Author(s) vs Author sort

[theducks]

As I see it, Author sort rules depend on the Authors NAME, not the USERS country conventions.
Azimov, Isaac is correct because the Surname is Azimov

The Author sort rule should probably be entered into the Author Table on an Author By Author basis, and applies to all "Books" with that author. (If the value is set, all subsequent Author uses will respect it, but not prevent it from being Globally changed)

The only override needed would be when the user wished to ignore the (set by default) convention for their systems country-code or default language rules.

[kovidgoyal]

@Starson17: The sorting (of books) by the author field instead of the author_sort field in the main/mobile servers is a regression and will be fixed.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@Starson17: The sorting (of books) by the author field instead of the author_sort field in the main/mobile servers is a regression and will be fixed.

Excellent.

[kovidgoyal]

Sorting fix committed.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sorting fix committed.

Works great. It now sorts as expected. Thanks for fixing something before I even had a chance to use the broken version.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

As I see it, Author sort rules depend on the Authors NAME, not the USERS country conventions.
Azimov, Isaac is correct because the Surname is Azimov

Of course you are right, the person decides what his or her name is. That said, if you are guessing, you can make better guesses if you know where the person is, but even that doesn't work in places like Malaysia, where all conventions are used. Some people don't have last names (e.g., a son-of b), some people use Chinese order (unless they don't), some people use Western order, and some people make up their own rules. Even western order isn't clear when one tries to handle the 'particules' correctly (von, van, de, du, di, etc.) And that leads us to ...

The Author sort rule should probably be entered into the Author Table on an Author By Author basis, and applies to all "Books" with that author. (If the value is set, all subsequent Author uses will respect it, but not prevent it from being Globally changed)

Storing the correct sort string on a per-author basis is indeed the right way to do it.

The only override needed would be when the user wished to ignore the (set by default) convention for their systems country-code or default language rules.

What override are you talking about? If the sort string is set on a per-author basis, what is there to override? Are you talking about the initial guess when a new author name is first encountered?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by chaley

Of course you are right, the person decides what his or her name is. That said, if you are guessing, you can make better guesses if you know where the person is, but even that doesn't work in places like Malaysia, where all conventions are used. Some people don't have last names (e.g., a son-of b), some people use Chinese order (unless they don't), some people use Western order, and some people make up their own rules. Even western order isn't clear when one tries to handle the 'particules' correctly (von, van, de, du, di, etc.) And that leads us to ...
Storing the correct sort string on a per-author basis is indeed the right way to do it.What override are you talking about? If the sort string is set on a per-author basis, what is there to override? Are you talking about the initial guess when a new author name is first encountered?

A combination of Initial Guess and a system Language Bias (when it is applicable)
Eg. Ln,Fn for en-us would be typical but the owner may prefer authors of their native language books.
So the Bias is overridden or it could be set to: 1)<language rule> 2) "Always Ask" (for new authors)

Flexible, but not as restrictive as turning it off
BTW I use {author_sort[0]} for transfers to my device as it does not support Meta-data based search.

Not finding Weber,David (or David Weber) sorted into W would be lousy. (I really don't care if it displays as D W or W,D as long as it sorts on W)

Card Catalogs in US Libraries are filed on Last Name

[chaley]

The next version (0.7.3) will support setting a sort string for individual authors. This string will be used to sort the authors in the tags browser and to construct book author_sort fields when authors are changed. It will probably be used in the appropriate places in the content server, but possibly not in the next release.

When a new author is entered into calibre, the initial value for that author's sort string is computed in the same way as today. The default is to assume the name is 'fn ln', and to try to compute a 'ln, fn' from the name. The default can be changed with the existing author sort tweak to a) as today, b) copy author unchanged, or c) copy unchanged if the name contains a comma.

The tags browser now offers an editor for viewing and setting the sort strings for individual authors, available by right-clicking on an author. One would use this editor to correct mistakes in the default, for example if want 'Sun Tzu' to sort as 'Sun Tzu' or 'Werner von Braun' to sort as 'von Braun, Werner' instead of 'Braun, Werner von'.

The author_sort for a book is computed by fetching the sort string for the individual authors and connecting them together. The author_sort field will be recomputed in the following cases:
1) the book is newly added.
2) the sort string for an author of the book is changed using the authors editor.
3) any one of the book's authors is renamed using the authors editor.

When using the metadata editors (bulk and individual), a book's author_sort field is not changed if an author is changed. If you want the author_sort to change, you must press the button/check the box. This preserves current behavior.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by chaley

When using the metadata editors (bulk and individual), a book's author_sort field is not changed if an author is changed. If you want the author_sort to change, you must press the button/check the box. This preserves current behavior.

Thanks . Those make sense.