Sony PRS-T3 library sorting

[Iain_L]

Hi from a confused newbie,

I am trying to solve an issue with the order books are displayed on my PRS-T3, and managing to do nothing more than confuse myself even more.

In my Calibre library my books, when sorted by author, as well as grouping authors correctly, display titles in order as well, such as Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor, Jack Reacher 02 - Die Trying etc.

On my T3, when I have moved the books to the device, and sorted by author, the order will be Jack Reacher 02 - Die Trying, Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor etc.

I am trying to sort the books on my Reader in the same order as on Calibre, but admit to being very confused by discussions of plug-ins, metadata plugboards etc.

I hope my description of my issue makes sense, and any pointers that will help will be extremely gratefully received.

Thanks

Iain

Thanks

[speakingtohe]

try setting the tweak in preferences
Specify how sony collections are sorted.
There is an explanation of sorts in the tweak text



Helen

[Iain_L]

Hi Helen,

Thanks for the reply.

I am not using Sony reader software, which I assume I need for Sony collections, so am just downloading it now, and will have a play to see whether that helps.

Thanks again

Iain

[AnotherCat]

You do not need Sony Reader to manage collections on the device.

Have a look in Calibre's Preferences>Plugins at the Plugin "Sony PRST1 and newer device Interface". It has customisation options for the save template and for what metadata to use to create collections on the device.

I am not sure what save template you want but {author_sort}/{title}-{authors} gives me the result that I wanted.

[Iain_L]

Thanks Anothercat,

My Calibre preferences are set to use the PRS-T1 and Newer plugin, with the same template as yours.

Looking at it more closely, what I have is sorted correctly by Author on my Reader, but the titles then are in reverse order for all books ie Z - A rather than A-Z, which is what I want, and what Calibre displays for me.



Iain

[AnotherCat]

I am speaking as to the T1 behaviour (because only speakingtohe is the only actual T3 owner who seems able to contribute) which I think is basically the same in this.

I think what you are finding may be a limitation of the device (but I am happy to be corrected on that). In my case if the sort is on author then the title appears to be unsorted, not reversed, unless the title sort has some algorithm which is not immediately apparent to me.

It is not something that has concerned me enough to look further into in the past as while I have a lot of books on the reader it includes only a small part of my total Calibre and so for any one author I have generally only a few of their books, those being the ones for that author closest to the top of my "to read" list. However, I will have a further think about it and try myself anything someone else may come up with that works.

A clunky way around this, if there is no better way described by someone, may be to create a collection on each author with the sort in the collection on Title (Author becomes one of the tags to list in the T1 and newer devices plugin). It does mean, a big increase in the number of collections to navigate through on the device though.

EDIT: Just looking at this a bit more and I think that maybe the T1 also tends to sort the titles under author in reverse too. BUT, if it does, then that ordering is modified in some way by characters such as ( and ~ that may appear in the title. For example, in titles I separate the main title from any subtitle by a ~ (so like Coco Chanel~An Intimate Life).

[Polarpenguin]

Think Helen is on the right track. You need to tweak the sony_collection_sorting_rules

Preferences> tweak> Specify how SONY collections are sorted

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Polarpenguin

Preferences> tweak> Specify how SONY collections are sorted

Iain_L ,perhaps try sony_collection_sorting_rules = [(['series'], 'series_index'), (['*'], 'title')] as a start

I think this may help on the T1 but it does seem to be affected by any non alphanumeric characters, etc., in the title. Perhaps remove the "series" entry if not wanted for the series tag to be the sort order when there is a series tag in Calibre.

I also think it will only work on books transferred after the change to the tweak so if it works and you want it to work on the books already loaded, they may all have to be removed and loaded again.

[Iain_L]

Many thanks to all of you who are looking at this and coming up with suggestions.

Helen, I misunderstood initially, and went looking for Tweaks in the Sony Reader software rather than Calibre - shows what a novice I am regarding this. I have now found it in Calibre.

AnotherCat, I am doing something similar to you I think. When I first saw the title issue, I cut down on all the books I actually stored on the device (after all I only read one book at a time, which takes a couple of days per book) reckoning I didn't need whole series of 20 books from each author. Makes life easier, but I'm a pedantic person, and little things like this niggle me, particularly when my old PRS-600 and 650 did sort correctly.

Thanks again everyone.

[speakingtohe]

T3 is basically same as T1 and 600, x50 etc. as far as collections go.
sony_collection_sorting_rules = [(['author_sort'], 'series_index')]
Is what I use.
When I have series collections it sorts them in order
When I have author_sort collections it sorts them
series 1 book 1
series 2 book 2
....
series 3 book 1
....
Which is what I want but non standard

My plugboard is
format epub
device PRST1
source template {author_sort}{series:| - | }{series_index:0>2s}
Destination Field authors

this gives me LN,FN series series index in the author field

White, Randy Wayne Doc Ford 1
in the author field and then I have the Sony ereader (on reader itself) sort set to author so the books are sorted by series since the author is generally the same so does'nt affect sorting.

I probably don't need both, but I seem to think I do.

Books must be re sent for plugboard to work.
You can change your send books template and the sony_collection tweak and it will change your collection types/sort when you connect, so it is easier to experiment with.

Helen

[Iain_L]

Thanks Helen,

I think it's time for me to go and do some learning by experimenting.

Iain