Quote:
Originally Posted by igorius
I love it!
So till now we were discussing a philosophical library searching.
But now lets build a real world library...
We install calibre, we do NOT touch any preferences to get all the same results. But we add the custom column author_sort.
We have a metadata db, which contains 2 columns: authors and sort.
Now we import a book with only one author and we enter all data without any error, because we are perfect.
We get: (according the calibre help!)
GUI.............................................DB
Authors: .........."Annie Author"......: Authors: ..."Annie Author" -> Author(GUI) is a reflection of Author (DB)
Author_sort:....."Author, Annie"......: Sort: ........"Author, Annie" -> Author_sort (GUI) is a reflection of Sort (DB)
So far so good!
Now lets look at sorting:
Author_sort (GUI) is a reflection of Sort (DB)
Authors (GUI) is an abstraction of Sort (DB), so sorting goes "wrong", its not natural sorting.
To get a natural sorting of Authors (GUI), we make an abstraction of the reflection of Author_sort (GUI), which is a reflection of sort (DB): We create a new column (GUI), which reflects this abstraction of the reflection.
Now sorting Authors (GUI) is the reflection of an abstraction of a reflection.
With our newly imported book we get:
Author_sort (GUI): ..."Author, Annie"
New column (GUI): ..."Author, Annie"
Authors (GUI): ........."Annie Author"
Anything good!
Now we fill up the Library with millions of books and fill in wrong data for 1 Author, like in real life...
Authors (GUI): ......."Annie Author" .................... gets -> Authors (DB): "Annie Author"
Author_sort (GUI): ."Author, Annew" ................. gets -> Sort (DB): ......" Author, Annew"
New column (GUI): "Author, Annew" (we know its the reflection of an abstraction of a reflection!)
Due to the fact of this Abstraction of the reflection of the previous reflection we loose our Author and will find her never again, because we have no direct reflection of our Authors (DB) to Authors (GUI) -> speaking of sorting them.
The data is still here, but not any more visible in terms of sorting.
If we had a reflection of the Authors (DB) to Authors (GUI), we would see directly our mistake we made when entering the names.
This is my problem with the actual kind of sorting -> i had exactly this case!
Now the developers of calibre should tell us, why the sorting of authors(GUI) is not directly reflected with the Authors (DB).
And by the way, no one will find out without help the fact that you have to make that complicated abstraction/reflection-thing!
And we are using a simple name, imagine if we have a name like "Prof. Dr. Dr. HC Igor Maria Duke of GoHome IV"
And what i read all the time her (i have asked various times) is:
It was never intended, which means to me: "We have no clue, its like it is"
You should add a new composite column... which means to me: "Argh, i cannot explain, but i have a kind of remedy"
Both answers are what i heard when learning my profession: "We always did it this way" and "You have to do what we tell you".
When i begun studying and working, i learned that all times that i nearly never have the easy way, i ask why and find better solutions!
So again: Who can explain that "feature" that i possibly (and others too) get the fundamental idea behind this (to me) obvious nonsense of sorting authors!
At last all your answers help me to get what i want, but at last no one can obviously tell why these things are like they are, only the devs who invented that thing.
Hopefully one can explain it!
I will thank you all for your patience and really good explanations for my annoying questions!
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This seems to be the first time you have mentioned incorrect data in the author_sort field. One has to wonder how this is done other than by a manual edit, i.e. PEBKAC error. The normal procedure when using the MDE is to use calibre to automatically generate the author_sort from the author
The phrase that comes to mind is Garbage In, Garbage Out. You have put incorrect data into the database, the GUI reads the database and reflects that incorrect data. Sadly, calibre is unable to read your mind and automatically correct your errors.
This contrasts sharply with your original complaint that calibre by design sorts authors by using the author-sort field which is stored as last name, first name, initials which is how calibre sorted from the first version I ran. This matches what I have seen in every physical and online library I've searched for books in. When I search for a book by Robert Asprin, I look under A for Asprin and not R for Robert.
Edit: Did you try the suggestion of selecting all your books, going to edit metadata in bulk, select the automatically set author sort and hitting OK? That should correct any errors in the author_sort field though it will not fix any errors in the author field.
Edit2: Have you tried any of the suggestions made in this thread? Or are you simply repeating your question in the hopes someone will wave their magic wand and fix your corrupted metadata?