How to search for "&" in authors column?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

I simply hang a (ed) at the end of the authors name, Calibre does not copy that to author_sort

Martin H. Greenberg (ed)

@theducks - is that documented anywhere?

And can I add more "(ed)"'s values eg '(trans)', (illust), (fwd) or is it anything in parenthesis ?

And can I search on it - eg find all books edited by Martin H. Greenberg

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@theducks - is that documented anywhere?

And can I add more "(ed)"'s values eg '(trans)', (illust), (fwd) or is it anything in parenthesis ?

And can I search on it - eg find all books edited by Martin H. Greenberg

BR

I also use some of those
Documented?
We don't need no 'Documented'

BTW Martin G's show up with and without the (ed) does show in the Tag Browser

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

I also use some of those
Documented?
We don't need no 'Documented'

BTW Martin G's show up with and without the (ed) does show in the Tag Browser

But, but... I have a custom column for each contributing creative role and... and...

Had I known about it I might have done things differently... Not sure if I'll like your 'BTW', and I'd have preferred a set of defined values like author_name_suffixes - say author_name_roles = ('ed', 'trans') etc

I'll have to have a play with it

BR

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by Adoby

I fix ISBN, authors and author_sort (and title) when I add the book to calibre, the first time. Typically first ISBN, using the find ISBN-plugin, then download metadata. Then adjust title, authors and series information. After that neither change ever, unless I made a spelling error. Information from author can be used to update author_sort, but the other way I don't think is as easy. So whatever is as authors is isolated from what I write in author_sort. That is why it works so nice to have "Edited by" in the author_sort field. Makes it easy to see what books are anthologies.

That is why it is good that Calibre is able to handle the different requirements.

For instance, I like to be able to type in a search for an author and have everything I have of theirs show up. That includes anthologies that have stories by them.
Having edited by xyz would not allow me to see that.

The thing is, there is no "One true way" just ways that work for various people.

[BetterRed]

I've done a little experimentation with this '(xxx)' suffix feature

The parenthesised suffixes - (ed), (illus), (trans) etc - are ignored in formulating the author_sort column. But...

• you get multiple items in the Tag browser for the same author - with no hint as to why.
• its not ignored if you use Alt+A to list all books by author of current book
  
  If I Alt+A on a book with Author "Fred Bloggs (ed)" then I only get books by Fred Bloggs on which I have the '(ed)' suffix, I don't get books with '(illus)' or no suffix - I use Alt+A a lot
  
• Quickview has similar problems to Alt/A - I also use it a fair bit

I get the impression that the feature in there courtesy of serendip, rather than calibre's usual thorough going design

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I've done a little experimentation with this '(xxx)' suffix feature

The parenthesised suffixes - (ed), (illus), (trans) etc - are ignored in formulating the author_sort column. But...

• you get multiple items in the Tag browser for the same author - with no hint as to why.
• its not ignored if you use Alt+A to list all books by author of current book
  
  If I Alt+A on a book with Author "Fred Bloggs (ed)" then I only get books by Fred Bloggs on which I have the '(ed)' suffix, I don't get books with '(illus)' or no suffix - I use Alt+A a lot
  
• Quickview has similar problems to Alt/A - I also use it a fair bit

I get the impression that the feature in there courtesy of serendip, rather than calibre's usual thorough going design

BR

While ( ) are not specifically mentioned
Preferences: Searching: (at the bottom):

[chaley]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

For instance, I like to be able to type in a search for an author and have everything I have of theirs show up. That includes anthologies that have stories by them.
Having edited by xyz would not allow me to see that.

That is what grouped search terms are for. You can have multiple author-like columns (edited, translated, etc), then create a grouped search that includes all of the columns. These are not custom columns and have no impact on performance.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

While ( ) are not specifically mentioned
Preferences: Searching: (at the bottom):

I think those settings have to do with Grouped Searches. But, without setting up any Group Searches I did following

I set Similar Authors to authors, Match Any

Did an Alt+A on a Karl Marx book, I got books by Karl Marx, but no books by Karl Marx (ed)

Did an Alt+A on a Karl Marx (ed) book, I got books by Karl Marx (ed) but no books by Karl Marx

I get exactly the same results if I set Similar Authors to authors, Match All

Of course I could manually search for authors:"Karl Marx" and that will give me Karl Marx and Karl Marx (ed) books. But that's 20 error prone keystrokes (including the Ctrl+Alt+F to get to search box), whereas Alt+A is only 1 keystroke.

BR

[manawydan]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

For instance, I like to be able to type in a search for an author and have everything I have of theirs show up. That includes anthologies that have stories by them.
Having edited by xyz would not allow me to see that.

I also use the (ed) after the last name.

You should be able to see all books by author A if you put X. YZ (ed) & (or A & B .. in the authors field.
As in, having authors and editors in one field.

The only "disadvantage" I can think of would be that editors will be treated as authors. If you only want a list of editors you then will have to search for (ed) I think.

However I think it is a lot of work to add every author that contrbuted to a certain anthology.

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by manawydan

I also use the (ed) after the last name.

You should be able to see all books by author A if you put X. YZ (ed) & (or A & B .. in the authors field.
As in, having authors and editors in one field.

The only "disadvantage" I can think of would be that editors will be treated as authors. If you only want a list of editors you then will have to search for (ed) I think.

However I think it is a lot of work to add every author that contrbuted to a certain anthology.

It can be work but the lookup for some books on Goodreads is good at listing all the authors in an anthology. For others, In genre's that I prefer or that have authors I particularly like, I will strip out the authors and enter them.

[manawydan]

Back to my orignal question again.
Although the search for & works with the suggested method I'd like to swap & for ; in all authors.
However I can't get it to work.

I have tried various s/r tests, with character match or reg.ex but can't get it to work.
Do you have an idea?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by manawydan

Back to my orignal question again.
Although the search for & works with the suggested method I'd like to swap & for ; in all authors.
However I can't get it to work.

I have tried various s/r tests, with character match or reg.ex but can't get it to work.
Do you have an idea?

You can do it using bulk metadata edit search and replace. The attached screen shot shows you how. However, I *strongly* advise you not to do this. You will totally break calibre's multiple author handling, making it difficult to find books by an author. "Joe Blogs; Jane Doe" will be different from "Jane Doe; Joe Blogs", and neither Jane Doe nor Joe Blogs will appear by themselves in the authors list. The tag browser author lists will become useless. And so on.

[manawydan]

Ah, I see .. I only had "search field" authors.

Hm. I almost never use the tag browser. Maybe sometimes to check for unwanted languages or wrong entries in authors or series ..

I tested it with this:
Jeff Abbott ; Norbert Jakober

Search for authors:abbott and search for authors:jakober both worked.
Search for authors:"jeff abbott" showed all by this author jeff abbott including the entry with jakober.

So for me a ; does not make a difference since I pretty much only use search and almost never the tag browser.

Well, yes, it does not make much difference if I search for "authors:";" or "authors:#>2".
except the latter is just more difficult to remember.
Yes I know, saved searches etc. but in most cases it's faster to type it.

But thanks for the warning. I'll think about it.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by manawydan

So for me a ; does not make a difference since I pretty much only use search and almost never the tag browser.

Other possible problems:

• Generation of author sort will fail unless you use the "copy" tweak.
• Calibre's similar author search will not find all books, or perhaps even most.
• Duplicate detection will most likely fail, as will the find duplicates plugin.
• Merging books will likely generate incorrect results
• Device plugins could fail. Almost certainly the smarter ones such as the Kobo, Sony, iDevice, or Smart Device plugins will generate undesired results.

And so on.

[rolandt99]

Another simple option, which I use, is to add "Anthology" as primary (first) author. This does not take the additional overhead and resources of a custom or additional column. Especially considering that extra column would be there for every book in the library, anthology or not.

Also, since I use an OS that has directory/filename character limitations my "Save" template using just the primary author. Which, for anthologies will be "Anthology". This gives me an easy way to separate out all anthologies when "Saved".