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chaley · 04-28-2017, 07:16 AM

Here is what CC does, with some references to what calibre does as explanation:

CC never uses metadata from inside a book. Instead it uses metadata from calibre's database. The only exception is if scan for new books is enabled then at the beginning of a connect as wireless device CC will build a temporary book record from the metadata in the book.
When you sort the book list by author, CC uses author_sort from the calibre db book record. This ensures that books with multiple authors sort consistently.
The grouping drawer is sorted using the individual sort values for authors. You see these values in calibre's Manage Authors dialog. Note: if in calibre you change the sort value for an author then calibre will recompute the author sort for all books with that author.
The first letters shown in the grouping drawer are the first letter of the individual author sort values.
In all cases, sorting is done using "International Components for Unicode" sorting rules. This matters because sort order is language specific, not alphabet specific.

From the above we see that it is possible that the grouping drawer will sort differently from the book list. This happens if the individual author sort value differs from the author_sort value for a book. If this mismatch occurs then calibre makes the author_sort line in edit metadata red. It is also possible that both the book list and grouping drawer can sort "incorrectly" but consistent with each other. This happens when the author_sort values are all green but the values are not correct.

It is generally not a good idea to change the author_sort for a book but not change it for the individual author. Said another way, it is generally not a good idea to have red author_sort values in a book.

It is worth noting that similar processing is used for titles (title_sort) and series. One difference: because a book cannot have multiple titles or series there is no notion of "individual" vs "book". Another difference: series_sort is calculated by calibre and passed to CC. Calibre does not provide a UI to change this value.

EDIT: I notice I didn't deal with the "when they update" part of the question. CC's metadata is updated on every wireless connect and every time a book is transferred using the content server or cloud connection.

04-28-2017, 07:16 AM	#11
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,495 Karma: 8065348 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	Here is what CC does, with some references to what calibre does as explanation: CC never uses metadata from inside a book. Instead it uses metadata from calibre's database. The only exception is if scan for new books is enabled then at the beginning of a connect as wireless device CC will build a temporary book record from the metadata in the book. When you sort the book list by author, CC uses author_sort from the calibre db book record. This ensures that books with multiple authors sort consistently. The grouping drawer is sorted using the individual sort values for authors. You see these values in calibre's Manage Authors dialog. Note: if in calibre you change the sort value for an author then calibre will recompute the author sort for all books with that author. The first letters shown in the grouping drawer are the first letter of the individual author sort values. In all cases, sorting is done using "International Components for Unicode" sorting rules. This matters because sort order is language specific, not alphabet specific. From the above we see that it is possible that the grouping drawer will sort differently from the book list. This happens if the individual author sort value differs from the author_sort value for a book. If this mismatch occurs then calibre makes the author_sort line in edit metadata red. It is also possible that both the book list and grouping drawer can sort "incorrectly" but consistent with each other. This happens when the author_sort values are all green but the values are not correct. It is generally not a good idea to change the author_sort for a book but not change it for the individual author. Said another way, it is generally not a good idea to have red author_sort values in a book. It is worth noting that similar processing is used for titles (title_sort) and series. One difference: because a book cannot have multiple titles or series there is no notion of "individual" vs "book". Another difference: series_sort is calculated by calibre and passed to CC. Calibre does not provide a UI to change this value. EDIT: I notice I didn't deal with the "when they update" part of the question. CC's metadata is updated on every wireless connect and every time a book is transferred using the content server or cloud connection.