A new author LN, FN question

[kraqh3d]

I read the Calibre docs. I searched here. I Googled. Between all that, I found a bunch of author and author_sort questions and answers, but not this one... I like the display being FN LN in Calibre, but I really want the library folder structure to use LN, FN author folders because its easier to search when outside of Calibre. Is this possible? I couldn't find anything about this. Calibre has a template language, but based off the docs, it seems that it's only used when converting docs from within Calibre or sending to device and not during the initial import. Is that correct? I really don't want to change Calibre to make author match author_sort but It looks like its all or nothing.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kraqh3d

I read the Calibre docs. I searched here. I Googled. Between all that, I found a bunch of author and author_sort questions and answers, but not this one... I like the display being FN LN in Calibre, but I really want the library folder structure to use LN, FN author folders because its easier to search when outside of Calibre. Is this possible? I couldn't find anything about this. Calibre has a template language, but based off the docs, it seems that it's only used when converting docs from within Calibre or sending to device and not during the initial import. Is that correct? I really don't want to change Calibre to make author match author_sort but It looks like its all or nothing.

If you are talking about the Internal structure of Calibre Library. Read the sticky at the top of this forum.

Send to.../Save to... use templates. {author_sort} is the ln, fn version of fn ln

[kraqh3d]

LOL I was expecting that. I read the sticky. It references back to the Calibre FAQ page which I've also read. Frankly it's unclear whether or not changing the template affects the initial import or not. I don't want to "send" the doc anywhere. Everything I've read implies that the template only applies when sending a doc to a device, or when saving it to another format. I'm not interested in either of those. And if changing the template does affect the library's folder structure as I want, it's unclear what happens to my existing library. Will they all get updated, or does it only affect new imports? I'm hesitant to try with my library. I've been meaning to copy it to play around.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kraqh3d

LOL I was expecting that. I read the sticky. It references back to the Calibre FAQ page which I've also read. Frankly it's unclear whether or not changing the template affects the initial import or not. I don't want to "send" the doc anywhere. Everything I've read implies that the template only applies when sending a doc to a device, or when saving it to another format. I'm not interested in either of those. And if changing the template does affect the library's folder structure as I want, it's unclear what happens to my existing library. Will they all get updated, or does it only affect new imports? I'm hesitant to try with my library. I've been meaning to copy it to play around.

The template only affects Exports.
Any changes in Calibre usually tend to only affect future actions.
There is a Regex pattern in Preferences: Adding books that affects how incoming filenames can be parsed to create Metadata

You can always edit Metadata
There are numerous tools and ways built in.

You can rename Authors from inside the Tag Browser
You can use Bulk Mode to change a group
You can use the S&R tab to do... (Lots)

[BradWaite]

Don't know if this will help, but my library was stored on disk as FN LN, but was displaying in Calibre as LN, FN.

From Manage Authors, I copied author_sort to author and Calibre went to town (still is) renaming all my author directories on disk.

Only problem is that the comma (,) is being replaced by an underscore (_). Anyone know of a way to turn that off or change the list of characters that are replaced?

So my problem is somewhat the inverse of yours, but it may help.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BradWaite

Don't know if this will help, but my library was stored on disk as FN LN, but was displaying in Calibre as LN, FN.

From Manage Authors, I copied author_sort to author and Calibre went to town (still is) renaming all my author directories on disk.

Only problem is that the comma (,) is being replaced by an underscore (_). Anyone know of a way to turn that off or change the list of characters that are replaced?

So my problem is somewhat the inverse of yours, but it may help.

Yoy CAN NOT change under the hood storage

punctuation is replaced because file systems do not always permit (calibre libraries works on 3 file systems)

[kraqh3d]

More vague answers. Maybe it's my explanation. Based on what I've found prior and these replies, I can only assume that what I want is not possible. The folder structure is based off the {authors} field. I want the {authors} field to remain FN LN, while at the same time using {author_sort} for the author folder since it sorts properly in the file system. The problem is that it seems the import is fixed at using the {authors} field. I know I can copy {author_sort} into {authors} but that's not what I want. I'm syncing bazaar now so I can dig through the source and hopefully change it.

@BradWaite, I noticed where was an option to replace space with underscore, but I don't recall one to replace comma with underscore. I've not gotten there yet so maybe that just what it does. And if indeed that is the case, I'll be changing that as well

[kovidgoyal]

You cannot use author_sort for the folder names. You cannot customize the in library path structure at all.

[kraqh3d]

What do you mean? If I modify the source, I can do anything I want.

[kovidgoyal]

If you think modifying the source is an answer to your question, then you already knew the answer to your question, so why are you wasting everyone's time, asking it?

[BradWaite]

Kovid,

Thanks for chiming in. Your statement repeats what I've found elsewhere - the on-disk storage hierarchy cannot be changed. I understand and agree with (at least some of) the reasoning behind that decision

That said, given this is an oft-requested feature and that the author folder is based on the author's name in the metadata, is there some other impediment to incorporating LN, FN naming into Calibre? Is the reasoning not to based on the difficulty of determining a which is the first and last names from a simple string (in imported metadata)? Or is there something else I'm missing?

As I understand it, what I did by copying author_sort to author was *change* the author, correct? And that if anyone were to change all my author fields to be LN, FN, that would be the way they would be stored on the disk?

I've seen a number of posts that indicate a comma in their author directory names. Is the comma something that has been recently replaced with an underscore? Is that user-adjustable?

Thanks.

[BradWaite]

Just to clarify author & author_sort:

author is the actual name of the author as far as calibre is concerned. author is used in the directory & file name structure as is.

author_sort is how calibre displays and sorts based on the author's actual name.

Is this correct?

[kovidgoyal]

Yes, that's correct, author_sort is used only for sorting, not displaying.

[kraqh3d]

Well it wasn't originally clear if that's what I absolutely had to do. I was looking for a simple yes or no answer if this was supported out of the box with a tweak or something but got pointed to the usual stuff about switching to LN, FN within Calibre. You happened to reply while i was already resigned to having to pour thru the source. I misunderstood your reply since it was after mine. Please take no offense. Calibre is great. I love it's management and metadata scraping. I'm just a little nitpicky about the library storage since I find it much easier to copy the few unread books to my device outside of Calibre.

I haven't had a chance to look thru the python source yet (it took too long for bzr to sync it all), but I'm assuming a function is used to convert a book's metadata info fields into a sanatized path. I've already poked through the db schema with sqlite. I figured I'd start with the add to library function, looking in particular at the regexp piece that attempts to pull metadata from source file names and then moving the book into the library hierarchy.

Why is comma not allowed? Every file system I've worked with since 2000 supports comma (FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, ext2/3/4, UFS). NTFS even supports the characters Windows doesn't allow (:/?) when mounted on another OS. Just curious.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kraqh3d

Why is comma not allowed? Every file system I've worked with since 2000 supports comma (FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, ext2/3/4, UFS). NTFS even supports the characters Windows doesn't allow (:/?) when mounted on another OS. Just curious.

You sort of answered your own question.

When you connect to a remote file system, the software handles some of the issues. (slashes wrong way, spaces, illegal characters...)
The native file system is still the same. A Calibre library can be copied (not converted) to another OS because Kovid and crew took pains to remove potential roadblocks.

BTW Windows still can't even read my ETX3 partition (the only driver I found has trouble with too many inodes) on this computer. If it was simple, this would not be an issue