Touch Sort by Series

Pantyboy · 05-01-2014, 07:29 PM

Hi all

I sort one thing and suddenly another pops its head above the parapet.

I've loaded my books to my (now working) SD card. I had everything sorted using the sticky regarding shelf management but, for some reason, my series numbers are, now, listed in reverse.

For example, my Aurelio Zen Mysteries collection, the books, which have the series number followed by the book title, are in reverse order, ie: 'End Games' which is book 11 is the first in the list and 'Ratking', book 1, is listed last.

I know there's a way to rectify this, but, for the life of me, I just can't seem to remember how.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Pb.

davidfor · 05-01-2014, 08:45 PM

How are you handling the sorting?

If you are using a plugboard to add the series info to the title, I think we need to see the plugboard you are using. Plus a few examples produced on the device. That will let us know that the plugboard is producing the desired result.

If you are using the utilities plugin to order the series shelves, there is an option at the bottom of the dialog to choose the order. The choices are "Ascending" and "Descending". "Ascending" should put the first book in the series at the start of the list.

TechniSol · 05-01-2014, 10:54 PM

Hmmm. I've been playing with Calibre a bit tonight, also used the plugin with sort in ascending order and sort set to date as recommended on the collections and did not get a sort in numerical order -is there an assumption that Calibre sent them in order by series? Changing the sort to "by title" for each collection worked fine. My plugboard yields SeriesName #SeriesIndex(with leading 0<10) - Title...

Example: "The Dresden Files #01 - Storm Front"

Is there any possibility of adding "by title" to the plugin instead of the by date it sets collections to now? Honestly, by date seems a little odd when following PeterT's tutorial and massaging the titles to include the series and number.

davidfor · 05-02-2014, 12:28 AM

You have missed the point of the "Order series shelves" option. It is a cheat. The Kobo library has the series information but no way to sort using it. We don't have much control over the available sort options. The title and the author are strictly the only ones we can change, but it means adding the series info on a place people might not want to see it. And it means the information us duplicated.

But, the "Date added" sort is a little different. We don't really control it, but we can manipulate it. You could manually add the books one at a time to a shelf in the series order. Choosing this sort would put the books into the series order.

So, what the "Order series shelves" option does is to automate this. It finds all shelves that have the same name as a series. Then it changes the "Date added" so that sorting by this will show the books in the series number order. It takes what to me is a useless sorting option and changes it to a useful one.

There is of course a problem with this. Kobo broke the Date added sorting in 3.3.0. It doesn't matter whether you do the adding manually or use the plugin to set the dates, the date added breaks after three or four books.

TechniSol · 05-02-2014, 12:47 AM

Now I understand... I thought Calibre was either manipulating dates or times, but it still wasn't sorting correctly in the collections and I couldn't figure out why. Frankly, I was worried that something got broken in Calibre or that I needed to wipe the book from the reader and resend them so the files would be sent in order or something equally ridiculous.

I *assume* Calibre is setting the config file sort for each collection to: by date. Until they fix the broken date sort, or just for those of us who would benefit by Title sort, would you offer the option in the plugin? I'm asking because I just spent a while changing three pages of collections to Title sort tonight...

Thanks for the explanation!

davidfor · 05-02-2014, 01:22 AM

Ouch. That would have been painful.

Adding other sort options is a good idea. I did start working on extending the function to allow other choices of shelves. "Author" shelves was the first extra option. And then allowing different sorts such as publishing date. Setting the other orders as the selected sort in the config file would be useful. It will get done, I'm just not sure when

In the meantime, in case you need to do this again, edit the config file and look for lines that look like:

Code:

LastLibrarySorter_shelf_filterByBookshelf%28Ender%27s%20Game%29=sortByDateAddedToShelf()

The bit between the "%28" and "%29" is the URL encoded shelf name. If you remove the line, it will use the default sort. The value on the right is the name of the sort function used. You can change it to one of:

sortByNewest() - This is "Recently Read"
sortByTitle()
sortByAuthor()
sortBySize()
sortByFileType()
sortByDateAddedToShelf()

Pantyboy · 05-02-2014, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

...I think we need to see the plugboard you are using.

The plugboard I'm using is as per PeterT's shelf management guide and it's set to 'Any Format' - 'Any Device'.

Code:

{series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

...If you are using the utilities plugin to order the series shelves, there is an option at the bottom of the dialog to choose the order.

I'm not sure which utilities plugin you mean here. I've installed your 'Kobo Utilities' plugin and I've recently started to use jgoguen's 'Kobo Touch Extended Driver' and neither of them appear to have any reference to sorting.

Regards

Pb

davidfor · 05-02-2014, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pantyboy

The plugboard I'm using is as per PeterT's shelf management guide and it's set to 'Any Format' - 'Any Device'.

Code:

{series_index:0>2s|| - }{title}

That plugboard should work if you have all the books in a series on on shelf. Then sorting by title should show them in series number order. It should have the series number as two digits with a leading zero. If it doesn't, that would explain why the sort is wrong.

Quote:

I'm not sure which utilities plugin you mean here. I've installed your 'Kobo Utilities' plugin and I've recently started to use jgoguen's 'Kobo Touch Extended Driver' and neither of them appear to have any reference to sorting.

The driver doesn't have any sort options. The utilities plugin has a function "Order series shelves". My post above explains how this works. Or doesn't with firmware 3.3.0.

Pantyboy · 05-02-2014, 09:15 AM

Everything works as it did/should except for the reverse sort order.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

The driver doesn't have any sort options. The utilities plugin has a function "Order series shelves". My post above explains how this works. Or doesn't with firmware 3.3.0.

As my firmware is 3.3.0, I suppose I'll just have to wait for the "bug fix" v3.3.1.

Pb

speakingtohe · 05-02-2014, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

Ouch. That would have been painful.

Adding other sort options is a good idea. I did start working on extending the function to allow other choices of shelves. "Author" shelves was the first extra option. And then allowing different sorts such as publishing date. Setting the other orders as the selected sort in the config file would be useful. It will get done, I'm just not sure when

In the meantime, in case you need to do this again, edit the config file and look for lines that look like:

Code:

LastLibrarySorter_shelf_filterByBookshelf%28Ender%27s%20Game%29=sortByDateAddedToShelf()

The bit between the "%28" and "%29" is the URL encoded shelf name. If you remove the line, it will use the default sort. The value on the right is the name of the sort function used. You can change it to one of:

sortByNewest() - This is "Recently Read"
sortByTitle()
sortByAuthor()
sortBySize()
sortByFileType()
sortByDateAddedToShelf()

A fair time ago I tried changing the sortby options to sortByAuthor.
First off it didn't seem to work. Sometimes it would get overwritten and sometimes not. But even when not overwritten it didn't seem to work.

I would have [Sort] IIRC where the usual sort by was displayed and the tiles on the home screen would move around in a random way every time I powered on. Once I even had no tile for the current book.

My question is does changing it actually work now?

Helen

davidfor · 05-03-2014, 05:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

A fair time ago I tried changing the sortby options to sortByAuthor.
First off it didn't seem to work. Sometimes it would get overwritten and sometimes not. But even when not overwritten it didn't seem to work.

I would have [Sort] IIRC where the usual sort by was displayed and the tiles on the home screen would move around in a random way every time I powered on. Once I even had no tile for the current book.

My question is does changing it actually work now?

It has whenever I have tried it. I just did some tests to make sure and it works on the Glo running 3.3.0.

TechniSol · 05-04-2014, 11:02 PM

Thanks, Davidfor. Figured I could do it by modifying the config file, but through the device seemed just as quick as plugging into another device and editing. OTOH, it might not be the worst idea to back up the config in case it changes and I want them set to by title again... If it gets built in to the plugin, that'd be great.

Call me crazy, but I would have thought that "By: Title" would have been Kobo's default...

Ech1965 · 05-06-2014, 04:48 AM

Sorry to hijack the thread but I have another issue related to serie sorting.

I use the koboextented driver and the kobo utilties plugin.

I created a custom column in my calibre database "myshelf" ( Author - Serie). I'd like to have one collection per serie + one collection with the books for one author not belonging to any series.

I configured the extended driver to map the kobo collection name to my custom column.

When sending the book to the device, almost everything is ok
- collection on the device is named "as I want"
- the series info is correct ( an extra "update meta data on device is sometimes needed)
BUT:

The books inside a serie are not sorted according to the serie number. ( I tried changing the sort order in the UI, I also tried to modify the preference file... no way...)

I tried the kobo utilities plugin ( but the dialog box is empty, it doesn't detect any serie to sort ....)

??? any idea ?
Thanks in advance...
Etienne

davidfor · 05-06-2014, 05:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ech1965

Sorry to hijack the thread but I have another issue related to serie sorting.

I use the koboextented driver and the kobo utilties plugin.

I created a custom column in my calibre database "myshelf" ( Author - Serie). I'd like to have one collection per serie + one collection with the books for one author not belonging to any series.

You can use more than one column name in this field. They need to be separated by a comma.

Quote:

I configured the extended driver to map the kobo collection name to my custom column.

When sending the book to the device, almost everything is ok
- collection on the device is named "as I want"

How are the collections named?

Quote:

- the series info is correct ( an extra "update meta data on device is sometimes needed)
BUT:

The books inside a serie are not sorted according to the serie number. ( I tried changing the sort order in the UI, I also tried to modify the preference file... no way...)

The Kobo devices do not have a way to sort by series. Any way of doing this means using some other data. That means either changing another metadata field to include the series info, or using something like the date added sort.

Quote:

I tried the kobo utilities plugin ( but the dialog box is empty, it doesn't detect any serie to sort ....)

See my post above for an explanation of how this works. And why it doesn't in FW3.3.0.

Ech1965 · 05-06-2014, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

How are the collections named?

I do not have my calibre library at hand, but the device the device collection list looks like this:
...
Clive Cussler - ( contains books without serie info)
Clive Cussler - Dirt Pitt
Clice Cussler - NUMA Files
...

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

The Kobo devices do not have a way to sort by series. Any way of doing this means using some other data. That means either changing another metadata field to include the series info, or using something like the date added sort.

See my post above for an explanation of how this works. And why it doesn't in FW3.3.0.

I indeed used the "date added sort" feature ( before modifying the collection naming)

Now I understand that the firmware 3.3 is the culprit, not my changes in naming the collections...

Thanks a lot for you input, I'll modify the plugboard and change the book titles to add the serie number in the book tittle....

As a IT professional I HATE regressions, and this one for KOBO is a bad one !!

Thanks you very much for your help and support !

Etienne

05-01-2014, 07:29 PM	#1
Pantyboy Member Posts: 17 Karma: 12646 Join Date: Jan 2013 Device: Kobo Touch	Sort by Series Hi all I sort one thing and suddenly another pops its head above the parapet. I've loaded my books to my (now working) SD card. I had everything sorted using the sticky regarding shelf management but, for some reason, my series numbers are, now, listed in reverse. For example, my Aurelio Zen Mysteries collection, the books, which have the series number followed by the book title, are in reverse order, ie: 'End Games' which is book 11 is the first in the list and 'Ratking', book 1, is listed last. I know there's a way to rectify this, but, for the life of me, I just can't seem to remember how. Thanks in advance for the help. Pb.

05-01-2014, 10:54 PM	#3
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	Hmmm. I've been playing with Calibre a bit tonight, also used the plugin with sort in ascending order and sort set to date as recommended on the collections and did not get a sort in numerical order -is there an assumption that Calibre sent them in order by series? Changing the sort to "by title" for each collection worked fine. My plugboard yields SeriesName #SeriesIndex(with leading 0<10) - Title... Example: "The Dresden Files #01 - Storm Front" Is there any possibility of adding "by title" to the plugin instead of the by date it sets collections to now? Honestly, by date seems a little odd when following PeterT's tutorial and massaging the titles to include the series and number. Last edited by TechniSol; 05-01-2014 at 11:06 PM.

05-02-2014, 01:22 AM	#6
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	Ouch. That would have been painful. Adding other sort options is a good idea. I did start working on extending the function to allow other choices of shelves. "Author" shelves was the first extra option. And then allowing different sorts such as publishing date. Setting the other orders as the selected sort in the config file would be useful. It will get done, I'm just not sure when In the meantime, in case you need to do this again, edit the config file and look for lines that look like: Code: LastLibrarySorter_shelf_filterByBookshelf%28Ender%27s%20Game%29=sortByDateAddedToShelf() The bit between the "%28" and "%29" is the URL encoded shelf name. If you remove the line, it will use the default sort. The value on the right is the name of the sort function used. You can change it to one of: sortByNewest() - This is "Recently Read" sortByTitle() sortByAuthor() sortBySize() sortByFileType() sortByDateAddedToShelf()

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05-01-2014, 08:45 PM	#2
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	How are you handling the sorting? If you are using a plugboard to add the series info to the title, I think we need to see the plugboard you are using. Plus a few examples produced on the device. That will let us know that the plugboard is producing the desired result. If you are using the utilities plugin to order the series shelves, there is an option at the bottom of the dialog to choose the order. The choices are "Ascending" and "Descending". "Ascending" should put the first book in the series at the start of the list.

05-02-2014, 12:28 AM	#4
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	You have missed the point of the "Order series shelves" option. It is a cheat. The Kobo library has the series information but no way to sort using it. We don't have much control over the available sort options. The title and the author are strictly the only ones we can change, but it means adding the series info on a place people might not want to see it. And it means the information us duplicated. But, the "Date added" sort is a little different. We don't really control it, but we can manipulate it. You could manually add the books one at a time to a shelf in the series order. Choosing this sort would put the books into the series order. So, what the "Order series shelves" option does is to automate this. It finds all shelves that have the same name as a series. Then it changes the "Date added" so that sorting by this will show the books in the series number order. It takes what to me is a useless sorting option and changes it to a useful one. There is of course a problem with this. Kobo broke the Date added sorting in 3.3.0. It doesn't matter whether you do the adding manually or use the plugin to set the dates, the date added breaks after three or four books.

05-02-2014, 12:47 AM	#5
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	Now I understand... I thought Calibre was either manipulating dates or times, but it still wasn't sorting correctly in the collections and I couldn't figure out why. Frankly, I was worried that something got broken in Calibre or that I needed to wipe the book from the reader and resend them so the files would be sent in order or something equally ridiculous. I assume Calibre is setting the config file sort for each collection to: by date. Until they fix the broken date sort, or just for those of us who would benefit by Title sort, would you offer the option in the plugin? I'm asking because I just spent a while changing three pages of collections to Title sort tonight... Thanks for the explanation!

05-04-2014, 11:02 PM	#12
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	Thanks, Davidfor. Figured I could do it by modifying the config file, but through the device seemed just as quick as plugging into another device and editing. OTOH, it might not be the worst idea to back up the config in case it changes and I want them set to by title again... If it gets built in to the plugin, that'd be great. Call me crazy, but I would have thought that "By: Title" would have been Kobo's default...

05-06-2014, 04:48 AM	#13
Ech1965 Member Posts: 22 Karma: 12050 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: IPad	Sorry to hijack the thread but I have another issue related to serie sorting. I use the koboextented driver and the kobo utilties plugin. I created a custom column in my calibre database "myshelf" ( Author - Serie). I'd like to have one collection per serie + one collection with the books for one author not belonging to any series. I configured the extended driver to map the kobo collection name to my custom column. When sending the book to the device, almost everything is ok - collection on the device is named "as I want" - the series info is correct ( an extra "update meta data on device is sometimes needed) BUT: The books inside a serie are not sorted according to the serie number. ( I tried changing the sort order in the UI, I also tried to modify the preference file... no way...) I tried the kobo utilities plugin ( but the dialog box is empty, it doesn't detect any serie to sort ....) ??? any idea ? Thanks in advance... Etienne