrey entries such that they follow my rules. I send you my metada.db. you look at it, and tell me that you have Anne McCaffrey all over the place in everywhich way but loose in that database. You tell me that Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in my database has an author sort which neither any human being would choose to enter, nor would Calibre's rule structure have assigned had I left it to autosort.

End conclusion? "Calibre isn't designed to do that" without a tweak.

Calibre really doesn't know which part of a name is the first name.

I would imagine that Calibre is capable only of breaking the field into "before the space" and "after the space" strings of data, or "before the comma" and "after the comma" strings of data, so that strings of data with commas in it or with more than one space in it, get broken/flipped in strange manners. E.g., files with multiple authors like a fictitions "Bould, Mark, Adams, Robert & Lackey, Mercedes" would get parsed into something like "Mark, Bould, Adams, Robert & Lackey, Mercedes"

Calibre always enters something in the author_sort field when it adds a book. It assumes you have entered the author's name firstname last, and it puts lastname, firstname into author_sort. It never leaves it blank. The option setting only applies when changing (editing) metadata.

This agrees 100% with what I entered above as my assumption. Unless I'm missing something.

It has to sort.

I must have mis-spoke. I imagine we are talking about if I do not check the "automatically sort" box that it will still sort in some fashion. This does not conflict with my view of how software, in general, works.

Then you have to manually set author_sort for each record, or you have to set the tweak so it fills it in automatically the way you want.

What I was doing that led to this thread was manually entering data for the author-sort field, expecting that it would then sort based on that information. It wasn't. It didn't. Hence, this thread.

It has to put something into author_sort. That's the way it works.

Understood.

It is consistent. A big part of your problem is that when you add a book, Calibre will determine the author name from either the filename or from internal metadata. That's controlled in Preference|Add/Save. If you have it set to get metadata from inside the book, and your author name is not correct, or is reversed, Calibre will fill in the author and author_sort differently.

Ok. Here is where I disagree, at least with your first statement. When I bulk edit 105 records for Anne McCaffrey and enter in my own data the way I want it in the Author and the Authorsort fields, not checking the autosort box, I do not ever get a consistent result. What I get is some records sorting up at the top of the list along with the "a"s. Some records sorting in the middle with the "M's and some records being willy nilly all over the place not relating to either an "a" or an "m" placement, irrespective of what is displayed in the list. I am not able to consistently get "McCaffrey, Anne" to be what is DISPLAYED in the list, nor am I able to consistently get any combination of McCaffrey, Anne to sort. Meaning, they do not ALL sort on "a". they do not ALL sort on "M". they do not ALL display as McCaffrey, Anne, and they do not ALL display as Anne McCaffrey.

Hence, this thread.

It may seem that way, but you're wrong. Just go into any record, change the author_sort to "zzzzz" and sort the authors - that record will sort to the "z's". Calibre won't touch your author_sort after it's set the first time (unless you set the option checkbox during editing). You are free to put anything you want in there, and whatever you put in there will control the sort order.

Ok. Here you are contradicting yourself again. Either it WILL behave according to what the user-entered data is, or it WON'T. I don't think I follow both statements being true. Is Calibre designed that way? Or is Calibre not designed that way? Do I need a tweak to do this? or don't I need a tweak to do this?

Again, I am not trying to be disagreeable. I am just trying to understand.

And I do appreciate you taking the time and effort to read through this thread and provide feedback.