[Trel]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Why, oh why, are you using a semicolon to separate authors, when calibre uses "&".
Why, oh why, are you using a semicolon to ALSO separate two author first names when they have the same last name?

I didn't originally name these. I can change them to "&" and make the way they're worded more sane, but doesn't explain what's happening here.

(But for the record, on the actual cover, it's listed as "Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, And Kevin J. Anderson")

1. Bulk rename all 21 books, setting both Author and Author Sort (there should be no other author field, correct?)

2. Export all the books. (Result here is a single folder for the author)

3. Completely remove the Calibre library (the entire folder). There should be no residual metadata anywhere.

4. Import the books from what I did in #2.

5. That's how I ended up where I am with the two folders. (Originally it was just a single book in a different folder, now it's three)

And calibre is certainly trimming the filenames, since I assume the author (singular) "Frank; Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Ander" is actually "Frank; Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson".
(But it should be "Frank Herbert & Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson".)

Agreed, however, it's not doing it consistently. For example, there's a title that's ~5 characters longer than any of the other titles. It's listed under the folder with the longer name.

Now, I would expect, if the metadata as definitely the same, that calibe would rename the author folder. It is possible that when shortening the path, it keeps old folders (I doubt it), but in any even, if you temporarily rename the author, it will recalculate the values and put them all together.

That's why I exported, nuked the library, and reimported. I still get the two folders, so I don't know what's going on here.

EDIT: I renamed them using "&" and it looks like it just uses the first author for the folder name now, though, it is using a single folder. I can live with that.