Allow series with mixed characters to sort numerically rather than by first digit

Apologies if my thread title doesn't make sense.

Currently, if you number a series 1-9 and allow it to sort it sorts it from 1 to 9. However, if a series goes into double or treble digits, it sorts by the first digit so you end up with:
1
10
100
101
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
2
20
21
22
23

and so on, unless you add a 0 or 00 in front of the single digits. (Actually, I'm guessing a bit with the order of the treble digits - but essentially it ends up being nonsensical, numerically.)

As an example, please see the Pokémon series. I started changing the numbers at the top but I've left the rest of the series (from the Black and White sequence onwards) for now.

So the RSI is a request for the numbers to sort numerically without having to (go back and) add extra zeroes in front of numbers.

ETA: (per messages below) this happens when there are other characters as well as numbers in the sequencing.

Check the configuration of the series and the labels - there is something off somewhere. A mix of numbers and letters will cause issues though - which is what seems to be happening here.

Series already work properly when ordered by order label and over 10. See https://www.librarything.com/nseries/12003/Alex-Verus for example of a series with numerical only labels.

>2 AnnieMod: It's not just a mix of numbers and letters that can throw a series off; I've been unable to use sort by label for many comics series because the collections get all out of whack. For example, if Die {2018-2021} is sorted by label, volume 2 (6-10) sorts after volume 4 (16-20).

>3 amanda4242: Then call it numbers and other symbols - the “-“ in there caused the sorting to become text-based and not numeric.

Numerical only values sort properly.

Requested a title change; but I couldn't think of a simple way to put it, off the top of my head, so it's a bit cumbersome.

It's not a matter of 'allowing'. If the labels are all just numbers, it sorts numerically. If they aren't, it sorts alphanumerically. What LT allows is the use of letters and other symbols in the labels. The computer has to sort one way or the other.

What the old CK format of series had, that we lost during the upgrade, was the ability to make more complex labels using a pipe symbol | and a sorting number.

So it was possible to make entries such as:

Pokémon (1.09 | Pokédex 9)
Pokémon (1.11 | Pokédex 11)
Pokémon (2.01 | Adventures 1)
Pokémon (2.04 | Adventures 4)
Pokémon (3.02 | Magical Pokémon Journey 2)
Pokémon (3.031 | Magical Pokémon Journey 3.1)

The number before the pipe controlled the sorting order, strictly numerical. The part after the pipe was what got displayed as the label on a series page. (For argument's sake I have made up these numbers to demonstrate, I don't know the exact details of the Pokémon series). The digits before the decimal point could designate major categories, and the decimal portion would do the subsorting. Then we told the series to "sort by label", and hey presto it did what we wanted.

(This was also the way that series were done in publication order, using the original publication date as the label, eg. 2004.06 for June 2004, pipe section not always needed for those.)

The new version of series removed this way of doing things for simplification, instead giving us the option of custom order which can achieve the same thing, but unfortunately that gets very laborious to maintain when a series gets large.

So the RSI essentially is to restore this lost functionality, to allow us to label numerically for sort purposes, but to have an alphanumeric label be displayed in its place. ie. currently we have one Order Label in Add/Organise, RSI would be to go to two fields, Sort Order and Display Label. Most series wouldn't need this so it could default to ignoring if blank. Edit: or have a way to switch it on per series, default off.

>7 Nevov:
With the new sytem, it has become easier to have sub-series (was it actually possible before? I don't remember), so if we follow your example you might have a distinct a Pokemon Pokedex series, a Pokemon Adventures series, etc. and all of them included in a generic Pokemon series. Considering the apparent complexity of the numbering scheme, perhaps things work just as well as in the old system if the sub-series are the main reference for series order? I don't know, I'm just trying to imagine how the new system was designed with respect to the old functionality (which I have used myself).

>8 Felagund: As an aside: I notice that if you create a sub-series on a series page, only the Core series covers are displayed.

I would like to add that this also happens in 'Other Call Number' in 'Your Books'. If you have numbers as well as names in your call numbers, once the numbers go beyond 9 they are sorted by the first digit rather than the (entire) number.

>10 superboy: Hence why I left-pad my Calibre IDs.