Is it possible to force "Ln, Fn" for Author and Author sort?

[Kuram]

I'm starting to notice that the comma is treated as a separator for two different authors. I'm trying to figure out how to make it so Ln, Fn is always the format... If that's not possible, I would settle for "Fn Ln" so long as it still sorted by the last name...

If anyone uses calibre, I would like advice on how to setup a plugboard to do this.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Kuram

I'm starting to notice that the comma is treated as a separator for two different authors. I'm trying to figure out how to make it so Ln, Fn is always the format... If that's not possible, I would settle for "Fn Ln" so long as it still sorted by the last name...

If anyone uses calibre, I would like advice on how to setup a plugboard to do this.

With recent firmware the author sorting works differently in different places, and unfortunately the last-name sorting of the Authors tab is just plain broken, there is no way to make it sort all names correctly regardless what format you use. But you will get better results if you use "Fn Ln" format, because the comma is used to separate the author names in books with multiple authors.

The author sort in the main Books tab sorts by last name and works correctly if you use "Fn Ln" format. It takes account of special words in the name such as "Jr.", but for multi-word surnames that are not recognised as special forms you will need to use a hard space to join the words of the surname together.

The Calibre plugboard I use is shown in this post. Some example screenshots from my Glo in this post.

[davidfor]

Firstly, Kobo do not use a separate "author" and "author_sort" like calibre. They only read what is in the "author" field and then try and parse it as a name.

Yes, Kobo uses the comma as a separator for multiple names. But, it should be sorting on the last name of the first author.

Ln1, Fn1
Fn1 Ln1
Fn1 Ln1 and Fn2 Ln2
Fn1 Ln1, Fn2 Ln2
Fn2 Ln2
Fn2 Ln2, Fn3 Ln3
Fn2 Ln2 & Fn3 Ln3
Fn4 Ln4

In the book list, it will use an ampersand or the word "and" as the separator. I'm pretty sure that's how that list would be sorted, though the ones with the "and" and "&" might be one place out. That means that "LN, FN" works, but, it is treating "LN" and "FN" as separate authors. And "Ln2, Fn2 & Ln3, Fn3" will probably sort correctly as well.

In the Authors list, only the comma is used as a separator. From the above authors we would have:

Fn1
Ln1
Fn1 Ln1
Fn1 Ln1 and Fn2 Ln2
Fn2 Ln2
Fn2 Ln2 & Fn3 Ln3
Fn3 Ln3
Fn4 Ln4

I think that is the right order when sorting the authors list by lastname. But, the ones with "and" and "&" might be one place to high.

A problem names like "Fn von Ln". This will treated as lastname "Ln" with first names "Fn von".

Because of this, the authors part of the metadata plugboard I have been using for a while is:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

If you want to do anything else, you will need to replace the spaces and possible the comma with some other character. I remember a discussion here a while ago where someone did this. He wanted a "Fn Ln" to sort using "Fn". Replacing the space with an underscore would work, but he might have found a less visible character.

[Kuram]

Hmm. I'm okay with loading Fn Ln to my device, but I really don't want to modify my entire library to conform to it. Is there some way to modify that plugboard so that the author/author_sort input of "Ln, Fn" is modified to "Fn Ln" when sideloaded? Can regex be used in plugboards to accomplish this?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

With recent firmware the author sorting works differently in different places, and unfortunately the last-name sorting of the Authors tab is just plain broken, there is no way to make it sort all names correctly regardless what format you use. But you will get better results if you use "Fn Ln" format, because the comma is used to separate the author names in books with multiple authors.

How is the authors list sorting more broken than the book list? The only difference I can see is that it is case sensitive and things like "Jr.". The only other issue is how it breaks up multiple authors. If you use an ampersand or "and", then is treated as a single author in the author list. Then it is sorted on the last word in that name. Which agrees with how the book list is sorted - last word in what it considers to be a name.

My examples in my post above are from memory. But, before adopting the plugboard I did have an ampersand as the separator and did test the sorting, and I'm pretty sure that is how it worked.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by davidfor

How is the authors list sorting more broken than the book list? The only difference I can see is that it is case sensitive and things like "Jr.". The only other issue is how it breaks up multiple authors. If you use an ampersand or "and", then is treated as a single author in the author list. Then it is sorted on the last word in that name. Which agrees with how the book list is sorted - last word in what it considers to be a name.

My examples in my post above are from memory. But, before adopting the plugboard I did have an ampersand as the separator and did test the sorting, and I'm pretty sure that is how it worked.

Well the mishandling of case-sensitivity and failure to recognise special cases like "jr." are what makes the Authors tab last-name sort broken. Every name can be made to sort correctly in the Books list, but there are some that can't be made to sort correctly in the Authors tab.

A real world example: "John le Carré" (with a hard space between "le" and "Carré") sorts correctly under L in the Books list, but sorts after Z in the Authors tab.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Well the mishandling of case-sensitivity and failure to recognise special cases like "jr." are what makes the Authors tab last-name sort broken. Every name can be made to sort correctly in the Books list, but there are some that can't be made to sort correctly in the Authors tab.

A real world example: "John le Carré" (with a hard space between "le" and "Carré") sorts correctly under L in the Books list, but sorts after Z in the Authors tab.

OK. Your earlier post made me think you were seeing something a lot different to that. Have you reported your displeasure about this to Kobo?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by davidfor

OK. Your earlier post made me think you were seeing something a lot different to that. Have you reported your displeasure about this to Kobo?

Not yet. The thought of trying to explain the problems to customer serrvice doesn't fill me with joyful anticipation. If you know a way to send feedback about firmware without engaging with customer service then I'd love to know.

(There is a feedback tab on the website, but the new form you have to fill in now makes it clear that it is only for feedback about the website.)

Edit: Okay, I got around this by leaving feedback on the website about the website feedback function. My suggestion was that thay allow feedback about things other than the website, and used the problems with the author last-name sort in the current firmware as an example of the sort of feedback I'd like to be able to leave.

(BTW Kobo customer service has been great at solving problems within their ambit, but I don't see anything good coming from asking them for help with problems I know they have no way of solving.)

[davidfor]

To report a problem, go to the help from the site. Then "Contact Kobo Customer Care" and choose your country. That takes you to a form which includes options to report problems with the ereaders.

[Kuram]

The background and nuances are interesting, but I am still wondering if this is possible:

Originally Posted by Kuram

Hmm. I'm okay with loading Fn Ln to my device, but I really don't want to modify my entire library to conform to it. Is there some way to modify that plugboard so that the author/author_sort input of "Ln, Fn" is modified to "Fn Ln" when sideloaded? Can regex be used in plugboards to accomplish this?

[oren64]

Use Quality Check plugin, and modified all the books authors with comma to "Fn Ln".
Check metadata > Check authors with commas
Fix > SWAP authors FL LN <> LN, FN

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Kuram

The background and nuances are interesting, but I am still wondering if this is possible:

Sorry, but my point was that, with a few known exceptions, that the author sorting did work that at way. If you put "Ln, Fn" in the author, it will sort on "Ln". If you put "Fn Ln" in the author, it will sort on "Ln". It gets a little more complicated when there are multiple authors, but it still works in most cases. Do you have some examples where it isn't working?

Or, is the problem you decided to use "Ln, Fn" in calibre for the author? If so, that is almost always a bad idea. Calibre does handle the author and author sort very well. If you prefer to see the author sort displayed, then you can have calibre display the author sort instead of the author in the book list.

But, if all you want is to send the author sort in the author field to the device, the plugboard is simply:

{author_sort}

Put that in the authors field in the plugboard.

[Kuram]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Or, is the problem you decided to use "Ln, Fn" in calibre for the author? If so, that is almost always a bad idea.

I have, and why's that?

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, if all you want is to send the author sort in the author field to the device, the plugboard is simply:

But no, given how Kobo handles authors, that's not what I want to do. My calibre has the same value for author and author sort, which is "Ln, Fn", but I want a plugboard that sends "Fn Ln".

Unless there's a good reason to not have "Ln, Fn" in Calibre as you've stated, but I don't really know what reason that could be.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Kuram

I have, and why's that?


But no, given how Kobo handles authors, that's not what I want to do. My calibre has the same value for author and author sort, which is "Ln, Fn", but I want a plugboard that sends "Fn Ln".

Unless there's a good reason to not have "Ln, Fn" in Calibre as you've stated, but I don't really know what reason that could be.

If you want a reason, then read what you have written. It is a perfect example.

The recommendation in calibre is to keep the metadata as their "natural" values (can't think of a better word right now). You can then massage this to display it in other ways. Calibre has good handling for the author and author sort, so using them makes sense.

But, you should be able to write a template to do what you want. You can split on the comma and put the two parts back together. If no-one chimes in with solution, I'll have a think at home tonight. But, oren64's suggestion will also solve it overall.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Kuram

Hmm. I'm okay with loading Fn Ln to my device, but I really don't want to modify my entire library to conform to it. Is there some way to modify that plugboard so that the author/author_sort input of "Ln, Fn" is modified to "Fn Ln" when sideloaded? Can regex be used in plugboards to accomplish this?

Calibre might have an internal function that handles it, but writing a regex from scratch that works with every name would be complicated, because there are some names that don't fit into a simple "Fn, Ln" pattern.

For example: "Walter M. Miller Jr." (or "Walter M. Miller, Jr."), when written with surname first is "Miller, Walter M. Jr." (or "Miller, Walter M., Jr."). A simple regex that assumed everything after the comma was first names would not work. correctly in this case.