Forma Authors list in My Books

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

It wouldn't be significant.

If the author_sort field exists, use it and do a simple sort (no interpretation of the data), else fallback to the current sort. Give it to an intern.

IMO, assuming relatively good software engineering practices.

Ha ha. The reason is that SW has so many bugs and/or released versions are annoying is that EVERYTHING is pretty significant.



I'd give NOTHING to going to the public to someone on work experience.

There isn't anything simple about sorting anyway and lots of traps for inexperienced. Don't forget it has to work for non-Roman alphabets, surnames names with spaces, accents. There are libraries. That's the HARDEST bit for new programmers, or experienced ones to a new language. What does the library REALLY do?

[John F]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Sorry, but you are drastically underestimating the work needed. No, I have never seen the code, but I understand enough about the database and some of the other things going on, that it isn't that simple.

Sorry, but you are drastically and dramatically overestimating. You are thinking it much more complicated than it needs to be.

[John F]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Ha ha. The reason is that SW has so many bugs and/or released versions are annoying is that EVERYTHING is pretty significant.



I'd give NOTHING to going to the public to someone on work experience.

There isn't anything simple about sorting anyway and lots of traps for inexperienced. Don't forget it has to work for non-Roman alphabets, surnames names with spaces, accents. There are libraries. That's the HARDEST bit for new programmers, or experienced ones to a new language. What does the library REALLY do?

That is the whole purpose of the having a separate author_sort field. So that most of the problems you mention are eliminated.

Why dramatize the problem with non-relevant problems?

If Kobo (or their hired contractors) doesn't have a good simple sort algorithm by now, ...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by John F

If Kobo (or their hired contractors) doesn't have a good simple sort algorithm by now, ...

It isn't the sorting. It is all the other things that need to be done to get the data that needs to be sorted. You need to read it from the books, store it in the database, read it from the database, put it in the appropriate structure and I'm sure lots of other things. Which includes handling the syncing books from the server. And make sure you don't break anything. Then you have to test it.

Yes, I was probably being dramatic. But, it is not a simple task and would take a large enough effort that it could be hard to justify.

[John F]

Originally Posted by davidfor

It isn't the sorting. It is all the other things that need to be done to get the data that needs to be sorted. You need to read it from the books, store it in the database, read it from the database, put it in the appropriate structure and I'm sure lots of other things. Which includes handling the syncing books from the server. And make sure you don't break anything. Then you have to test it.

Yes, I was probably being dramatic. But, it is not a simple task and would take a large enough effort that it could be hard to justify.

Fair enough. I can see how all of those things need to be done, they just don't seem significant, to me.

Major changes to the UI, adding Facebook support, awards, pocket, ... Those are significant; adding a simple sort for a new field, simple.

[PeterT]

What is the marketing benefit to Author sort?

How will this sell more content from the Kobo store?

Remember side loading of content is not a priority of marketing.

[John F]

Originally Posted by PeterT

What is the marketing benefit to Author sort?

How will this sell more content from the Kobo store?

Remember side loading of content is not a priority of marketing.

I don't know about marketing value, but it apparently has some value. There is a sort by author under Books, and a whole new tab was added in My books just for authors.

[lumpynose]

John F, I'm confused about what you're proposing. Isn't the kobo already using an author sort with LN, FN as well as displaying the authors' names as FN LN on the My books authors tab? Or are you proposing that they allow us to select how the author names are displayed?

[John F]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

John F, I'm confused about what you're proposing. Isn't the kobo already using an author sort with LN, FN as well as displaying the authors' names as FN LN on the My books authors tab? Or are you proposing that they allow us to select how the author names are displayed?

I'm not sure. I was assuming they didn't have separate fields.

I think they are using a single field for display and sorting (I am referring to Books under My Books.). And David's stance seems to indicate a single field.

Or I may be mixing this up with another hardware vendor. I like how Calibre has Author and and Author sort and wish Kobo (and others), had similar behavior.

At some point in the past for some reason, I made Author and Author sort the same in Calibre (LN, FN); I've gone through multiple hardware manfactures and many firmwares, so my memory is foggy.

Rethinking it, I can live with the Kobo's current behavior and should probably look into more of Calibre's features for manipulating data when sending books.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm not sure. I was assuming they didn't have separate fields.

Well on my kobo the authors on the my books tab are sorted by last name. The names that are displayed are fn ln. So internally they're using ln, fn. But in order for that to work properly you have to have your authors in calibre set up so that it's fn ln, and calibre has another column, author_sort, where it uses the same heuristic as the kobo and they're stored as ln, fn in it.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by John F

I don't know about marketing value, but it apparently has some value. There is a sort by author under Books, and a whole new tab was added in My books just for authors.

Remember this community is not representative of the entire Kobo user base; it's skewed towards users who sideload content, not folks who buy content from the Kobo store and load it directly via the wifi connection.

[John F]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Well on my kobo the authors on the my books tab are sorted by last name. The names that are displayed are fn ln. So internally they're using ln, fn. But in order for that to work properly you have to have your authors in calibre set up so that it's fn ln, and calibre has another column, author_sort, where it uses the same heuristic as the kobo and they're stored as ln, fn in it.

I don't believe that Kobo is using "Author Sort". I believe that Kobo's heuristic for sorting works for most cases.

I just tried using an "Author" of 'Jake' and "Author Sort" of 'Kellerman, Jonathan' in Calibre. When I convert and transfer the book to Kobo and sort by Author, it displays 'Jake" as the author but it is sorted under the Js; If Kobo was using the "Author Sort", it should show up under the Ks.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by John F

I don't believe that Kobo is using "Author Sort". I believe that Kobo's heuristic for sorting works for most cases.

I just tried using an "Author" of 'Jake' and "Author Sort" of 'Kellerman, Jonathan' in Calibre. When I convert and transfer the book to Kobo and sort by Author, it displays 'Jake" as the author but it is sorted under the Js; If Kobo was using the "Author Sort", it should show up under the Ks.

What I meant is that the kobo is generating its own ln,fn author sort, not that it's using calibre's. Use calibre's book editor and look at the content.opf; I'm guessing that the e-readers only use the ones that start with dc: and probably not the meta ones that have calibre: in their name field.

Also, if you need to swap the last and first names yet again, get the Quality Check plugin for calibre; it has a thing that does just that, among lots of other useful things.

[John F]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Remember this community is not representative of the entire Kobo user base; it's skewed towards users who sideload content, not folks who buy content from the Kobo store and load it directly via the wifi connection.

Regardless of who this forums represents, or peceived marketing value, I would like the feature.