Exporting books sorted by authors problem

[igorius]

I have some books of a serie which are from an author and sometimes from the same author in conjunction with other author and sometimes from different authors:

John Doe - Serie 01 - Book Title X
John Doe & Frank Duh - Serie 02 - Book Title Y
Frank Duh - Serie 03 - Book Title Z

I understand that for the 3rd book that it will be exported by Frank Duh and not John Doe, but for the first 2 books i want to get the export like this:
/Exported Books/John Doe/Serie/John Doe - Serie 01 - Book Title X
/Exported Books/John Doe/Serie/John Doe & Frank Duh - Serie 02 - Book Title Y

So i want to get a folder with the first author of the Authors...
I tried with {first_author}, but it always exports with both author names.

[theducks]

Do you have a column {first_author}... NO. That is not a standard column.
If you have a custom column, it always has a # eg. {#first_author}


I think you need to use the https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/template_lang.html to create one that only grabs 1 Author.

BTW there is no guarantee who is first
FWIW when I started, my device only used file names.
So I had 2 top level folders: 1)By Series, 2)by Authors NOT IN A SERIES

FWIW Some series, like your example, do not always have the same set of authors. IMHO is why the first item is SERIES -Series_index-Title (optional Authors as that is the least important to the sort , if at all)
You can't sort 2 ways at the same time

[igorius]

I have been looking that help-page, but i dont understand the whole thing because i need examples from real world, not theoretical "whatever you do you will get anything". That doesnt help.
Sorry!

[DNSB]

What I use for sending books to my ereader is the following:

Elibrary/{author_sort:sublist(0,1,&)}/{title} - {authors:sublist(0,1,&)}

The author_sort:sublist(0,1,&) and authors:sublist(0,1,&) return the first entry in the author sort and author columns where the entries are separated by the &. So basically, the ebooks are stored in the Elibrary directory in subdirectories generated from the author_sort and with a file name generated using the ebook title and the first author name to keep path lengths under control. Since I am using a Kobo ereader, the series is both an option in displaying a list of books and a searchable field.

Please note that a quick search on Google forcing the search to site:mobileread.com found multiple hits that use pretty much the same code.

Have you read through the calibre FAQs? Read the The calibre template language tutorial?

Without that, you might be able to copy what others write but you will not get far trying to create your own templates to take full advantage of the full capabilities of calibre.

[igorius]

@DNSB: Thanks for your hint, but it doesnt work. Books get exported always with all author-names, never with only the first name.
Maybe because there is a space around the &?
So names are formatted like:
John Doe & Frank Duh
and not like:
John Doe&Frank Duh
I really dont understand that whole thing...
Tried with exporting books, changed the entry in "folder device interface".
Maybe thats the wrong place to do that?

[DNSB]

For my save to disk template, I use:

{author_sort:sublist(0,1,&)}/{series:| |} {series_index:||} - {title} - {authors:sublist(0,1,&)}

This creates a subdirectory based on the author_sort first entry, series/series index if it exists and a file name based on the title & author first entry.

Could you clarify what you mean by export? The first template is for sending to my Kobo devices, the template in this message is for saving to disk. I don't think of either of those as an export. To me, export is the builtin save all of calibre content, settings, etc. to a set of file to be restored on another computer.

[igorius]

I found it. I did the settings in plugins, but i had to do them in "exporting books". So it finally does it. Thanks a lot!
Too much places to make that settings and therefore too much possible errors. The more i use calibre, more i hate the mess how things are done. Sorry

[DNSB]

Whereas I like the fact that I can have a different template for sending books to my ereaders and saving them to disk.

And again, I'm not sure what you mean by "exporting books". Sending books to your ereader? Saving books to disc? ??? Perhaps the way that it is used in reference to Pocketbook devices?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Whereas I like the fact that I can have a different template for sending books to my ereaders and saving them to disk.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔
As a matter, Calibre allows a template for every brand (model family). Just look in the config folder. there is one for every brand family connected. I have 5 (I removed some where the devices no longer function)