Unfortunately my Customize View screen is quite different from yours. Frankly, I don't want to mess around with different views I just want to get the sorting done.
other than the grey skin I'm using, it is exactly the same as mine. You didn't click on the three dots (...) where my first red arrow is pointing, this will open up the rules box.
Should you prefer doing it by clicking on the columns, you are still going to have to make sure it is done per
each View ... there is not one global default per se ... this is on purpose. The sort order is pretty much default behavior you want, but if you have been messing around clicking, you could have changed it. Also for you to sort the columns you want, they have to be visible (if in one of your views, disc# is not visible you can add it by right clicking on a column and adding the field.
If you establish a sort order rule, like I indicated, you don't need to show the columns that make up the sort order. Remember the tip about the import/export button. As you can copy paste the code this way for all views very quickly.
Let me ask a related question.
How does the program determine the columns to sort on by default when I switch the content of the content panel (say by switching from my Warren Zevon collection to "Kind of Blue" i.e. a single album)? I would think it would use the last sort order I selected, but that does not seem to be the case at all times.
it will remember the column sort order for each particular view. If you change views, it can change the sort order ; if you filter for one artist, album or category in the same view it won't.
Note : there might be an exception, frankly I don't remember
… if the option « use parent scheme rules » is checked, maybe this could apply to column sorting. Sorry I can't check this for you, as all of my views are custom and I purposely do not use this option. None of my views are default out-of the box ones actually.
Now as an example, take a simple case sort order 1,2,3 you would click column 3 first, col 2 second and the first sort level last. This should stick, but only for that view. Your screen shot shows a genre view, but if you switch views this might not be the order, depends on how you sorted that view and frankly there could be other reasons (different type of view etc. and whether it follows certain rules from the parent, as mentioned). But if you want to stay simple, I'd recommend doing it once like in my screen shot