[Enhancement]: Allow sorting by Author in Series view.

[jamesn81]

Type of Enhancement

Web Interface/Frontend

Describe the Feature/Enhancement

When viewing the collection you have as a 'Series' it seems odd you can't sort by Author.

You are able to sort by Author when viewing your entire Library.

Why would this be helpful?

It just seems odd you can't sort the Series by Author! This is how I and many people think to look for books generally.

Future Implementation (Screenshot)

Audiobookshelf Server Version

v2.13.4

Current Implementation (Screenshot)

[nichwall]

How should the sorting work if a series has multiple authors? Would it be the first author of the first book, the author that appears the most across the books, the first author that occurs the most about the books, etc?

[jamesn81]

I would've thought that kind of thing would be a 'Collection', not a 'Series' more commonly, but I'm certain there are scenarios where Series have multiple authors (I've just not seen it despite having a LOT of audiobooks in Series). Maybe the language used is what's throwing me in this case.

Actual libraries generally use the First Author and additional authors aren't used at all to sort.

First Author (First, Last) First Author (Last, First)

If you want to find a specific book in a series that is written by an 'additional' or 'later' author, you can choose the author name from the dropdown ... or you wouldn't necessarily look in Series view for that book.

[averageyogi]

Disney's Twisted Tales series has multiple authors, and I suspect there are probably a few more YA anthology-like series similar that have a different author for each book. The Malazan World books have two authors, also the Wild Cards and Thieves' World universes, though I see how those may be put in a Collection vs a Series.

More commonly, series are continued after the original writer retires or dies. Some like Robert Jordan or Michael Crichton retain the original author's credit, but not all. Dragonriders of Pern, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dune (arguably), and The Millennium/Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series all continued after the original author's work.

Another thing is that you can have Series of Series, but a Collection is only books. All the DnD or Warhammer or Halo books could be in a Collection individually, or the separate series in each universe could be subseries in one world Series. The Cosmere is a collected series I have with multiple subseries, but that's only one author.

[jamesn81]

Sure - but in all physical libraries whenever there is any series at all, the first author is how they're sorted.

I feel like the ability to have Series sorting by author is beneficial as most Series do have one author .... plenty have more, but being able to sort them by that at least is beneficial.

As you allude to the most common way Series continue without the first author is when they die ... but I don't think that should be a reason to leave out Author sorting in this view.

[nichwall]

Sorting by the primary author of the first book in the series makes sense. Thanks for the examples.

[averageyogi]

Sure - but in all physical libraries whenever there is any series at all, the first author is how they're sorted.

This is playing Devil's Advocate a little now (presumably this feature would only be additive and not remove any existing function), but the reason physical libraries sort the way they do is to facilitate patrons physically searching for what they want. A digital system doesn't need that at all, you can search for and find any book, series, or author exactly the same from anywhere from the search bar.

Presumably this feature would be used by someone who has an author in mind and goes to where they would be in the list to see which series are available. This function is already implemented in the Authors tab. You can sort authors however you wish, and their individual pages show all available books, as well as all series they have contributed to (specifically showing only the books in the series that they wrote, with a link to the Series tab page that would list the entire series).

[jamesn81]

I really don't mind how the sorting is done - I simply think that if you can sort your Library by author you ought to be able to sort the series collections you have by author in some way as well.

I have a LOT of series and I don't think of them by the series name, I think of them by who (mostly) wrote them ... just like I do with my 'library'.

I'm a visual thinker/sorter and the interface looks nice ... ?

It's a visual enhancement suggestion and I don't think it encroaches on any existing functions, nor is it redundant.