My library doesn't seem to sort correctly

[moonfaerie24]

I read in the Graphical User Interface's Search and Sort area that you should, for example, be able to click the Title column, then the Author column in order to sort by author and have all books by the same author sorted by title. What I actually want to sort by is Series, but I'm having some problems. At first it would not sort correctly by title or series, but after going through my entire library and fixing some inconsistencies this solved most, but not all, of my problems. I have one series that refuses to sort by Series, and another that won't recognize the title correctly. Since what I would like is to have all my books sorted by Author then by Series I'll start there.

If I click Series, then Author it will look like this:
Fire, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [2]
Bitterblue, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [3]
Graceling, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [1]

Instead of sorting 1, 2, 3 it goes 2, 3, 1. I've been into the metadata over and over again trying to make sure I didn't include an extra space somewhere or that I spelled everything exactly the same, or some other error like that, but have not been able to find anything.

The other problem I'm having is that for one book series it won't recognize that "The Amulet of Samarkand" is the same as "Amulet of Samarkand, The" which is the default for every other book in my library. For example when I look at metadata for "The Giver" and click the little arrow between title and title sort it automatically fills in with "Giver, The". When I try this with "The Amulet of Samarkand" it just puts "The Amulet of Samarkand" into title sort. This problem isn't as big of a deal for me as the other one, but it still shouldn't be happening so I would like to know the cause/ solution.

Any help, especially with the first problem, would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Thanks to kovidgoyal my naming problem has been solved. For some strange reason those books were set to Spanish and not English.

Edit 2: Thanks to kovidgoyal (again) and DoctorOhh I've fixed the sorting problem as well. It was in fact the same problem for both issues: one of the books was randomly set to Spanish, so it failed to disregard the "The".

[theducks]

You are telling it to do conflicting (multiple) sorts.
You have differing Authors, Differing Titles.
Series [index] ONLY relevant sort if you want series order

The only time you can (want to?) do 'Bias' (the prior sort) is when the INDEX is the same
Then a single (title or Author) prior (bias) sort is relevant.
Only when the author is IDENTICAL, and the series[index] are the same can you sort on Author (kind of redundant), then title, then Series

[Adoby]

If you want to sort on series, then you need to click on series last.

I think that you want to click title, then author, then series, to get the sort you want to have.

Also you have to make sure that author and series are spelled identical, otherwise all bets are off.

[itimpi]

Also note that for author it is the author_sort field that is actually used for the sort. It is possible to have identical author fields that do not have the same author_sort value.

[moonfaerie24]

Originally Posted by theducks

You are telling it to do conflicting (multiple) sorts.
You have differing Authors, Differing Titles.
Series [index] ONLY relevant sort if you want series order

The only time you can (want to?) do 'Bias' (the prior sort) is when the INDEX is the same
Then a single (title or Author) prior (bias) sort is relevant.
Only when the author is IDENTICAL, and the series[index] are the same can you sort on Author (kind of redundant), then title, then Series

I'm not sure what you mean by conflicting things. I want it to sort by author, then within author I would like it to sort by series. In my example all the book were by the same author, in the same series, and would not sort correctly.

Originally Posted by Adoby

If you want to sort on series, then you need to click on series last.

I think that you want to click title, then author, then series, to get the sort you want to have.

Also you have to make sure that author and series are spelled identical, otherwise all bets are off.

I want it to sort by author, then series, not just series, so I am clicking them in the right order for what I want, it's simply not ordering it correctly. And I have quadruple checked that all the author and series information is identical.

Originally Posted by itimpi

Also note that for author it is the author_sort field that is actually used for the sort. It is possible to have identical author fields that do not have the same author_sort value.

Yes, all my author and author sort fields are identical (green).

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by moonfaerie24

If I click Series, then Author it will look like this:
Fire, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [2]
Bitterblue, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [3]
Graceling, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [1]

Instead of sorting 1, 2, 3 it goes 2, 3, 1. I've been into the metadata over and over again trying to make sure I didn't include an extra space somewhere or that I spelled everything exactly the same, or some other error like that, but have not been able to find anything.

One problem at a time.

First, you are doing it correctly and it should sort exactly as you expect. When you click on Series does the Series goes 1, 2, 3? Click on the series column and verify that the series is in proper order, it looks like you may have clicked on the column twice and actually have ascending series number.

If the Series order is correct then your problem is in the author sort area.

Either your first item in the list above:

Fire, Kristen Cashore, The Seven Kingdoms [2]

has an author sort different then the other two or the second two items may have multiple authors which will mess with author sorting within series.

Originally Posted by theducks

You are telling it to do conflicting (multiple) sorts.

I won't respond to the rest of your post because I can't make heads or tails out of it. Maybe I'm confused, but I don't think so.

She is telling it to do a simple multi-column sort. This kind of sort is why we have tweaks that allow how many sort levels there are or the default method we wish to sort in. What she describes above should work.

I sort by Title, then Series and finally Author which places all books by a given author in series order and any books by the author not in a series are in title order.

Originally Posted by Adoby

If you want to sort on series, then you need to click on series last.

If the series has multiple authors then the only way to get a series in order is to click on series last. But if the series has only a single author then what she is doing is fine.

[BetterRed]

@moonfaerie24 - you might want to consider the View Manager plugin, I find it makes dealing with multi-column sorting much easier

Whether it will do want you want I can't say, but...

BR

[kovidgoyal]

I'd guess that the language field is set incorrectly for the problem books. Make sure the language is set to english for all the books. Only if language is set to english will the leading The be treated as you expect.

[DoctorOhh]

You posted while I was formulating my post.

Originally Posted by moonfaerie24

Yes, all my author and author sort fields are identical (green).

This is perplexing.

If you go to the tag browser and right click on the Author item then choose Manage Authors does the author and sort look correct in this list (see attached)?

[moonfaerie24]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

First, you are doing it correctly and it should sort exactly as you expect. When you click on Series does the Series goes 1, 2, 3? Click on the series column and verify that the series is in proper order, it looks like you may have clicked on the column twice and actually have ascending series number.

I never thought to check that, but now that I have I find it interesting. If I ONLY sort by series it will go 2 then 3 then there are 7 more books, THEN it put 1. This implies to me the problem is definitely with the first book. I'm wondering how though when I typed the series name for book one and then used the drop down menu for the other two. They're definitely spelled the same. Maybe it's a language thing again?

Edit: Just checked and that was randomly set to Spanish too. Changing it to English fixed the problem again. Thank you so much to kovidgoyal and DoctorOhh.