Series 'Book x of y' Sorting

[KungFuNav]

Hi, apologies if this has been asked before, I couldn't find any info on it.

(using the 'Xanth' series as an example) I use Calibre built in feature to add the number of books in a series by formatting the series name as:

37 Xanth [21]

Which shows in Calibre as:

Book 21 of 37 Xanth

Which is great, however, when I go to sort the series to tidy things up, I find it sorts by the 37... i.e. if I add more 'Xanth' books without indicating that it's book 37 it sorts as:

37 Xanth [21]
...
...
Xanth [12]
Xanth [33]

Note - the '...' indicates there may be many more books in the series sort.

This means if I sort by series I don't realise that I have more books, that may be under the 'number of books' numeric sort. This is a particular problem when there are multiple authors for a particular series. I hope that makes sense!

Is there a way I can tweak Calibre so that it recognises the leading numbers as the number of books in a series, and sorts the Series column ignoring them?

[eschwartz]

Not that I know of; I don't think you can edit series_sort. Then again I have never thought to do what you did, it seems somewhat pointless. You will have to keep updating the series name every time a book comes out.

The tag browser will say how many items are tagged with a certain series, though. So, if you have the complete set, you can just look at that.

It is possible you can use a plugboard to fix it up when you export.

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by KungFuNav

Hi, apologies if this has been asked before, I couldn't find any info on it.

(using the 'Xanth' series as an example) I use Calibre built in feature to add the number of books in a series by formatting the series name as:

37 Xanth [21]

Which shows in Calibre as:

Book 21 of 37 Xanth

Which is great, however, when I go to sort the series to tidy things up, I find it sorts by the 37... i.e. if I add more 'Xanth' books without indicating that it's book 37 it sorts as:

37 Xanth [21]
...
...
Xanth [12]
Xanth [33]

Note - the '...' indicates there may be many more books in the series sort.

This means if I sort by series I don't realise that I have more books, that may be under the 'number of books' numeric sort. This is a particular problem when there are multiple authors for a particular series. I hope that makes sense!

Is there a way I can tweak Calibre so that it recognises the leading numbers as the number of books in a series, and sorts the Series column ignoring them?

Yes. You can tweak Calibre by being consistent.

"37 Xanth" and "Xanth" are two different series, as far as Calibre is concerned. Add the 37 to the beginning of the books that don't have it, or remove it from the ones that do. Then they'll sort properly.

By the way, are there really 37 books in the Xanth series? I don't think I ever read more than the first 10.

[KungFuNav]

Originally Posted by fidvo

Yes. You can tweak Calibre by being consistent.

"37 Xanth" and "Xanth" are two different series, as far as Calibre is concerned. Add the 37 to the beginning of the books that don't have it, or remove it from the ones that do. Then they'll sort properly.

By the way, are there really 37 books in the Xanth series? I don't think I ever read more than the first 10.

Ok, thanks guys... I was kind of thinking that was the case but just wanted to confirm it.

I think I will remove the number of books from the series, because you're right that I'm finding it a pain updating all the tags when a new book comes out. Plus any new series added always need to be updated manually or will sort alphabetically by series name rather than by number. I created a monster!

37 Xanth books is a monster too I've not had time to read, I would have thought authors would explode if they had to write that many books in a series.

[KungFuNav]

Actually, thinking it through, it might be nice if Calibre could use something like:

Xanth [21,37]

instead to indicate the book number and number of books, so the series title remained alphabetic, and the number of books could be updated automatically (i.e. if one book has the number of books, the rest could automatically use the same value, and an amendment to the number to one could affect them all).

That way if you import a new series it's not such a big deal if the number of books isn't there... or perhaps a plugin could automatically add the total number of books (if it recognised the series name) from a website that held that sort of info.

It is nice to know at a glance how many books are in a series, I could add a custom column to hold the info I suppose, but would rather not customise the out of the box Calibre if I can help it.

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by KungFuNav

It is nice to know at a glance how many books are in a series, I could add a custom column to hold the info I suppose, but would rather not customise the out of the box Calibre if I can help it.

If you don't, you might be the first person in Calibre's history not to customize it.

[theducks]

@KungFuNav
But if piers comes out with another book, all those others are now wrong.

Book 1 of how many more will be written ? Crystal ball?

I just look at the highest number I have AND/OR open the tag browser and look at the count of those I have next to the series name.

The Quality check Plug in can report on gaps. Check Metadata:check series gaps

[Divingduck]

If someone really needs it, I would favor using an additional custom column for the max series number. It is easy to change with an Edit metadata bulk change and you can do all kinds of maybe needed manipulations as e.g. Book 21 of 37 in plug board to asign it to a title, or for an additional custom column for show it in a list or in the book details etc.