authors keep switching from alphabetical to mixed up

[Janette55]

I want in author category for the list to be by aurthor, right now I am not picky with LN FN aspect. So if is say Andre Norton or Norton, Andre and they are separated that I figure I can learn how to change later.

What is frustrating me is when the names are all jumbled up

Norton, Andre
Wallace, Edgar
Stoker, Bram
Charles, Nicky

Instead of all A's, then all B's, C's . . .

How do I get Calibre to organize this way and keep it this way?

I seems as if it's sorted that way and then the next day it goes back to all jumbled.

[DoctorOhh]

Go to the tag browser, right click and select manage authors. The library sorts on the author_sort field. If you enter your authors FN LN by default the author sort will be LN, FN. The manage authors window will help you see what's happening.

Read the FAQ for more info.

[Janette55]

If I understand right, you are tellling me how to fix the area of LN, FN and I want to learn that.

But what I am trying to figure out is why does it go from showing the list of authors from in alphabetical order, all A's grouped together then all B's grouped together, then all C's all . . . to going to showing the names mixed up, name A, then name G then name X then name B then name A then name J, then name . . .. This continues down the line of authors.


When I turned my computer on this morning and brought up Calibre this is similar to what I saw:

Aurthor Title
Mark Twain A Dog's Tale
David Cory Adventures of Pinocchio
H. R. Haggard Allan Quartmain
C. L. Belvill Amber Moon
Anoymous Beauty and the Beast
Anna Sewell Black Beauty
C. L. Belvill Silver Moon

instead of

Anoymous Beauty and the Beast
C. L. Belvill Amber Moon
C. L. Belvill Silver Moon
David Cory Adventures of Pinocchio
H. R. Haggard Allan Quartmain
Anna Sewell Black Beauty
Mark Twain A Dog's Tale

What it was doing was listing them in alphabetical order of the titles.
Now it is showing them the way it should

Julie Achterhoff Earthwalker
Austin, Jane Pride and Prejudice
C. L. Belvill Amber Moon
C. L. Belvill Silver Moon
Dumas, Alexandre The Count of Monte Christo


And down the line of letters, why some are with LN/ FN and some FN/LN, yet in the correct order I don't know, that I will fix later.

[Zifnab]

I posted about this yesterday and found that the alphabetical listing was correct even though it appeared jumbled. The problem was that when I clicked the Author(s) column, it sorted everything alphabetically, but some items appeared to be out of alphabetical order. When I edited them, though, I found that it was being sorted by the author_sort column, and the items that appeared to be out of order alphabetically were proper when looking at the author_sort. In your case, sorting authors alphabetically:

Aurthor/Title/Author_sort
Mark Twain/A Dog's Tale/A Dog's Tale
David Cory/Adventures of Pinocchio/Adventures of Pinocchio
H. R. Haggard/Allan Quartmain/Allan Quartmain
C. L. Belvill/Amber Moon/Amber Moon
Anoymous/Beauty and the Beast/Anoymous
Anna Sewell/Black Beauty/Anna Sewell
C. L. BelvillSilver Moon/? (A Silver Moon maybe?)

I had to go to each item that was out of alphabetical order and fix the author_sort. After that, they showed up in the proper alphabetical order.

[Janette55]

*Sigh*

I guess I need to really learn more about this, figure it all out. I'll do some more searching here on posts of author sort and learn what to do. Then yell for help when I am lost.

I had thought that was something I would learn about later, but guess not.

Thanks everyone for the help.

[kiwidude]

@Janette - read the FAQ that dwanthny pointed you to above. I'm afraid you can't have it both ways - "not being fussed about whether names are FN LN or LN, FN" and then being surprised when your authors don't sort correctly

You have to pick a scheme, set the tweak properly (if you decide on LN, FN) then use the Manage Authors dialog to cleanup the mish-mash you have currently.

The other thing not mentioned on this thread is setting the sort for Calibre at startup which might be relevant. Go to Preferences -> Tweaks -> Specify columns to sort the booklist by on startup.

[Janette55]

Yeah, I get that although it might not matter to me it DOES matter to Calibre, so I have to pick one. Which would be what is general, LN,FN. So, now I am going to the search to learn about it. I did go to manage authors, and saw the different choices.
I am going to do some reading on the threads here, learn about it.
I went to preference and another thing I want to read up some more on.

It takes me longer to figure t out, but I like to at least try to understand it. Will probably be back to get more help though.
thanks

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Janette55

Yeah, I get that although it might not matter to me it DOES matter to Calibre, so I have to pick one.

Actually, it doesn't matter to Calibre. If you want some names to be FN LN and others to be LN, FN, Calibre will be happy with that and will sort the way you tell it to sort them. If you want them sorted by the first initial, Last or First, whichever is first in the name, Calibre will do that.

However, Calibre will only sort by what's in the author_sort field, so if that isn't set the way you want it you won't get the results you want. It's quite easy to globally copy what's in the author field into author_sort, so the two are the same.

[cjepson]

I had the same issue with the mixed up author names in the tag browser as well. The author_sort values and authors values were all correct (and sorted correctly in the
Manage Authors screen), but were consistently mixed up in the tag browser. I just figured it out, and you may be having the same issue.

Check under the tag browser, and make sure that the first pulldown menu is set to "sort by author". Mine was set to "sort by average rating" and was causing the authors to sort randomly by name.