Getting my Collections to show in order?

[Woodssi]

Yep, had a sinking feeling that there wouldn't be a straightforward solution

Originally Posted by kiwidude

That way the alphabetic sorting will display in ascending series order for books that are in a series.

Am I to assume that books NOT in a Series will still show in reverse order?

[kiwidude]

No, as you are sorting by title means all books will be alphabetical. Prefixing with the series just means that those books get grouped together.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Woodssi

Yep, had a sinking feeling that there wouldn't be a straightforward solution


Am I to assume that books NOT in a Series will still show in reverse order?

Alpha sort rules

0-9 then A-Z then a-Z
What is in the first position sorts,
then what is in the second position sorts.. until the end of the line

that is why yo commonly see
1
10
100
2
20
200

Alpha sort Since the second position is - , it does not change the sort
0-Z
1-B
9-A
The letters are in the 3rd position so the ony affect things id there were 2 of the same first position

{series_index:0>2s} Pads 1 leading 0 if the series Index is not 2 digits, so it sorts
01
02
03 ...
10
11 ...

[Woodssi]

So, in short, NO WAY to have the Titles showing in an order that covers all my requirements.... bleeuucchhhhh!

Back to real paper, methinks!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Woodssi

So, in short, NO WAY to have the Titles showing in an order that covers all my requirements.... bleeuucchhhhh!

Back to real paper, methinks!

SERIES index is the only thing that is relevant to reading order
Not the NAME
Not the Author
Not The publisher

That is why it is placed first, so the computer can SORT

Happy paper books to you .
BTW the Series number rarely shows on the spine of books , so you need to know this to place them on the shelf in proper order

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by Woodssi

So, in short, NO WAY to have the Titles showing in an order that covers all my requirements.... bleeuucchhhhh!

Back to real paper, methinks!

You had the "best" answer back in post #3 of this thread, with the original metadata template that you then proceeded to want to change. Had you left it unchanged, it would have given you books in the correct series order on your Kindle.

However by trying to put title before the series name, you are not giving the Kindle any chance of figuring out how to sort by series. The Kindle has no concept of "series" - it does however have a concept of "title" (for alphabetical sorts) and published date (which by a quirk in how the Kindle sorts when you choose by Author displays in reverse order).

As theducks has said, when it comes to reading a series in order, the actual title of the individual book is completely irrelevant, so why insist on trying to display it "first"? Just do what the rest of us do of using that original metadata template (or small variant thereof).

Now if you absolutely insist that your titles must be named in a particular way on the Kindle that does not have the series first, then your only choice is to "fiddle" the published date in Calibre, before you send the books. Personally I do both. I prefix with series, but I sort by author (displays reversed publish date order). But I am very careful with my metadata editing in Calibre, and make sure I "correct" any published dates from metadata downloading that are obviously incorrect.

The reason why I do the "sort by author" trick on the Kindle is it means that for books that are not in a series I can see to the publication order so as to read them in the order the author wrote them as though they were a series. Being "reversed" doesn't bother me, it just means I page through to the end of that author collection to get to the first book to read. And in the odd circumstance where I have missed correcting a published date, at least I still have the series name/number obviously prefixed so as to spot it.

Less head banging, more reading I say...

[Woodssi]

Theducks & Kiwidude, appreciate what you both say.
I was just hoping that it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that the machine would have a better sorting system (and I'm just talking about the non-series books here).
The 'quirk' that Kiwidude relates to seems to be an issue that could easily be addressed (WHY reverse order, if you're putting in a correct dating entry????).

Ah well, pernickity old git signs off.... lol

[speakingtohe]

I think I had it working ok on my mother's kindle with two plugboards.
Was a while back. I put series and series number after both author and title and sorted by author.

It sorted on the author/series , but had to be at end of title too so you could see it.
Helen