TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2011-04 > 1303218918


From: "John Cardinal" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Wish List: Compound First Names
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:15:18 -0400
In-Reply-To: <005701cbfe8d$27845960$768d0c20$@net>


Teresa Elliott wrote:
> I have some CAN tags where I print the tag in BOLD in the report
> and wanted the name in bold as well. But I can't seem to find the
> names, so I must have changed my mind at some point. I don't
> understand why it would affect sorting though. Just put the names you
> want to use for sorting in L8 and L9.

Teresa,

That is one affect on sorting: you can't leave SortGiven the same as Given
name, so names with formatting codes need special treatment. If you ever do
bulk changes to names, you have to remember that SortGiven doesn't match
Given name, etc.

There is another side effect for output to word processors and Second Site.
The indexing facility in word processors doesn't include the ability to sort
by one value but display another. For most data, that's a bad idea anyway:
when a person scans an index, they expect the data to be in sequence
according to the entries in the index. Some exceptions are
understood/accepted, such as when sorting "The Beatles" as "Beatles, The".
Other examples can be confusing, however, such as sorting "Smith, Betty" as
if it was "Smith, Elizabeth". We aren't discussing that here, but some TMG
users advocate using SortGiven or SortSurname to implement name
standardization, and I advise against it.

Anyway, when SortGiven doesn't match the GivenName, and TMG is adding index
entries for word processor output, _two_ versions of the name are placed in
the index: one using Given name and Surname, and one using SortGiven and
SortSurname. That gets around the limitation that the index entries are
their own sort keys.

Second Site works similarly. In order to avoid a name index that's not in
alphabetic order, if SortGiven doesn't match the GivenName, SS creates two
index entries, one using Given name and Surname, and one using SortGiven and
SortSurname.

John


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