[Bug?] Calibre incorrectly handling series

[kovidgoyal]

Series names are interpreted for sorting according to book language. That is the correct, intended behavior. If you dont understand why, look up how sorting rules vary across languages.

If you have a single series with books in multiple languages, set the first language for all the books to be the same, then all the books in that series will sort as you expect.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Series names are interpreted for sorting according to book language. That is the correct, intended behavior. If you dont understand why, look up how sorting rules vary across languages.

If you have a single series with books in multiple languages, set the first language for all the books to be the same, then all the books in that series will sort as you expect.

But then I would be putting wrong data into metadata for single books.
If I have two books in italian and the third in english (I actually have, for a series), and I put into metadata for this third book that it is in "Italian, English"... Then I would be saying that the book is in italian, while it isn't. It would show up in searches I do for books in italian, and that is wrong.

I understand that this is not a bug but the intended behaviour - Teriza's suggestion already made it clear. But it doesn't feel "correct" to me from the logical point of view.
If books are considered to be in the same series (and they are, for calibre shows them all together), then they should have the same series sorting because... again, the series is the same.

I understand that it is tricky to decide which rules to follow; a workaround would be to let the user customize it like you do with the author_sort field; and yes, I understand that it is also hard to introduce the series_sort field into the code now... fine.
But I think the way this subject is handled is not completely right.

[Divingduck]

It is maybe worth to check the internal sorting rules when multi language cause problems.

I use strictly_alphabetic instead of library_order what is the default setup for title and series.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by Divingduck

It is maybe worth to check the internal sorting rules when multi language cause problems.

I use strictly_alphabetic instead of library_order what is the default setup for title and series.

Hi Divingduck, thanks for the suggestion. I don't know how can this be checked by users, though. Could you please show it?

Thanks!

[Divingduck]

Preferences -> Tweaks -> Control sorting of titles and series in the library display (ID: title_series_sorting)

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Ruskie_it

I knew that, that's where I went trying to fix my friend's "error".
But there is nothing, there, to change seriers sort.
You can manage author_sort with right click on an author name:Manage.
Not with series. There, "series sorting" is hidden.

I should have Visually checked, before posting.

there are tweaks that set the overall sort rules, and per_language_title_sort_articles

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Ruskie_it

But then I would be putting wrong data into metadata for single books.
If I have two books in italian and the third in english (I actually have, for a series), and I put into metadata for this third book that it is in "Italian, English"... Then I would be saying that the book is in italian, while it isn't. It would show up in searches I do for books in italian, and that is wrong.

I think this might work

This is only temporary

Set a common language,
Set the series data,
save


now fix the language
save
Calibre does not recompute the previous sort for data that has not changed (eg series

[Divingduck]

There an additional called Language to use when sorting (ID: locale_for_sorting). I don't use it but maybe worth to check too

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by Divingduck

Preferences -> Tweaks -> Control sorting of titles and series in the library display (ID: title_series_sorting)

Thanks!
Found it. Ironically - and I don't remember when I changed it - I already have it set to strictly alphabetic for sorting when SAVING.
Now, I am not sure I like this solution. Actually no: it is a good solution, it's just me being picky because now I know calibre does something not the way I want. :P

While browsing the tweak, I found another one that might be used as a workaround: locale_for_sorting = 'IT' (or whatever you want). This way you force calibre to use always the same locale for sorting, I guess.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by Divingduck

There an additional called Language to use when sorting (ID: locale_for_sorting). I don't use it but maybe worth to check too

Ooops, read too late.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think this might work

This is only temporary

Set a common language,
Set the series data,
save


now fix the language
save
Calibre does not recompute the previous sort for data that has not changed (eg series

Tried this, unfortunately it doesn't work.
I set a common language, Italian, and the order got displayed correctly. I set the series data, fine.
I changed books languages, and so far so good, the order in display did not change, as you suggest.
But then again, as soon as you sort the books once again, the series ordering gets back to the "faulty" one.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Series names are interpreted for sorting according to book language. That is the correct, intended behavior.

The annoying fact is that the "series sort" virtual field is not visible anywhere, and cannot be changed. For a title, one can manually change it if for some reason something different is wanted, and the only drawback is that it appears in red in the edit metadata dialog. But for a series there's no way to "fix" it. I would very much like a real "series sort" field or something similar. It would also help for cases where the auto-guess is not correct (as in French, where "de" could be an article, or maybe not).

For the record, another workaround is adding the foreign article word to the "per_language_title_sort_articles" tweak. I guess in most cases side effects would be minimal.

[BetterRed]

@Jellby - 'series sort' only visually virtual; it's stored in the series table in the metadata database, viz:



Suggested Enhancement: make it editable in Manage Series, like author_sort is in Manage Authors.

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Jellby - 'series sort' only visually virtual; it's stored in the series table in the metadata database, viz:

Attachment 165552

Suggested Enhancement: make it editable in Manage Series, like author_sort is in Manage Authors.

BR

+1

And while K is messing around with 'Manage"

Could we please have the 'Case' tools available (in all sections) to fix those that are imported in poor condition

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Jellby - 'series sort' only visually virtual; it's stored in the series table in the metadata database

However, it looks like this "sort" field is unused. If I have two books in the same series, with different languages, they will have two different effective "series sort". But being in the same series, there's a single entry in the series table, therefore they must be using something different from the "sort" field.