Tweaking the author_sort . . . .

[drawson1]

I'm wondering if this is possible :-)

Currently, if for example, the author name is "Antoine de Saint Exupery", Calibre will sort this as "Saint Exupery, Antoine de".

This particular example matches our common expectations (we ask for books by "Saint Exupery"), but does NOT match the library sort which (at least in English) would produce "de Saint Exupery, Antoine) as the author sort.

The Chicago Manual of Style offers the following examples:

Alfonse D’Amato;   D’Amato
Diana DeGette;   DeGette
Walter de la Mare;   de la Mare
Paul de Man;   de Man
Thomas De Quincey;   De Quincey
Page duBois;   duBois
W. E. B. DuBois;   DuBois 
Daphne du Maurier;   du Maurier

In general, the particle is part of the last name, not the first name.

I'm not clear how I might tweak the author sort to accomplish this; can someone point me at a sample or guide that I might start from? It doesn't appear that the author sorts also affected by per_language_title_sort_articles.

Thanks!

Dan

[theducks]

In the Tag Browser: Right click: Manage Authors. (fix it in the 'Sort') column. That applies to all (and future) uses of that name.
AFAIK there is no automatic adjustment.

[drawson1]

Darn . . . thanks!

As an FYI, I did try adding one of those articles ("de") to the per_language_title_sort list - as I thought, no change in the author_sort behavior.

Dan

[HarryT]

Hmmm. The normal convention is to ignore words such as “de”, “van”, etc, when sorting names. Eric van Lustbader would be sorted under “L”, not “V”, for example.

[DaltonST]

Yes. The Job Spy plug-in has a GUI Tool named 'Update Author Sort for Complex Surnames' that can do what you describe.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=25




DaltonST

[drawson1]

VERY cool - thanks, exactly what I'm looking for! Much more than a simple "tweak"!

Dan

[drawson1]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Hmmm. The normal convention is to ignore words such as “de”, “van”, etc, when sorting names. Eric van Lustbader would be sorted under “L”, not “V”, for example.

Harry -

The sorting conventions are heavily language-centric; if you look in the on-line manual, there's a link to a excellent article about how names are written in various languages.

What I'm used to in English matches my original example AND matches the "library" sorting conventions that I'm familiar with. AFAIK the Chicago Manual of Style is a common reference for this type of question.

In that case, words like "de" and "van" are sorted as part of the last name. I'd be the first to admit that this does NOT match every-day usage in many cases; we expect to find Ludwig van Beethoven under "B", not "v". It's definitely a mixed bag; "John le Carre" is commonly referred to as "le Carre", and "Walter de la Mare" is commonly "de la Mare", but there are MANY other examples where the Engish common usage is without the particle. I'm just glad that I don't have to write the final algorithm.

But the plugin authored by DaltonT allows me to have my cake and eat it too

Dan

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by drawson1

Harry -

The sorting conventions are heavily language-centric; if you look in the on-line manual, there's a link to a excellent article about how names are written in various languages.

Absolutely. Which I why I think that setting the sort order on a "per name" basis manually for each author is the best solution.