Thread

This seems like ExpressionEngine 101, but I’m stumped… I’ve got a channel that contains library books. On the front-end, these books need to be sorted by title, then by author (since there can be multiple books with the same title). Here’s what I’ve got so far:

{exp:channel:entries channel="books" dynamic="no" disable="categories|member_data|pagination" status="open" sticky="no" orderby="title|book_authors_sorting" sort="asc|asc" search:book_available_in_library="=Yes"}
        

<a href="http://{url_title_path={segment_1}/{segment_2}/book}"><cite>{book_display_title}</cite></a> by {exp:xhtml:light}{book_authors_sorting}{/exp:xhtml:light}

  
{/exp:channel:entries}

So this should sort the books by title, then by author using the “book_authors_sorting” field (which would typically contain author last names only). However, here’s what that returns for books sharing the same title:

Genesis by Arnold
Genesis by Wenham
Genesis by Hartley
Genesis by Sailhamer
Genesis by Reno
Genesis by Fretheim
Genesis by Brueggemann

Note that the entries are not sorted by last name correctly. If, however, I change the above EE code to something like this:

{exp:channel:entries channel="books" dynamic="no" disable="categories|member_data|pagination" status="open" sticky="no" orderby="book_authors_sorting" sort="asc" search:book_available_in_library="=Yes"}

Then it sorts by last name correctly, but obviously, the books are no longer sorted by title alphabetically. Any ideas.

[Mod Edit: Moved to the EE 2 Technical Support forum]

Any thoughts on this? I need to get back to my client with some answer/response.

Sorry to dredge this topic back up, but the client has been asking about this again. Any ideas?

I’m having the same problem here: http://travelnevada.com/accommodations/ (look at the bottom of the select list).

Here’s my simple EE code:

{exp:channel:entries channel="cities" status="open" dynamic="no" orderby="title" sort="asc"}
  <option value="{url_title}">{title}</option>
{/exp:channel:entries}

Jason, I think this could be the solution: http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/212717/

Basically, it was ordering by sticky (even though I didn’t explicitly say so!). Adding the parameter sticky=“off” solved my problems.