Inverting two authors

[Nicolas.Laurent]

Hieveryone

I'm looking for a way to invert the two authors of a book, i.e. to switch from NAME1, Firstname1 & NAME2, Firstname2 to NAME2, Firstname2 & NAME1, Firstname1.

Thank you in advance for your help

[BetterRed]

I don't think there's a specific feature to reorder the contents of the Authors column. I'm wondering why you would want to do that anyway, the order they're in often has relevance… e.g. institutional seniority.

This works for me:

• F2 to open the Authors cell for editing in the Book list;
• then Cut and Paste around the '&' character(s) within the cell;
• the Author sort column will take care of itself.

BR

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I don't think there's a specific feature to reorder the contents of the Authors column.

Open MDE > Right-click authors > Manage authors.

[BetterRed]

Manage Authors lists Authors as individuals not as joint authors.

Ah, I think you mean Edit Authors.



Not sure I even knew it existed, don't use MDE. For me drag-n-drop is hard to use, especially in lists.

Opening modal MDE, then right clicking to get into the Edit author modal, then drag-n-drop in a list, then doing whatever to back out of the modals seems like a lot of hard work… compared to using F2, then C, V, →, ← keys with Shift and Ctrl modifiers.

BR

[ownedbycats]

I've thought about asking to have keyboard shortcuts for the Edit Authors dialog - I can still use drag and drop but my motor function have been deteriorates

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I've thought about asking to have keyboard shortcuts for the Edit Authors dialog - I can still use drag and drop but my motor function have been deteriorates

Mine too, fingers weren't much use after they got smashed in the '90s, but they've been getting worse over the last decade or so due to neuropathy. I don't have diabetes and I don't drink alcohol which are the common causes.

BR

[karlfranz]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Mine too, fingers weren't much use after they got smashed in the '90s, but they've been getting worse over the last decade or so due to neuropathy. I don't have diabetes and I don't drink alcohol which are the common causes.

BR

Same here. Neuropathy combined with Dupuytren's Contracture. No longer able to play piano or guitar because of it and typing is a bitch.

[chaley]

You can invert the author list for selected books using global search & replace, regexp mode, with the search field "{template}".



The template is

program:
	result = '';
	for aut in $authors separator ' & ':
		result = list_join(' & ', aut, ' & ', result, ' & ')
	rof;
	result

[Nicolas.Laurent]

Thank you Chaley, it's exactly what I need. But unfortunately, it doesn't work, the author remains the same (as you can see from the screenshot attached to your reply). it probably requires a minor modification to the code, but my attempts were unsuccessful...

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Nicolas.Laurent

Thank you Chaley, it's exactly what I need. But unfortunately, it doesn't work, the author remains the same (as you can see from the screenshot attached to your reply). it probably requires a minor modification to the code, but my attempts were unsuccessful...

It works fine for me.

Example:

• Before search & replace
  
  
• The search and replace
  
  
• After search and replace
  
  
  As you can see, the authors are inverted.

The image on my original post also shows the correct result. When using template search & replace the test result show the "after" in both the "Test text" and the "Test result" because the template output is the source.

[theducks]

Is this a language confusion?

I would call what chaley did as Swap Author positions. (BTW Tnx chaley, I wanted to do that in a few places) And it looks like it worked to me

If you just want Ln, Fn -> Fn Ln IN THE LIBRARY VIEW. Us The Quality Check Plugin: Fix tools. (The Tweak adjustment fixes the Sort value rules)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

Is this a language confusion?

I wondered about that, but the example in the first post makes it clear. The OP wants to swap authors' positions in the list.

However, "Invert the order of the list" is a better description. It says what to do if there are more than 2 authors, and is what the template does.

[Nicolas.Laurent]

@Chaley: thank you, it's work now perfectly.
There's a slight difference between your two posts in the "search for" line : (.*) in the first, (^.*$) in the second. It may be an explanation

@theducks: you're perfectly right, it's a language confusion. All my apologies, I'm french.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Nicolas.Laurent

@theducks:


I'm french.

They all say that (I used to work at a US branch of a Canadian company)