New Series 1.0 Main Topic, Part II

See the intro from timspalding here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/321038#7178978

Two threads were created (it happens, sometimes), and this comment is merely to choose one, and to move it to the top.

Anyone want to summarize all that was left at the end of the old thread?

Did we get a consensus on cataloguing individual comic book issues? I ask, because I need to catalogue some issues in the Age of Bronze and Artesia series.

I notice in the former the trade paperbacks are considered to be the core collection whereas the individual comic books are considered to be 'Collections and Selections'. To me, that's the wrong way round - the trade paperbacks are collections of the individual issues - but I don't want to get into an edit war.

>4 Maddz: We talked about that on the best practices threads; the general consensus seemed to be that different series may need different approaches, but making individual issues the core is fine.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/321305#7186936

All I remember from the Old Thread is that Tim thinks publication order is bad and wrong and we shouldn't be using it. I disagree, of course, but he feels strongly enough that they won't even set a simple "preferred order" toggle.

Maddz (#4):

The thinking there, I suspect, is that far more LT users have cataloged the trade paperbacks than the individual issues, so they're the ones LT users are most likely to be accessing.

>2 Lyndatrue: Well, shoot ... thanks for helping to fix that. I've also edited post #1 on the "other" continuation, to direct traffic here instead.

>3 gilroy: I'm glad to try, but it'll likely be later - and take a while. Anybody else who would attempt it, much appreciated, even if it's only to links the last post of an ongoing discussion. >4 Maddz: Looks like as good a place to start as any.

>5 amanda4242:, >6 lorax: I couldn't remember which thread - they got very long... OK, I'll reset the series so the individual issues are core, not the collections. (Well, Age of Bronze as that's what I've done so far.)

>8 Maddz: Most of the discussion was around post 158-169 in the first thread.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/321051#7181799

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned on the old thread, but:

The 'Series description' field in CK publisher series have not been copied over to the new series pages. For example:

CK publisher series, https://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/The+Mariners+Library
New series, https://www.librarything.com/nseries/258649/The-Mariners-Library

Continuing (sort of) the discussion on check marks in the previous thread, would it be possible to have (different coloured) check marks for books within an omnibus? That way it's easy to see at a glance what books you still haven't got/ read.

For instance, the Vorkosigan saga https://www.librarything.com/nseries/231/Vorkosigan-Chronological-Order has omnibus with books out of (narrative) chronological order so if I'm in a bookshop trying to fill in the gaps in my collection - and the wifi inside the store is rather spotty - it's very frustrating trying to scroll up and down the list trying to match my missing books to what the shop has and having to wait for the page to reload each time.

I've worked on the sorting of the works within the stats/memes topics. They are fixed for most series, but not for the automatically sorted ones.

I'm working on that.

Tim

>12 timspalding: This has changed from the old system in that every copy of a work is included in the list, instead of just the work. However the coloured tick beside the title does not reflect the true state of each copy. I sometimes have two or more copies of a work catalogued and one may be in my library (green tick) and one in Read but Unowned (blue tick) but in this list both will get a blue tick. I would prefer the green tick to outflank the blue anyway i.e. it's more important to me to know whether I have a copy of a book in my library rather than whether I used to have a copy, but in this list copies in My Library are showing with blue ticks if another copy I used to own exists.

For instance the series Chocolat: I have two copies of the first book, Chocolat, catalogued. The audiobook I no longer own, so that it is in collection Read but Unowned. The ebook is still in My Library and so should have a green tick but both copies appear with a blue tick in this list.

Wiki page

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/New_Series_-_best_practices

>12 timspalding:

Okay, sorting within stats/memes is now complete. It mirrors what's on the series page, grouped.

>13 CDVicarage: Okay, looking. Thank you for the specific example.

>15 timspalding: The hyphen isn't showing up for omnibus editions, so they're showing as (1 5) rather than (1-5).

ETA: And the (admittedly odd) custom numbering on The Secret History of the World isn't showing up.

>17 amanda4242:

Fixed. Thanks.

>10 Cynfelyn:

That is very odd. Most of them were certainly carried over. I wonder what the pattern is.

BUG ??

Specifically... This author (https://www.librarything.com/author/mazurkiewiczjoanna) is "composed" of 2 names. "Series" titles associated with "main author" do not show up for titles under the other author name.
NOTE: I "fixed" one title by changing the author's name, using the "edit other authors" box, and then was allowed to see the series, but the re-occurrence makes me believe this could be systemic? (In other words, I have seen this before, but didn't search for the possible "why")




ETA: Added links to my Junk Drawer, and reduced size of the screenshots I was trying to show here... not sure why they are not showing up?
ETA2&3&4: Clarification. Added link to actual author webpage. Emphasis added.
ETA5: THANK YOU >21 lauralkeet: Lauralkeet!
ETA6: Removed garbage... so sorry, folks!
ETA7: I'm trying
ETA8: edit correction

>20 Conkie: I can help with why your images aren't showing up. The addresses in your post point to the page in your junk drawer where the image appears. The image itself has its own address. For example, the first one is this:
https://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/8f/bd/8fbd11250753ee8636c337a7651434b4171...

See how it ends in "JPG"? That's common syntax for an image file. To get that address you need to right-click on the image itself, and your browser should pop up a menu that gives you the option to copy the image address. Or, if you're on iPad like I am, you might need to "open image in new tab" to get it.

When you use that image address in the html code, you get this:

>21 lauralkeet: THANK YOU! This was the 2nd time I put images in my posts. First time, it worked, but I didn't remember exactly how I did it. I went back to https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Basic_HTML_/_How_to_do_Fancy_Things_in_Y.... but didn't pay attention to "RIGHT CLICK". THANK YOU for your quick reply!!

bug

In the LibraryThing Roulette module of the home page the go to a random series link takes you to the old series pages.

Help!

I'm trying to create a new series called 'The Truth of Things' and I may have created two series, both empty.

According to Wikipedia, Lark by Anthony McGowan won the Carnegie medal for 2020 and is the fourth book in the series (behind Brock, Pike and Rook). I cannot find the series I created from the Lark book page and I cannot find Lark in the series page.

And none of the touchstones are working.

>24 Awards-and-Medals: I found one copy of the series The Truth of Things, and have added Lark to it as book #4. I'm going to post this first, and explain what I think might have happened in a new message.

https://www.librarything.com/nseries/311196/The-Truth-of-Things

>24 Awards-and-Medals: You can click on the tab for Recently Added Series and it was in that list (1st with test and 4th or 5th.)

>24 Awards-and-Medals: and >25 Conkie: Under the revamped Series system, when a new series is created, no works have been automatically added to it, even though the series is created at the "works" level. This is not intuitive. In addition, the current search system to add works from the new series page does not reliably provide results, especially if the works has just been added to LT. :(

Using the author Anthony McGowan and his work Brock, here are screenshots documenting the current steps of adding a new series...

Step #1 At "work" level:



Step #2 The result of clicking on "▾Series and work relationships » Add/edit" link in Step #1:



Step #3 Result of clicking on +Create New Series link... the Create Series work page:



Step #4 After series has been created... empty list:



Step #5 Using the "Add a Work" within the newly created Series page:



Step #6 Lack of results from search for Brock within Series page. Unfortunately this happens more often than not... so (I believe) many users add their books using Step #7:



Step #7 From the "work" level (back to Step #1 & #2), using the "▾Series and work relationships » Add/edit" link from Step #1, then clicking on the Recently Added Series:



ETA1:wording; ETA2:emphasis; ETA3: correction

>25 Conkie: >26 gilroy: >27 Conkie: Thank you both. I think that's what I tried (or at least, mostly). The touchstones being down at the time I was trying to create the series didn't help; maybe that's why it didn't show in Recently Added Series?

I will have another go and see if it works for me.

ETA: Yay! It worked.
Thank you for your help.

>28 Awards-and-Medals: Glad we could be of help! Welcome to LT!

P.S. I love your "About Me" statement... over the years, I have worked on several medal/award categories. If I can be of any assistance, let me know!

ETA1: add'l stmt; ETA2: correction

Question: when a publisher series has one title published multiple times with a different assigned # in the publisher series, is there a way to reflect that in the order and not just the order label?

>30 Zanzando: are they different volumes? IF so, they should be more than one work in the system.
Unless you put it in as the set, at which point, it becomes a collection at the end of the series, and whoever put it in as individual volumes would then be able to add them in.

The new series information is now in:

1. Catalog searches.
2. TinyCat. TinyCat also now has the order labels, which it didn't have with old series.

>30 Zanzando: Not that I know of, I'm afraid.
I don't think series are set up to enable listing one work multiple times in a series and since this isn't terribly common I imagine it wouldn't be a priority for the developers.

>31 gilroy: I assume that Zanzando is talking about cases like the Phantastische Bibliothek series from Suhrkamp (full list on Wikipedia) in which a number of titles were later reissued with a new number. For example, Die Stimme des Herrn is 97 and 311, Käfer im Ameisenhaufen is 152 and 314, Land des Lachens is 170 and 284.
I don't know the reasoning behind this choice, but I've seen it with a number of different publisher series, particularly ones which are probably closer to being imprints than series.

I always keep an eye on the number of series in my catalogue, usually so that if a new series appears when I haven't added a book I can check it out. Often it would be a Publisher's series wrongly added as standard series and I'm so pleased that the new system makes it so easy to change that now. However at the moment I'm seeing series disappear, is there somewhere I can see which ones have been deleted or transferred to Publisher's series?

>34 CDVicarage: I, too, like the ease in being able to re-classify series to/from publisher series!

In regards to seeing which series/pub series have been deleted, the only easy way to do that is by using the original "Search site" bar. I believe LT management is working on adding the designation to their new series module, but as you can see from examples shown below, it hasn't happened as of today.

1st screenshot = new series addition module... 2nd screenshot = results from original search site module.

>32 timspalding: The new series information is now in:

1. Catalog searches.
2. TinyCat. TinyCat also now has the order labels, which it didn't have with old series.

I don't understand what you are talking about in either instance. Could you provide a little more explanation, or maybe screenshots? Thanks!! :)

>35 Conkie: Thanks for that suggestion but, unfortunately, I don't know what's gone! I have books appearing in 785 different series and I can tell roughly where the missing one(s) were since the list covers four pages so I can tell which page has lost one (or more) but my memory is not good enough to remember the whole list. I shall keep a hard copy and update it as necessary.

>37 CDVicarage: I misunderstood your issue! You helped me see a different perspective regarding how the new series system might affect long-time LTers libraries! In my effort to try to understand your perspective, I created an experiment. I couldn't recreate your issue (because I had a different perspective) BUT I did discover that when two series are merged into one series, the books transferred over from the discontinued series, loses it's issue number. I think I'd rather have the chance of duplicate numbers than to lose the issue numbers altogether. :(

>37 CDVicarage: I looked at your series and noted a lot of Ladybird Books. I was unfamiliar with the series, but found a great website called The Wee Web exploring Ladybird Books (TheWeeWeb.co.uk). I worked on 3 different series: 522, 606a, and 606b. I noted there were missing books from each of these series (6-7), only 1 of which was not available on LT. What I found with most of those 6-7 books, was that most were in the general Ladybird Books series, but were not in the subseries. I added them, and cleaned up book titles, series description (because all formatting was removed, causing run-on paragraphs), and adding a couple of new descriptions and a link or two. Does this help trigger where some of the missing series might be?

ETA: punctuation

>39 Conkie: Thank you for that - sorting my Ladybird books is a project for the future as I have to physically find them all first! That's a very useful website you have found and I'm sure I'll be looking at it further.

I think the most recent missing series title fell between Lake Wobegon and Robert Merivel - I can usually remember the first series on each page of the list - but that doesn't narrow it down much! I have now made a list elsewhere so that if another disappears (or appears) I will know which it is.

Conkie's work on the Ladybird Books series (#39 above) is a reminder - BUMP - that formatting does not work in the new series descriptions. The author of the English language description has written "See a list of all Ladybird Books here", presumably with angle brackets a href= etc. hypertext. Some of this has been deleted from the migrated CK series descriptions, and some is not supported by newly written new series descriptions.

>41 Cynfelyn: I do hope formatting is added back to the new "Descriptions" section, and soon. At this point, I don't want to delete what someone put in the old "Series Description" section, because (like you said) there was information there that someone felt was important to the series, or (as pointed out before) helpful in understanding the hows/whys of the series list being presented.

When adding works to a series, is there any way to do so via work number, or from the workbench? The search apparently only searches titles, not work numbers.

When adding series touchstones in Talk, they don't show up next to Works and Authors in the Touchstones box to the right of the posts in a thread.

>43 AndreasJ: To get to the work bench, you have to go to the work, so why not add it right from the Series and Relationship box while there, instead of going into the series to add it?

Personally, I don't pay attention to the work numbers. Never had a need to.

>45 gilroy:

Mostly because I'm rather new at the new series system, and didn't think to add it from there. But it's also the case I knew I had the work on the workbench from previous combination work, and that finding it on a title search was a pain because of many other books with similar titles.

>43 AndreasJ: That is the case for now, although timspalding might end up adding the ability to add via workid. We'll be sure to post if that happens.

>47 kristilabrie:

Thanks

Is it possible to add different reading orders (other than chronological or published) such as author's recommended order?

If so, how would we do that?

>49 humouress: Create the series, Name it with Author Recommended as part of the title, then make each book numbered the order the author recommends reading it. Link it to the chronological and Publication order series through the relationship of "is a reorder of"

No way to build it into the existing structure from the way Tim built it that I can find.

49, 50:

Yeah, Tim regards anything other than internal chronology as bad and wrong, so he didn't design the series structure to easily permit multiple orderings of a single series - even viewing publication order requires jumping through hoops every time. Creating a separate series (and checking to make sure well-meaning but deplorably uninformed individuals don't merge it into the main one and destroy your order) is the only option.

>32 timspalding:
THANK YOU, Tim, conceptDawg... I just found that when creating a new series from a works page, the work is automatically added to the new series! BRAVO!!

For those not following... this corrects what I documented in >27 Conkie:

Special ATTN:
Avron = https://www.librarything.com/topic/321038#7179673

Stevil2001 = https://www.librarything.com/topic/321038#7211121

Awards-and-Medals = >24 Awards-and-Medals:

ETA:ATTN section

> Conkie
I'm presuming that will help with the first book, it seems unlikely to make much difference to the subsequent books. Which is almost always what I find myself working on, it's rare I create a series.

>53 Avron: "My" personal library is 1700+ books; "my" contributions to LT total >9500. Those contributing titles are for rounding out author bibliographies, series, and adding missing covers. Probably 95% of the time I spend on LT is so other LTers have a richer experience when using LT. I am grateful for any improvement that will make an LT Newbie want to revisit LT.
Since at least 3 other LTers brought up the problem with creating and adding works to new series before I documented mine, I wanted to "tip" my hat to them... AND, a simple "Thank you" to LT management is warranted.

Having used the new feature for a while now, I have a few recommendations/requests/remarks.

When combining series, it would be nice if the numbering of both series was transferred. An example is https://www.librarything.com/nseries/5342/Perry-Rhodan. I think this should be combined with this https://www.librarything.com/nseries/262023/Perry-Rhodan-Heftserie, but I haven't yet, because I would have to redo a lot of numbering. This is an extreme example, but I've come across a lot of series where keeping the numbering would have been helpful. I can't really think of cases where it would be disadvantageous.

When combining works, only the series info of the larger work is maintained. This has been mentioned before in this topic (or the previous one). In my experience so far, you always lose information this way. I haven't come across cases where this process is actually useful. In the few cases where keeping all series information isn't right, a bit of cleanup can be done afterwards. I think keeping it all would save more work!

I'd also like to add another vote for showing the series status (i.e. deleted) when adding a work, see >35 Conkie:. And the status archived would be helpful in the search menu.

Overall, I am very happy with the new feature and how it works. I wonder if this would also be a way of handling other CK, such as locations and characters... Thanks for the great work on LT!

The Series field on every book I add to my Library (and every other book I view) still has the lock icon showing and cannot be edited. What is going on?

>56 datrappert: Series is no longer a part of Common Knowledge. You need to find the block now labeled Series and Work Relationships. Series is a whole different system now. Please go back to the original thread and read the first post:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/321038#7178978

Some minor update:

* At the bottom right of series pages you will notice a "Advanced Options" section with a "Combine works." It works like combining works on an author, but for the series.
* I fixed a perplexing bug that was somewhat peculiar, but tended to lose the last delete when you put multiple deletes together.

>41 Cynfelyn:

I'll look at it. Such formatting is a problem across the site. It's easily abused.

Yeah, Tim regards anything other than internal chronology as bad and wrong…

I get that you enjoy saying this.

The "locked" symbol next to "series" in Common Knowledge is still causing confusion for a not insignificant number of users who missed the announcement about the new series system.

Can this please be changed to something less cryptic? For example, greying out the field and putting a note to the effect that "Series can now be found under 'Series and Work Relationships'".

>60 spiphany: Ditto

Agreed. Members are having to regularly explain the lock to others who weren't closely watching Talk when the change should be clear where people look to update series info.

Why keep the old field still on a work page? Without it, members would be more likely to see the new series link.

Sorry, where do I go to find out how to edit the 'order label' under the new system. I have incorrectly added brackets as per the old system and it has now double bracketed them as a result and looks a mess.

The old system often meant entering additional clarifying details just to get the series to list in order where as now just a series number will do (good news) but I had not realised this.

I see an edit pencil on the new Edit Series Work page next to the relevant work (the same page where you can drag and drop to sort the order) but nothing happens when I try to tap on them so any error I have entered seems permanently enshrined? Should I be able to edit and correct errors or typos I have made and am I trying to do it in the right place? Should those edit symbols be working?

I have tried scanning through this and the earlier thread but cannot see references to editing series labels and can't see it mentioned in the announcement for the new function?

Apologies if already asked and answered and for interrupting with such a basic question.

>63 Littlemissbashful: On a series page, click on edit series on the right, then 'add to/organize series'. There's a pencil icon by order labels which opens it for editing. Don't forget to save when done (both the change to order label requires a save, and the entire series eventually)

>64 SandraArdnas: So I was in the right place and yes indeed there is a pencil icon, and as mentioned in my post the edit (pencil) icon does not work, nothing happens (well other than a nanosecond flash of a box outlined in a broken blue border) .... at least not on my android samsung tablet.

But thank you anyway, problem seems to be with LT rather than me (for a change!)

I believe I did successfully edit entries when I first used the new series function on our pc so maybe it's an android thing...

>65 Littlemissbashful: Post what needs editing and I'll do it, but if it's not working as a rule on android, you should report it in bug tracking

>65 Littlemissbashful: I'm using a Samsung Chromebook running Version 84.0.4147.127 and I'm able to edit labels.

>66 SandraArdnas: Many thanks, I'll post it to bug tracking tomorrow but may just try it on a different android device to make sure that is the issue.

It's only a superfluous set of brackets that need removing from a series label (the series number entered is correct) so it will wait till I try it on the pc in the morning. I'd like to double check that it does actually work with the pc but I'm pretty sure I did sucessfully edit a series entry when I first tried using the new method in July.

Thanks for taking the time to answer though.

timspalding (#59):

Prove me wrong, then. Why is publication order deprecated on Series pages, if not because you think it has less value than internal chronology?

>69 lorax: not all series pages. Internal chronology isn't the only option for the default. Other than publication order-- which is always included on a series page! unlike the Story tab!-- the default can be set to title or a custom order with unique labels.

Just putting the facts about the new system out there. Again.

>60 spiphany:-61: I've removed the series and publisher series sections from CK. I played with various notices, but the feature is already overloaded with explanatory text. I'll get with conceptDawg tomorrow to discuss it. Suggestions welcome.

Prove me wrong, then. Why is publication order deprecated on Series pages, if not because you think it has less value than internal chronology?

Publication order isn't deprecated at all. Now and before, if you want a second ordering of a series, you can do so. We didn't take anything away. Rather, we ADDED the ability to see the publication date. And we ADDED the ability to mark a series as organized by its publication date. Neither of these things were possible before.

>71 timspalding: Thanks!

RSI
I'd like a way to remove unrelated series and common knowledge info that comes from adding anthologies to series. As an example, The Smoke Trilogy currently has eleven unrelated series listed because of one anthology. Since people continue to add anthologies to series, it would be nice if there was some "do not draw series or CK info from this work" mark.

It would also be nice if there was a way to add the contains/is contained in information to series. Maybe a little drop down arrow thing to the left of titles?

>73 amanda4242: it would be nice if there was some "do not draw series or CK info from this work" mark

Remove the anthology from the series.

>73 amanda4242: I thought, as long as the anthology had a work to work relationship to the book within the series, the anthology doesn't go into the series any more

>75 gilroy: The trouble is that it's short stories in anthologies forming part of the series, not necessarily the book itself. I have several anthologies containing stories from multiple series, all of which pull through into the Related Series section. It gets messy when such stories are not available as stand-alone works (e.g on the author's website).

I did suggest in the old thread we needed an anti-relationship - a way to flag that Series X is not related in any way to the current series.

Publication order is included, but it's not remembered. I always want to see it, 100% of the time. And 100% of the time, I need to click to choose it. Someone who shares Tim's preference for internal chronology does not need to click. That's a clear choice that he made that one is preferred.

Edited to add:

Previously, I just went to the Publication Order series. I can still do that, if some misguided individual hasn't merged them, but I shouldn't have to! If it just remembered a preference the new feature would be great. Such a simple change to make such a massive improvement, that choosing not to implement it seems like a matter of principle.

>76 Maddz: This is why I said as long as it is a work to work relationship. If the story is not cataloged as a unique work here on LT, obviously the anthology needs to be part of the collection section. And I agree we need a way to block series that aren't related in any way.

But if the story is cataloged here and is linked by work to work, then the story would go into the series and the anthology would not. At least I thought that was what we said to do.

>74 r.orrison: I do, but people keep adding them back. On one series I even left a note in the description field explaining the problem with adding anthologies; when I looked a few days later, someone had re-added the anthologies, deleted the short stories, and replaced my note with one saying only "real" books belong in the series.

>75 gilroy: There's no rule saying that. Most responses about it on the best practices thread were in favor of removing them, but Tim disagreed.

gilroy (#78):

If the story is not cataloged as a unique work here on LT, obviously the anthology needs to be part of the collection section

That's not at all obvious, and I disagree. The anthology is not part of the series, and should not be listed as such. If the story isn't cataloged, and you want its presence in a series recorded, then catalog it, via a separate account if you prefer. (Tim hasn't, yet, expressed a prohibition against adding works for this purpose as he has for adding them in order to use work relationships.) Adding anthologies to series because of a single story doesn't scale, when you think of anthologies with dozens of stories.

>79 amanda4242: Yeah, Tim said he didn't agree, then never responded to anyone else pointing out the folly of this disagreement. In this case, I believe the user base overrode Tim's disagreement, however, I could be wrong.

>81 gilroy: Most of the participants on that thread disagreed with him, but there's clearly a group of users who don't.

>73 amanda4242:

I feel like "related series" is a pretty weak identifier. It merely indicates there's some overlap somewhere in the series—and there is. I'd prefer keeping anthologies in. How can I change things so people aren't yanking them out? Is it a new non-relationship relationship?

Previously, I just went to the Publication Order series. I can still do that, if some misguided individual hasn't merged them, but I shouldn't have to! If it just remembered a preference the new feature would be great. Such a simple change to make such a massive improvement, that choosing not to implement it seems like a matter of principle.

Okay, so a special override whereby every series is shown in publication order, whether or not the series is specified as being ordered by something else? That feels like a very niggly feature and unless I hide it the hell away, people are going to be confused why things are behaving oddly.

>71 timspalding: Thank you for removing the old CK series field. :)

Okay, I've added a no-relationship relationship. You can see it in the third button here:



And also in the menu here:



Ideally this would not be a series-to-series (non)-relationsip, but something intrinsic to the work--that it's an anthology. But I'm divided. The edit page is currently pretty slim. I'm not sure I want to add another column to it.



I thought about having the "don't count this" be a "group" feature--so you'd make an anthology group and stick all the anthologies in there. But I don't think it's the best option.

>83 timspalding: I'd prefer keeping anthologies in. How can I change things so people aren't yanking them out?

An anthology containing many stories from unrelated series doesn't itself actually belong to any of those series. Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy contains The Ruby Incomparable which is part of the Anvil of the World series, but the Wizards anthology isn't part of that series. As far as I'm concerned, those are simple statements of fact.

There are anthologies which contain only short stories from the same series, such as Side Jobs which is part of The Dresden Files series.

>87 r.orrison:

There are no facts in such matters. There are more or less strongly held opinons. Or—my preference—date usefully structured for use and joy for all concerned. So I'm trying to work with you here, to make sure we can make everyone happy.

I think it's useful to tell someone there's more to the series—and you can find it in Anthology X. In theory, yes, if we had a full "parts" layer, we try to include anthologies by means of the stories in them. But, in practice, stories exist in books.

So let's have an "anthology" flag for works when you add them to a series?

That's what the work-to-work relationship does. The Ruby Incomparable can be found in three different anthologies; that information is available on the work page. Should all three of them also be listed on the Anvil of the World series page?

I think the problem is how do you catalogue anthologised stories that have only ever appeared in a multi-author anthology (or magazine issue for that matter). Not all authors have websites with freebies, and short stories being sold as individual works is a fairly recent phenomenon.

In an ideal world, each short piece would merit it's own entry in LT but life's too short to catalogue everything.

>91 Maddz:
True. If the short story isn't cataloged on its own then it can't be listed in the series, so the only way is to list the anthology. But it still feels wrong.

Why don't we change the "rule" that you can't create an entry for a short story just for the sake of including it in a series-or relationship? Actually I think it gets done frequently but there are those who shudder at the thought because Tim once said Don't Do It.

Tim -- can we do it? this might eliminate most of the anthology questions.

>84 timspalding: If you want anthologies in, then we need to have rules regarding them. Should every anthology which reprints a story be included? Should it only be the original publication? What if the original anthology is only held by one or two members, with a later reprint being much more prevalent?

ETA: And what about when all the short stories for a series are published as a collection? Do we still keep the anthologies?

>86 timspalding: Cool. Will this remove unrelated CK? Also, there's a bug: I just marked all the unrelated series on The Smoke Trilogy and they're still showing on the main series page despite being gone from the relationships/combine page.

>89 timspalding: I think it's useful to tell someone there's more to the series—and you can find it in Anthology X.

Isn't that what work-to-work relationships are for? In the best practices thread you we're of the opinion that Wind-up Bird Chronicle is not a series and that showing the relationship between the various volumes should be done via work relationships. Why can't the same logic aply to anthologies?

I'd like to point out another reason why adding anthologies to the series is messy. It inflates the number of series for anyone owning them to the extent that I have countless series which I don't really have. I have no works for those, only a story in the anthology.

Another thought occurred to me about anthologies: the stories are together because an editor decided they should be published together, rather than by the authors deciding they are connected to each other. Isn't that related to how we distinguish between a regular and a publishers series?

Tim, any chance that the tags will ever use the tag translations?

>83 timspalding: You've created an indirect link where a work to work relationship shows up on the work page when an anthology contains a book with parts spread out.
Why can't the same be done with the anthologies relating to series?

>77 lorax: >84 timspalding: I am also in support of this feature change, although I disagree with the way lorax has advocated for it. Each series page has two view options: the specified ordering, and publication order. Individual users can use the tabs to toggle between the two view options. What I would like, and what I believe (?) lorax would like, is for LT to remember the view option the user most recently used, and to view every new series page with that remembered view option. I am not sure why this feature would be confusing? There is always the option to click on the other view option. Am I missing something?

I love the new series feature, but this change would make me like and use the feature way more. I prefer reading in publication order, and especially for long series with complicated timelines, always clicking through to "publication" order is frustrating.

Plus, if this change were implemented, publication order series could always* be merged without confusion. As things currently stand, the best practices thread consensus is to not merge publication order series to cater to people like me whose preferred viewing order is publication. But because each series page has a publication order view option, some users who don't read all the threads or wikis wouldn't know about this consensus and might combine them.

*EDIT: I changed my mind slightly about best practices for combining series reorderings. See >109 Kanarthi:.

timspalding (#84):

I think maybe we're talking past each other? This is the same issue I raised literally on day one.

On the Series pages, above the books, is this selector:



It allows you to choose between "Story" or "Publication" order. Every time, it defaults to Story. I pick Publication, click on a work, come back, it's back on Story. I pick Publication, hit refresh, it's back on Story. All I've ever asked is for that choice to stay chosen.

>97 anglemark:

On series?

timspalding (#89):

I think it's useful to tell someone there's more to the series—and you can find it in Anthology X. In theory, yes, if we had a full "parts" layer, we try to include anthologies by means of the stories in them. But, in practice, stories exist in books.

We have that! Story X is part of the series; Story X can be found in Anthologies Y, Z, and Q. I guess maybe people's view on this is colored by whether they're thinking of large reprint anthologies that have dozens of stories, such as are common in science fiction, and where a story may be anthologized many times, or of cases where a story appears once, in one anthology? I have an SF anthology which is specifically "here are stories written in 11 different series by 11 different authors". That book is NOT a part of 11 series!

(And I see that there's a lot of missing series data on the short stories I have entered in my short fiction account, which if it were present would demonstrate the issue. It would be a good next project, if the Series feature were usable.)

Crypto-Willobie (#93):

AFAIK that rule never applied to series, only to work relationships.

It allows you to choose between "Story" or "Publication" order. Every time, it defaults to Story. I pick Publication, click on a work, come back, it's back on Story. I pick Publication, hit refresh, it's back on Story. All I've ever asked is for that choice to stay chosen.

First, it's not story/publication, it's many sorts vs. publication.

Ii'm not going to force everyone into a sticky-sort paradigm. We have a default sort for series for a reason, namely to provide a default sort—the ordinary way a series should be seen. Sometimes it's story, sometimes its publication forward, sometimes publication backward, sometimes it's alphabetic. All have their uses as a default, and I'm loathe to replace the concept of a default series order with "whatever you looked at the last series in."

You mention going back and forth. Most browser will hold a page's state if you literally go back and forth, but maybe you're clicking around to get back?

How about this? Would it be enough if it stuck per series? I can do this in memory, so it would stick for at least several days.

>104 timspalding: the ordinary way a series should be seen

But there's disagreement on what the "ordinary" way should be. I thought part of the purpose of having the toggle was to remove the necessity of having to make separate series for publication and chronological order, but without a way for members to set there personal choice as a default view those who prefer publication order are forced to either maintain a separate series (which will run the risk of getting combined with the chronological series) or go through an extra step every time they look at every series. Having the choice stick per series would be something, but what's the benefit if will only stick for a few days?

I started to write a message supporting the sticky-per-user series order option that lorax and Kanarthi want, but then the side effect hit me.

For most users, probably the vast majority, the configured-per-series default order is a reasonable default and to be preferred most of the time (and that may indeed be publication order, if that makes most sense for the series). With the requested change, if a user happened to choose to see one series in publication order that choice would carry over to every other unrelated series the user viewed after that, until they realized what was happening.

I think that either you'd have to have a user profile option saying "Always default series view to publication order", or Tim's suggestion to have the option be sticky per-user and per-series. (So that if a user chose publication order on one series, it wouldn't affect the next series they looked at.)

Just having the choice be sticky and affect all series isn't the right choice for most users.

>103 lorax:

Then there's no reason at all to add a mixed anthology to a series. Just set up the story that belongs with the series and add that.

>107 Crypto-Willobie: Yes, that's what Lorax and others are saying. Tim's position is that an anthology containing stories from multiple series belongs in all the series.

>106 r.orrison: I'd be open to a user profile option too. I prefer to have a sticky option, because I think that most people find it easier to switch than to find the user profile option, but either implementation would solve this frustration for me.

One more thing I would like to bring up in response to tim >104 timspalding:: there are reasons to change the default series view option beyond just viewing publication order as your "preferred order". The publication order view option has more information. It has the dates of publication AND the sort order numbers from the default "story" sort view option. Even on series where the designated sort order is the same as publication order, I always prefer the publication view option because that shows additional information. (E.g. is the author still publishing books regularly or are there gaps of 10 years between entries...?) Clicking separately each time to view extra information is annoying. Implementing default view options would not stop users from creating their own reorderings of series. I'm still confused about how letting users determine their default view option would "replace the concept of a default series order". What am I not getting??

EDIT: To be even more explicit, I suspect that if users could set default view options, there would still be some "publication order series" that should remain uncombined, especially for long or complicated series like Vorkosigan Publication Order, although my personal viewing preference would always be the chronologically ordered series in publication order view. For shorter series, like trilogies or books with prequels, it would seem simpler to combine story and publication order series, but maybe people disagree. There is no reason that the community couldn't form a consensus, and the standard for combining different series sorting orders is related but separate to the issue of default view options.

Crypto-Willobie (#107):

Then there's no reason at all to add a mixed anthology to a series. Just set up the story that belongs with the series and add that.

That is exactly what I have been saying, so I'm not sure why you're responding to me as though I've been saying something else?

>109 Kanarthi: For shorter series, like trilogies or books with prequels, it would seem simpler to combine story and publication order series

That seems like a reasonable thing to me if I could set *my* default view to my preference.

Agh, my reply to Tim got eaten. Trying again.

Tim (#104):

We have a default sort for series for a reason, namely to provide a default sort—the ordinary way a series should be seen.

But the entire point is that people don't agree on that, in cases where the two orders that always exist for a fiction series (internal chronology and publication) differ. You've forced a choice that is not universal, on an issue where people feel very strongly.

You mention going back and forth. Most browser will hold a page's state if you literally go back and forth, but maybe you're clicking around to get back?


Latest Chrome on a Mac.

Series page, choose "Publication". Click on author name. Click on series name from the author page. It has reset.
Series page, choose "Publication". Click on author name. Hit the "back" button. It has reset.
Series page, choose "Publication". Hit the reload browser button. It resets.

Is there any other scenario you want me to try? Nothing I've found remembers my choice.

>112 lorax: I suspect Tim's response would be that having separate series which provide reorderings, as is now the case, is not "forcing a choice" about series order, because both orders of the series exist. As I mentioned above, I think that which reorderings should be combined and what the default view option is are separate issues. They are related, as >111 amanda4242: points out, but they are not identical. I still think that lettings users determine their default view option is valuable even if NO publication order series are combined with chronological ones.

>112 lorax: Same thing when using Chrome on PC and Chromebook and Edge on PC. The only way I can see to have a page stay the way I set is to never close or refresh it and to open all links in new tabs.

It would have been so helpful (and would still be helpful) if screenshots were used to explain the issues and answers to those issues discussed in this thread. "We" expect all LT users to be able to follow/understand this (and other threads) before asking questions... and often answers are spare, yet expected to be sufficient... as if we are all on the Same Page. Really? In today's world?

Sounds to me that the on-going feud between Tim and Lorax over (fill in the blank with your understanding) is likely to have occurred due to a misunderstanding as to what the issue is/was.

SCREENSHOTS are worth a 1,000 words!!

when I switch to publication, the order of the covers does not change. Should it? I kind of expected it to, but it is probably not a "bug" if they coders didn't mean for the order of the book covers to change.

Also, looking at The Hunger Games series, I see that the Hunger Games is not listed first in publication order. I guess that problem with data for publication order is not fixed yet? Cathcing Fire is listed as being publish in 2008, when common knowledge says it was first published in 2009

>116 al.vick: I don't think they're supposed to, so not a bug. It would be neat if they did, but it's not something I expected to happen.

RSI

Add crossover and spin-off to the list of possible relationships. Most of the examples I can think of are for comics and TV series, but I know there are book series to which they would apply.

Examples:
Lucifer is a spin-off of The Sandman
The Adversary Cycle crosses over with Repairman Jack

>101 timspalding: Yes.

>110 lorax:
I wasn't responding to your general position, but only to your clarification of the "relationship rule", and I had gotten confused.

But that rule about not setting up stories for relationships still comes into play because we would want series stories to have an 'included' relationship with their anthologies, and so would sometimes have to break the rule to make that happen.

There isn't an explicit rule (yet?) against creating works just for series the way there is for work-to-work relationships, but I think it's pretty obvious the logic behind the latter also applies to the former.

LT is designed to allow a user to say "I have this work." There's no good way, as the site is currently designed, to just say "this work exists (even though I don't have it)." Yes, you could segregate it to a collection that doesn't really "count" or use another account to categorize it (but if you need a sock puppet account to do something, that's a pretty good sign you shouldn't be doing it). But there's no real way to do it without artificially inflating the number of users who have a book.

There is a possible world in which LT is updated to allow users to easily categorize works (and parts of works) which they don't themselves have as discrete editions in their own right. But that possible world is not the actual world, at least not yet.

>122 cjbanning: We have a wish list collection. We have a read but not owned collection. We enter books that we do not own. There is no requirement to own books we enter. We are supposed to have some relationship to a work that we enter.

>124 MarthaJeanne:

That's the thing. The works I would need to create to fill in gaps in a series are likely to be ones with which I have no relationship, beyond something tangential like "I own another book by the same author."

>125 cjbanning: If it isn't cataloged on Librarything and you have no relationship to it, then just leave it alone.

We are not a data warehouse where people come to find what a series holds. We are a place where people catalog stuff that means things to them.

>126 gilroy:

I agree with this, I just don't think we're adhering to it consistently if we're creating works that don't actually exist as discrete editions in order to avoid including anthologies within series.

>127 cjbanning: How so?

>127 cjbanning: I'm starting to see a lot of short stories out of anthologies popping up on Amazon. Mostly public domain fiction (I've been working on my Lord Dunsany anthologies and over on Kobo there's 16 pages, less than half are full volumes), but there's the Tor.com short fiction appearing as discrete works as well.

>128 gilroy: Sorry! I was finishing this off while being nagged.

>129 Maddz: I think you directed this to the wrong person.

>129 Maddz:

I don't think anyone would say anything against cataloguing a short story as a work when it does appear as a discrete edition, e.g. as an ebook of its own and not just part of an anthology, at least as long as the cataloguer has a relationship with that specific discrete edition. Although I have a hard time describing a work which is just sitting on a webserver somewhere as one to which I "have a relationship."

(I have on occasion added a free ebook to my Kindle library just so I that I would have a relationship with it and could thus catalogue it in good faith.)

>131 cjbanning: People are allowed to catalog whatever they want in their library as long as it doesn't break any laws or violate the TOS. There is no requirement that a work has to exist independent of an anthology or in any physical form to be catalogued; hundreds of people have catalogued books six and seven of A Song of Ice and Fire and they don't even exist yet.

>127 cjbanning:
There's no requirement that works "exist as discrete editions" in order to catalog them. I'm interested in knowing which short stories I have read in various anthologies, so I catalog those stories. I don't know or care if they were published independently of the anthology that I read them in.

>131 cjbanning: Although I have a hard time describing a work which is just sitting on a webserver somewhere as one to which I "have a relationship."
I wouldn't have a hard time with that at all - if it was a work I'd read, or wanted to read.

Given most of my anthologies are in epub format, it's relatively easy for me to turn them into discrete works using Calibre and the Epub Split plug in. I usually do this when I buy a booked set or omnibus edition of novels.

However, what I log here is the anthology/box set/omnibus, not the split out works unless I have them as discrete print editions and plan on keeping the print editions. I do use the work-to-work relationship wherever possible - obviously mainly boxed sets/omnibuses.

>133 r.orrison:

Insofar as it's not really possible (I wish it was!) to catalogue a work without creating an edition, I'd argue that there is.

>135 cjbanning:
Sorry, when you said "actually exist as discrete editions" I thought you meant exist as a physically or elecronically published edition, not edition in the LibraryThing sense. Of course, you have to create an edition record in LibraryThing to create a work - but that just happens automatically as an effect of cataloging your copy.

>136 r.orrison:

An edition record in LibraryThing is a record of a physically or electronically published edition. You can't separate the two concepts (I wish you could!).

>137 cjbanning: Um, since when? We have perfume, dresses, and rhinos cataloged. None of those are "published." They are just items that exist.

>137 cjbanning:
You can manually add anything with just a title. How do you think people add wishlist items for things that haven't even been written yet? It creates a LibraryThing book, edition, and work for something that doesn't exist in any form.

There is no actual edition record. LT just defines that any unique combination of title, author, and ISBN is an edition.

I log the short stories that I get in anthologies *only* when I am interested in getting all the short stories in a series, and want an easy record of what I already have. That way if I want a new anthology because it contains short story(s) in a series I like, I can check for the title of the short story to see if I already own it. I don't catalog all the short stories in every anthology I buy. And I don't care if they were published separately or not.

I find the new series pages hard to read. There just isn't enough contrast between the letters and the background.

I'm having trouble adding an item to an existing series (and yes, it is a video game and not a book)

I want to add Assassin's Creed: Chronicles to the series Assassin's Creed - Video Games which has 18 entries. However, when I try to add my item to the series via add/ edit series/ relationship from the main page it can't find the series (and the touchstone isn't registering) even though I copied and pasted the title. Similarly, when I try to add my item from the series listing, it can't be found - although that could be because I've just added it manually although the touchstone is working.

Any suggestions please?

>143 superboy:: Sorry for your trouble. I'm guessing that the series was also newly created since it's not getting found in the search index, but hard for me to tell since I can't find it to look at it. :)

Do you have a link to the series page so I can take a closer look? This might need Tim's attention to force a re-index of series, but need to be sure.

>144 kristilabrie: I found the series at https://www.librarything.com/nseries/70255/Assassins-Creed-Video-Games
I did not add the videogame >143 superboy:, as I wasn't sure how it related to the other Chonicles, and where it should be in the series.

>145 FAMeulstee: Great, thanks!

Hmm, looks like the trilogy of the Chronicles game?

At least I am now seeing the work in the search for adding to the series page. I'll ping Tim that newly added series might need a reindexing.

>145 FAMeulstee: >146 kristilabrie: >147 kristilabrie: Thank you!

Yes, it is a trilogy of the Chronicles game.

ETA: Oops, sorry; I'm adding games on behalf of my kids and answered from the wrong account.

I'm editing the Grand Theft Auto video game series and added a couple of 'Collections' subseries under 'GTA expansion packs' and 'Additional games'. I'm trying to change the second one to 'GTA - additional games' but even though I saved the new name and then saved the change, it doesn't seem to be taking.

>149 superboy: Confirmed, thanks for the report.

From Kristi

go to https://www.librarything.com/nseries/130743/Grand-Theft-Auto
click on “Sort Groups”
click to edit “Additional games”
edit to “GTA - additional games”
click Save.
click Save for Sort Groups edit-page.
change is not actually made/saved.

I've never tried to edit the groups that way, if I were honest. I just get frustrated and create a new group, replace the old group so it goes away.

>86 timspalding:

Hi Tim, there seem to be some issues with the implementation of the "no relationship" relationship. My understanding is that it was supposed to suppress clutter on the series pages so that an unrelated series that was showing up as an overlapping series (by virtue of anthologies being included in series, etc) would no longer show up there.

Currently, it appears that instead:
(1) The no-relationship relationship shows up on the related series listings; and
(2) The no-relationship relationships are missing on the edit series: relationships/combine page, and therefore are not editable or removable.
This is problematic since the non-relationships distract from the information about the series.

Is it possible you meant to suppress / make invisible the non-relationship relationships on the series page, and instead you made them invisible / suppressed them from the edit series: relationships/combine page?

This is demonstrated on Little House novels, chronological order, where there are three series which have no relation to the Little House books. gabriel and I have attempted a few different strategies for dealing with this to no avail. Defining a different relationship between the affected series and then deleting it does nothing since two series are permitted to be related in multiple ways at the same time (even as no-relationship and a direct relationship).

Please help!

EDIT: Filed bug report on 9/15: http://www.librarything.com/topic/324396

>149 superboy: >150 kristilabrie: Similarly, sorting groups doesn't seem to work.

In the Liaden series (publication order) I split 'Collections' into two groups labelled 'Omnibus' and 'Short stories'. I wanted to change the order so that 'Omnibus' is listed first but am unable to move the groups using the 'sort groups' page.

>154 humouress:
Is that a long-running issue, or just in the last few hours? I also couldn't sort groups this evening (but could this morning prior to the partial rollout of LT 2.0).

>155 parlerodermime: To be honest, this is probably the first time I've tried it.

>154 humouress:, >155 parlerodermime: I'm trying to move the 'Related work' section in the Artesia series and failing. The cursor changes when I hover over it, I click, hold and drag, and nothing happens...

Urgh. Serif fonts, aging eyes = fuzzy even on a Retina display (unfortunately, it doesn't go 'yeek!'). I also feel the series title takes up too much space. Please consider changing the font & making it smaller.

>154 humouress: >155 parlerodermime:
If you have less than 3 groups and have removed the Core group, there will be no sort available. This is a bug I mentioned in the first thread and Tim said "So don't remove the Core Group."

>158 gilroy: The core group is still there and runs to 40+ works. There was a 'Collections and Selections' section which I just split into two groups and renamed.

When I try to move the groups in the 'sort groups' page I get the double ended arrow when the cursor hovers over the groups but when I click, hold down and move it highlights the selections rather than moving them.

>159 humouress: Okay, that's different than the glitch I had found. Never mind.

I haven't been using this feature much (I find it confusing to use, though in most cases the result is great) but today I was looking at the Lumberjanes series page and had some questions:

1) How do we know who the "series author" is? I don't see it displayed on the page anywhere

2) Of the many people who have worked on this series, none of them have this series listed anywhere on their author page. I understand the purpose of having one "series author" (whoever that might be?) but shouldn't there still be a way to see the serieses that an author has contributed to?

>162 norabelle414: From what I've found, if a series does not have one author who's done more than 50 percent of the works in the series, the system won't calculate a series author and it won't show on any author page.

Not sure if this is a bug. If so, I'll repost it in the proper group.

When combining Works that have no Series information with Works that do, the following sometimes happens:



This means that, since the Series information is only preserved on the first item, I will now have to re-enter that information, because the combining process will delete it.

I don't understand why the system does not prioritize an item with more information. Is this something I made happen? (e.g. by adding the items in question to the workbench in the wrong order.)

>164 Petroglyph: I think it prioritizes the item with more copies, but I don't know how it breaks ties, and sometimes series information is on the work with fewer copies. I think this is a bad choice, and I have complained about it before.

>164 Petroglyph: I have seen this too. Annoying.

Two questions on the new series.

1) Is there any plan to alter the series order sort? I'd far rather stick with the "Automatic by order label" order, but it needs to handle numbers better. Surely no-one wants the order to be:

Vol. 1
Vol. 11
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
...

2) Can we please manually set the series editor? Most series I've worked on have been academic series, and the series editor is rarely the principal author.

Thanks!

>167 shikari: If you remove the Vol label, it sorts numbers fine. You label is what's causing you issues.

Still find it very annoying that you can't add a book to a series from the book page. It's several extra clicks to get from the book to the author to the series to edit series to add book. Would very much like an 'add to series' button on the book main page.

>169 reading_fox: Just scroll down to the "Series and work relationships" module on the work page and click add/edit. You don't have to go to the author or series page to add a book to series.

.

>169 reading_fox: Yes, see 170. It's totally doable.

>164 Petroglyph: >165 Stevil2001: The worst part about this is, the old series system used to give the same warning ("Only the series in the first work will be preserved!") but then preserved all of them anyway, so I got trained to just ignore the warning entirely.

I don't see why you would design such a system to discard data in the first place.

I went to the bookshop yesterday and was using my LibraryThing catalogue on my phone for the first time since the new Series was implemented. I noticed that on my mobile on the series page for a particular series shows ticks on the cover icons of the books that I have but not next to the list of books.

One of the main reasons for my joining LT in the first place was to be able to quickly and easily see what books in a series I already have and which ones I still had to get/ read when I'm in bookshops so if the ticks (checkmarks) aren't showing next to the list on the mobile site it makes that function a lot more complex to carry out. I was in a rush (between school and swimming class) so I didn't have time to investigate properly.

I am trying to carry out some minor edits in the Liaden series (chronological order) but I ran up against two issues.

One is that the double headed arrow for manually moving titles within the order shows but when I click on it, it just highlights instead of moving. I believe this occurred and was resolved previously but it seems to be back.

The second is that when I add a website link and save the pop-up box, the pop-up doesn't disappear so you don't realise that it has saved. (The result of which is that I received a helper badge for adding 18 links last week - but I ain't complaining! Don't worry, I went back and deleted the surplus links and this time I was wise to the bug so I just closed the box and refreshed the page.)

Safari/ mac desktop

>175 humouress: The second issue was mentioned in a few places. Initially here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/324352#7273837

And has a bug report here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/324997

>176 gilroy: Thanks.

I went to the bookshop yesterday and was using my LibraryThing catalogue on my phone for the first time since the new Series was implemented. I noticed that on my mobile on the series page for a particular series shows ticks on the cover icons of the books that I have but not next to the list of books.

One of the main reasons for my joining LT in the first place was to be able to quickly and easily see what books in a series I already have and which ones I still had to get/ read when I'm in bookshops so if the ticks (checkmarks) aren't showing next to the list on the mobile site it makes that function a lot more complex to carry out. I was in a rush (between school and swimming class) so I didn't have time to investigate properly.

I've fixed this. It may need another fix on Monday, but check it out.

>178 timspalding: I do see the checkmarks in the series lists on my phone now, which is great. But I notice that you can't see the series-order labels on mobile; it would be helpful to have those too, or a toggle to show/hide them if you don't want to have them visible all the time due to space concerns.

>179 Opteryx: I can see the series order labels. They are all the way to the right and almost invisible on my iPhone X (iOS14, Chrome).

I can see them in both orientations (iPhone 11, iOS 14, Safari)

>180 lauralkeet: They are not showing on the right for me at all unless I put my phone into landscape mode, which I seldom do. This is on an Android with reportedly a 2560x1440 screen resolution, which is higher than the iPhone X's 2436x1125 (and the iPhone 11's 1792x828). I don't know what the issue is, but I'm hoping the numbering can be made visible in both orientations for all mobile users, the same as the checkmarks now are. :)

>178 timspalding: Thanks; I can see the ticks against the book names too now.

I can also see the order labels in both orientations.

(iPhone 6/ Safari)

>175 humouress: Still unable to re-order within a series.

>184 humouress:

Can you give me a non-deleted series you're having trouble reordering?

>175 humouress: Your trying to edit Liaden Universe Chronological Order, right? That series is set to sort by order label. Go to basic settings and switch it to custom order.

>186 amanda4242: Thanks; that works.

>185 timspalding: Solved. But there was nothing obvious to indicate that was the case. Maybe a pop-up box with an explanation if someone tries to move a title within a series and has no idea why it's locked?

>187 humouress: The toggle on the main page to switch views between publication and other sort orders will say label if the series is set to sort by label.

>188 amanda4242: Oh, okay. I hadn't noticed that. But it doesn't tell you why you can't move titles to reorganise a series (if you don't already know that that would 'lock' it).

>175 humouress: Still not seeing changes to 'Links' until I manually close the pop-up box and refresh the page.

I've just created an Asterix Omnibus series and I notice that in my catalogue, some of the books are labelled, for example, Omnibus 6 whereas on the series page they appear as Asterix omnibus 6 which is my preferred format. I have not edited my book yet.

I'm just wondering why the discrepancy? I assume that once I edit my book it will appear in my catalogue the way that I want it?

>191 humouress: It must just be a discrepancy with the sources you added those books from. The work-level titles on all of them are "Asterix Omnibus #", and your copies are all properly combined with the main works already; it's just some of your personal book copies that are lacking the "Asterix" in the title on some of them. Edit your personal book details and they will all look the way you want them.

>192 Opteryx: Okay, thanks.

>191 humouress:

I don't think this is a separate series - it's just collections of the Asterix series. If the "collections and selections" section in the main series is too confused, you could break out the Omnibus editions into a new group.

I think it's fine to leave the new series, you can just designate it as a subseries of the big one.

>195 Opteryx:

But it's not a subseries, it's just a republication of the whole thing in a different format. They are, in a word, collections - and there's a place for them in the existing series. As I said, the "Collections and Selections" group for Asterix is a big old mess, so I think a good improvement would be to create a dedicated group for these omnibus editions.

>196 gabriel: Plenty of other intentionally overlapping series exist on LT, by whatever name you want to use for them. The big series labels the omnibuses by the numbers of which issues are inside each of them, which would be useful to some people who have been collecting some issues outside of the omnibuses, while this series used the omnibus numbers as the series order labels and simplifies things for those who don't want to keep up with individual issues. It seems to me that they serve different purposes and can coexist, regardless of what improvements the bigger series may be in need of.

>194 gabriel: I considered that, but whoever has organised the 'collections and selections' has done a good job. There are so many omnibus (many of which overlap) and in many different languages so it seemed best to leave them in there and create a new series.

There does seem to have been an old series, now deleted, of these omnibus.

A request: please set the default when adding a work to insert it at the bottom, not the top.

>199 aspirit: I asked for that already, but Tim said at the top is more prominent and more likely to be noticed as needing a proper place if the original editor doesn't do it. I have meanwhile found that most series are suitable for either ordering by label or alphabetically, in which case they go to their slot automatically. Otherwise, it would be a real pain to drag and drop in large series

Continued here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/327118