Please Use a pattern similar to one of these for numbering chapters or parts in the titles:
Some Story -37-
Another Story - Part 12
One More Story : Ch.25
Still Another Story Episode 127
Same Old Story -- Chapter 2
I'm not trying to be exhaustive of acceptable patterns, just illustrative. The main thing is, always use the same pattern and always and only use arabic numbers [1...295...???] for the chapter titles in the title field. Use anything you like in the story box. :)
Roman numerals and number words for chapter numbers are a prehistoric cave bear to alphabetize. Using arabic numbers in the same pattern each chapter of the same story will make it easier to keep the chapters in order.
Hugs,
- Erin
Chapter numbering
Does that mean that Angharad has to finish her story by the time she gets to 295?
I fear things may get a little rushed...
NB
If that's the case Nick,
I have another 240 years to go! Will you still be reading EAFOAB then?
Angharad 8)
Angharad
240 years?
Ang, bless you. I fear your brain has become addled after a long chapter.
How on earth do you equate 90 chapters taking 240 years at one a day?
Are you going somewhere?
Is there something we should know?
WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING US WOMAN!!!
And yes, I do plan to be around that long...
NB
That will bring us to EAFOAB Part 87,600…
…approximately, discounting leap years.
Now what would that be in Roman numerals——? 1,000 is M…
OMG it will take me 240 years to work it out,
Gabi
Gabi.
What she SAID was...
Writing until SHE is 295, not until the 295th chapter... :-)
295
Ahhhh! That would explain it.
I'm sorry, I'm only a bloke after all.
NB
I can't imagine why...
you think that. I thought Erin's example was "1...295..." not "1...295", the former implying without end but with a typical point somewhere in the middle numberd 295 (I'm worried about THIS interpretation myself, as I'm only up to part 28... Comming up with at least 215 more. I shudder to think. Maybe if I broke it into a sentence a part...) while the latter sequence implies ending at 295.
Angharad, if you DO decide to keep writing this until YOU are 295, I plan to stick around to read it. Maybe you can come to my 400th birthday party!
Annette
What about a story divided into parts?
ie: a story with parts 1, 2, 3, each with a number of chapters, i've been using a pattern like 1.01, 1.02, 2.01, 2.02, 2.03 etc. (zero-padded numbers where required so they still sort properly alphanumerically.)
To be honest I find it a bit unsatisfactory myself, and wondered if I should have just gone up in a single sequence and no larger subdivision of the story. What's your view on that sort of thing?
That works
Decimalize or hyphenate, but insert the placeholder zeroes, which can be a different amount for each chapter, thus:
1-00001
1-00037
1-24601
3.0000075
3.0000099
3.8675309
If chapter 1 has 17 parts, number them 1-01 (or 1.01) through 1-17 (1.17). If chapter 2 has 107 parts, number them 2-001 (2.001) through 2-107 (2.107). Does that make sense?
Also, let me add, if you include the subtitle of the chapter/episode/part in the title bar, put it after the numeric portion (Happy Go Lucky chapter 11-01337, How to Climb a Giant).
If you aren't sure, ask one of us that organize them. We're more than happy to help you (because it makes life easier for us to help you from the outset!)
Decimal Chapters
1.01 or 1-01 for numbering is also fine. As long as it is consistent. Even 1 followed by 1.01 would be okay.
The idea is to keep the automatic alphabetization from breaking down too much. In EAFOAB, I've had to use only 3 weights, (0,1,&2) because the pattern is consistent enough that mechanical alphabetization broke down at 10 and 100 which is fine, those are easily predictable.
Also a complex series like Lizzie Jane is expected to have numbering peculiarities but consistency makes it easier. Exceptions are not the problem, frequent exceptions are. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Now I Understand, I Think
In order for you to NOT have to fiddle with the alphabetization order of chapters manually, authors (at least those intending to write less than 1000 chapters) should start off with Chapter 001, so when they get to chapter 010, it will automatically follow chapter 009, instead of what usually happens when putting numbers in ASCII character order, where chapter 10 ends up between 1 and 2 and nowhere near 9?
Back when I was being a datageek for a living, I got to play with indexing a lot. Solving a problem like this would have required breaking the title into two fields and creating a compound index on the text field and the chapter number field. I'm guessing this is well beyond the capabilities of Drupal, so unless someone feels like rewriting the entire thing, it just looks like one of those somewhat inconvenient things we're stuck with.
That's it exactly
Though the disconnects that are predictable (10, 100, 1000, etc.) can be compensated for due to the weighting system. All we REALLY need from you is that you use Arabic numerals. Roman numerals get allll jacked up after 4 (I, II, III, IV, IX, V, VI, VII, VIII, X, XI...). Feel free to use Roman numerals in the body of the story as much as you like, but please... in the title bar... stick to Arabic numerals.
Actually
Drupal could handle splitting the title into two fields, it would require a little code written but it's doable. But it wouldn't solve the problem unless people used the numbered field correctly. :) It's not worth the effort to have exactly the same size of problem remaining. Input is always a problem.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Named numbers are the worse
Even worse than Roman numerals are named numbers, such as alphabetized below:
eight
eleven
fifteen
five
four
fourteen
nine
one
one hundred
seven
six
ten
thirteen
three
twelve
twenty
two
See the problem? And Roman numerals as below are okay up to chapter 8 but anything above chapter 18 is getting hinky and above 38 it's just bad.
I
IC
II
III
IL
IV
IX
V
VI
VII
VIII
VL
X
XC
XL
XIX
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Actually
It's quite easy to write algorithms that sort strings of type "Bla Bla 9 other stuff" / "Bla Bla 10 more bla" correctly (or anything else containing numbers). It's related to your idea about two fields, but instead of the author manually filling out different fields, the algorithm splits the string into arbitrary many sections of non-numerals respectively numerals. Then you sort using the fields left to right (up to the first field that differs). Non-numeral fields are sorted as text and numeral are sorted as numbers.
Do i make sense?
Yes and No
It's not that hard to write the algorithm you describe but it's not much more of a solution than we already have and it has its own problems integrating it into the software. As a long time programmer, it's not a job I want to tackle.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.