Persistent Issue linking quotes to books

[Ruby]

As I've been reading this book, I've kept trying to add the quotes I've really liked. At first, there were several versions of José Saramago showing up in the drop-down author list. Some librarians then merged the authors for me.

They also told me that the only way to get the correct " José Saramago" in the Add Quotes function was to copy & paste his name into the box, as the correct version has an accent over the "e" which I can't type in. If you don't get the correct version of the author, you can't get the list of his books to appear in the drop-down menu.

For a little while that worked, (although there is still another " José Saramago showing up - with a weird black diamond symbol in his name). Now even by copy & pasting his correct name into the author box, his books are not showing up in the drop-downs again.

So the issues are:
1 - José Saramago - his books aren't showing up in the drop-down menu under "Add A Quote"
2 - There's still an additional José Saramago that someone has added in error - start typing his name by hand and you'll see it - it has a black diamond and question mark showing in the first name.
3 - The librarians said that if you want the correct author to appear when you add a quote, you have to type the name exactly as it appears on the author page, with any accents, AND typing the first name first. If this is the case, can we put this instruction up on the Quote page please? I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't know about this quirk.

Thanks
Ruby

[Ruby]

Hmmm.... it's actually not letting me save the quote at all now.

[Melody]

I found the listing for José Saramago with the ? In a diamond and fixed it.

[Ruby]

Thanks Melody. And the book drop-downs have reappeared again.

Is it worth someone adding a note to the Quote Guidelines to explain about having to enter the first name of the author first when you search for them in Quotes? I know I wasn't doing that until it was mentioned, so I've probably been adding quotes under the wrong author entries.

In the long-term it would probably be best if users could only attach to quotes that link to an actual author page, I think.

[Gerd]

Ruby wrote: "For a little while that worked, (although there is still another " José Saramago showing up - with a weird black diamond symbol in his name). Now even by copy & pasting his correct name into the author box, his books are not showing up in the drop-downs again..."

Not sure if that's any help, but I had the same problem yesterday when entering a quote from a Nancy Garden book in that at first I didn't get the drop down box with a list of her books, only after I retyped the name and then clicked on it in the yellow field appearing under the type in box the system recognized her.


Also:
This PDF file might be helpful to you if you want to enter more Spanish authors (or others whose names use non-standard symbols):
http://www.pgdp.net/c/faq/charwin.pdf

It list's the different alt commands to access them.

[Ruby]

Thanks Gerd. From what you're saying, it seems you may have been unaware that the only way to get an author's books to drop-down is to type them in precisely (first name first) then click on the correct author in the drop-down.

I know I was aware to click on the correct author name, but didn't know I needed to type it in first name first. It'd be good to put this info somewhere people will see it.