Sort by page, with only first in series

[MerlinMama]

Title pretty much sums up what I'm trying to do. I would like my books sorted by the number of pages, but only the first book in a series counts.

At the moment, the book series either ends up at the end of the list in the correct order for the series but not page number, or the series is completely out of order according to page number.

I'd like it to end up:

Pretty Horses, 115pgs
Jumping Jacks, Book 1, 120pgs
Skipping Stones, Book 2, 50pgs <=
Hopping Huts, Book 3, 344 <=
Let's Wander Together, 135pgs

Is this at all possible?

[theducks]

You can't Just sort on 2 mutually exclusive traits.

# of pages has nothing to do with Series
You can do 2 steps:

Select books (for any reason ):
Then sort on the page count.


The sort method Calibre uses ALLOWS bias when the (last done) sort has the same EXACT value.

eg
4 books have the EXACT same page count.
If I sort by Author, THEN page count.
The Authors will APPEAR in the previous order FOR ONLY BOOKS WITH THE SAME # OF PAGES. If there are other books by the same author, those will land at the Page count location (but will also have the bias)

[MerlinMama]

Thanks theducks. I'll have to tinker to figure a way to get it the way I like.

[davidfor]

The problem with what you want is that sorting is based in information for each book. But, you want to sort based on information in some other book. To achieve what you want, you would need to add the page count for the first book in the series to the other books in the series. From memory, there is a plugin that can do something like this. I think it has can add information to all books by an author.

I also have to ask, why do you want this? I can't think of how this would be useful. I can see sorting by the total page count for a series, but, I can't see a reason to sort by the page count of the first book in a series.

[MerlinMama]

Originally Posted by davidfor

...I also have to ask, why do you want this? I can't think of count for a series, but, I can't see a reason to sort by the page count of the first book in a series.

I like to read my books from shortest to longest. So if I have a list of twenty books (example) with one series of 3 books, I would like the first book to be in its "proper" place in the list, and still have the 2nd and 3rd after it in the list, regardless of page number.

If the 3rd book is shortest, I don't want it showing up first, out of order, or having the series split up throughout the list as they are now

Also, for myself PERSONALLY, No matter how I'm sorting my list, there are very few reasons why I would want any of my series split up or out of order in that list. Again, though, that is just my personal preference.