Sky 8 -- identical names not sorting together

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AElfwine Mischler

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Nov 23, 2020, 6:38:25 AM11/23/20
to SKYIndexUsers
I have several cases where identical names are not sorting together. I look at them with codes showing, and I do not see any difference. In one case I even copied from one set of the names to another (i.e. to make them all the same) and Sky still doesn't sort them together.

These names have some diacritics, and I've been able to copy them from the PDF. I've added ignored text on the al- at the beginning. The coding appears the same, but they don't want to play together. 

Any idea what is going on?? Do I need to contact Kamm again?

He fixed the bug that wasn't formatting the small caps in See and See also and offered to let me download a test version, but I decided I didn't want any more surprises.

AElfwine Mischler
Personal email: aelfwine...@gmail.com
Member, Editorial Freelancers Assoc. (EFA)
Member, American Society for Indexing (ASI)


AElfwine Mischler

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Nov 23, 2020, 8:41:19 AM11/23/20
to Deborah Patton, SKYIndexUsers
That's the problem. The coding is the same, but they're not sorting together.

On this particular group, I had some of them with al- before in ignored text, some without al-, then some more with al- before in ignored text. The two groups with al- should have sorted together but didn't. When I added al- to the set that was missing it, they finally sorted together.

They were like this (where < > mean ignored text) and the two groups with <al-> would not sort together although their coding was identical.

<al->Musnad
<al->Musnad 
Musnad 
Musnad 
<al->Musnad 
<al->Musnad 
         
 When I put <al-> on all of them, they finally all came together. I saw more examples of this problem two days ago. 

¯\­_(ツ)_/¯ 

AElfwine Mischler
Personal email: aelfwine...@gmail.com
Member, Editorial Freelancers Assoc. (EFA)
Member, American Society for Indexing (ASI)




On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 3:30 PM Deborah Patton <ma...@pattonindexing.com> wrote:
When this happens to me I just about always forget to turn on Reveal Codes. I can remember it now because I've been prodded so many times to do it. Do that if you haven't already. I get my cursor into the preview pane and arrow down to see how one might be different from another. Or put the grid into alpha order and do the same.
Deborah




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Ruth Ellis

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Nov 23, 2020, 8:47:11 AM11/23/20
to SKYIndexUsers
In the past when this has happened to me, it's the hidden text that's been the issue. It's hard to tell whether you've hidden the space, and if you have on some and not on others then that could be the problem. One way to check this is to look in your autocomplete list and see if they are listed more than once. If they are, then the difference is likely to be that hidden space.

Shmuel Gerber

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:47:19 AM11/23/20
to SKYIndexUsers, AElfwine Mischler
If the "al-" is being ignored, why would you expect them to sort together? Just looking at the list without those characters, all the entries are the same and could appear in any order, no?
--Shmuel Gerber

AElfwine Mischler

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Nov 23, 2020, 11:03:03 AM11/23/20
to Shmuel Gerber, SkyInd...@googlegroups.com
Hmmm. I wonder if that’s right, Shmuel. I’m off the computer for the night, but I know that when I generated the index two days ago, I was getting this sort of thing and couldn’t see why they wouldn’t sort together. I’ll have to look at it again.

Thanks.

Ælfwine Mischler
Member, Editorial Freelancers Assoc. (EFA)
Member, American Society for Indexing (ASI)

Shmuel Gerber

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Nov 23, 2020, 11:32:37 AM11/23/20
to AElfwine Mischler, SkyInd...@googlegroups.com
Actually, I seem to recall that when the order is not determined by the main heading, the records are secondarily sorted by the "as entered" order (i.e., the order in which they were first added to the index), but I'm not sure where in the user guide it says that, nor how that would apply to the final index.
--Shmuel

AElfwine Mischler

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Nov 23, 2020, 11:36:26 AM11/23/20
to Shmuel Gerber, SkyInd...@googlegroups.com
Interesting. I’ll have a look at those problems tomorrow. Thanks again.


Ælfwine Mischler
Personal email: aelfwine...@gmail.com
Member, Editorial Freelancers Assoc. (EFA)
Member, American Society for Indexing (ASI)

Judi Gibbs

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Nov 23, 2020, 5:45:57 PM11/23/20
to AElfwine Mischler, Shmuel Gerber, SkyInd...@googlegroups.com

If that’s the problem, chalk it up to fried brain syndrome. We all do it.

~Judi

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mjhw...@gmail.com

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Nov 23, 2020, 6:05:36 PM11/23/20
to SKYIndexUsers
Shmuel's on the money there. You have told the SKY sorting subroutine to ignore the prefix and to act as if it is not there, so that is what it has done. If I type in
<al->Musnad 1
<al->Musnad 2
Musnad 3
Musnad 4
<al->Musnad 5
<al->Musnad 6
then what I expect the sort subroutine to see is 
Musnad 1
Musnad 2
Musnad 3
Musnad 4
Musnad 5
Musnad 6

As a result, what I would expect to display in the Index pane is
al-Musnad 1, 2
Musnad 3, 4
al-Musnad 5, 6

Is this what you get? If so, then Sky is giving you what you asked for. If you want something different, you're going to have to apply a different solution.
Michael
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