Sorting in List View

eirikharris · Post by **eirikharris** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:48 am

Does anyone know if there is any way to do a secondary sort in list view? That is, is it possible to sort first by author and then by title?

Post by **Jon** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:54 am

No, you can't (well, you kind of can, see below). The initial sort done by Bookends is author/date. If you click on a header, the sort is on that column only.

There is a way to do this, but it's a bit of a pain. Turn OFF sorting of the list view (in Preferences). Then get the references you want in the hits list (e.g. Shift-Command-A for all) and use Hits -> Sort Hits List (sort by author/title). Now when you click on the Hits group, you'll see your references sorted by author/title.

Jon
Sonny Software

tom · Post by **tom** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:46 am

...but this does not work for Date/Author, because in this case sort is not by year only but by date as entered (e.g. MM/JJ/YYYY or YYYY/MM/JJ gives different sort order), right? a YEAR/Auther sort would be quit useful for me

tom

Post by **Jon** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:54 am

That's easier said than done. There are dozens of way to enter dates. It is possible to extract the year if it's there in a four digit form, but virtually impossible otherwise. Given the enormous variability in date display (not just those entered by users, but those downloaded from many different online sources) such a sort would be hit-and-miss.

Jon
Sonny Software

tom · Post by **tom** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:46 am

how is it then possible to see in list view year only? here it seems to work fine (at least with my database)

Post by **Jon** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:50 am

Because all your references must have a 4 digit year (which I said, Bookends can extract). Try entering a date in another form (e.g. 01/01/06) and see what Bookends displays.

Jon
Sonny Software

tom · Post by **tom** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:31 am

OK, I got 4 digits: because for citing I need the year with 4 digits. I do not know any format where you use only two digits. Does 01/01/06 mean 1906 or 2006? Indeed, such a sort would be hit-and-miss, because the entry is ambiguous (and not useful for correct citing, in my opinion)

tom · Post by **tom** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:56 am

I mean, if you have the year with 2 digits, you won't have only sorting problems but you will have a lot of trouble for creating a correct bibliography etc. The problem is located in the entry and not how BE it treats. Does anybody use year with 2 digits?