Kobo Aura HD does not support 'title_sort'

[wladdy]

On Calibre, metadata plugboards offer 'title_sort' as a destination field for epub.

I hoped that I could use this feature with my Kobo Aura HD, to sort books in a custom non-alphabetic way yet to display the title without the ugly prefixes.

For instance, when I sort my library by title, I'd like to see in the proper order:

A game of thrones
A clash of kings

and not

ASOIAF_01_A game of thrones
ASOIAF_02_A clash of kings

Sadly, populating the 'title_sort' with an appropriate source template does not work as the Kobo keeps displaying

A clash of kings
A game of thrones

alphabetically, which I do not want.

The source template that I use is: {series:||}{series_index:0>2s|_|_}{title}
It does not seem to be causing the problem as it works fine when I choose 'title' for destination field.

Any help to solve my problem, to put me in the right direction or to explain me my goal's impossibility would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! W.

[GeoffR]

Your goal is impossible with the current Kobo firmware, because it ignores the "file-as" field in the creator and title metadata (which is where Calibre puts the author_sort and title_sort metadata) and instead uses its own algorithm to sort based on the creator and title.

Edit: You could add the series tags after the author name and sort by author instead, but I don't think there is any way to do without the tags altogether. Back in version 2.3.2 the firmware would sort by series, but sadly that feature was removed from later firmware, and version 2.3.2 is too old to use on the Aura HD.

[wladdy]

Alas, this does not come as a total surprise...

Thank you for taking the time, GeoffR.