comicinfo metada uses volume instead of issue

[dickloraine]

Adding a cbz, calibre uses the "volume"-field of the comicbookinfo for numbering the series. But the right field would be "issue", as volume is used to identify a specific series, not the number in it.

Two possibilities: Add the "volume" to the series name and use "issue" for series_index or just skip volume and just use "issue" for series_index.

The code is found in archive.py at line 89ff.

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

It's not clear to me why the issue number should be prefered to the
volume number for series_index. I suspect that this will vary between
different sources of comics. For example,
http://code.google.com/p/comictagger/wiki/UserGuide seems to prioritize
volume number over issue number.

 status incomplete

[dickloraine (dickloraine)]

Sorry for not being clear. English isn't my native language. I use comictagger myself, so I will try to explain it better. Comictagger uses Comicvine for its metadata, so I will use that as an example.

The problem is the following: There are sometimes two numbers to identify a comic: Volume and Issue.
Volume is used as a broad category. It is like a folder. Issue is used to identify the single comics inside a volume, like files inside a folder.

Volume is often needed to differ between series with the same name or a new very big story arch. For example Wolverine: http://www.comicvine.com/wolverine/4050-3157/ http://www.comicvine.com/wolverine/4050-43496/
But volume is used in different ways and the above problem is often solved not by volume but by publishing date. Unfortunately volume is also used sometimes if something is a collection of several issues in one book.

Issue is always used to identify the single comics and is always used. So it is much more fitted to be used for series_index. And even the collections are also tagged with issue. Each comic has an issue, but volume is often not really used or just 1 for each issue inside a series.

So volume is a better candidate to be included in the series_name and issue is used to index a series.

Your link to comictagger is more about finding the issue than the volume. Comictagger needs in its current state always an issue number. And if you have a bad filename, it does not find the issue number.

I hope it is now a little bit more clear. Volume is like a folder, issue is like files.
Another possibility would be to let the user decide, which to use and implement it as a tweek.

Thanks for looking into this so quickly :)

[dickloraine (dickloraine)]

Argh, the second link is wrong. This is the right one: http://www.comicvine.com/wolverine/4050-4250/

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

My concern is that while for some series, like Wolverine, using issues might be the right approach, however, there may well be series that do the reverse, i.e. just use issue number as a placeholder or leave it out and put the actual series ordering in volume number.

It is difficult to know which approach is more common, and I am reluctant to change existing behavior without some more motivation/evidence. After all, when the current code was written it must have seemed like using volume was the correct approach.

[dickloraine (dickloraine)]

Yes, not having a norm is a big problem here. I see your point and there is no perfect solution, without the industry setting a norm. So maybe some form of user control for which field to use? It is more a convenience thing, renumbering the series per hand is always possible and not difficult, so it is not crucial, but would be nice to have :)

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Fixed in branch master. The fix will be in the next release. calibre is usually released every Friday.

 status fixreleased

[dickloraine (dickloraine)]

Thanks for looking into this and implementing the option :)