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[park]

Hi,
I am trying to use MC to look at my pictures and I want to always see the most recent ones first.  When viewing the pics in panes view they all sort properly with the "Sort by Date" preset ticked.
With the same "Sort by Date" preset ticked for both the tiles at the top, and the files list below, everything is messed up. For a start, the tiles arent sorted by date at all. Maybe something's broken. Furthermore, the sorting of the files list below by date gets really confusing because the pictures are first grouped according the order of the tiles above, and then sorted by date afterwards. So no matter what i do, the files list below will never just show me a list of pictures in the order that i took them (or reverse order to be more precise/confusing).

I see the logic of grouping by the tiles above, and I do kind of agree with it too, in a theoretical kind of way, but there is not one viewscheme that i use where that kind of behaviour is practical or convenient.

[Marty3d]

MC's sorting is all but healthy, especially when it comes to dates. If you take a bunch of music files and display/sort Last Played date as "elapsed", you'll have a laugh (or cry). Years and days and hours are mixed worse than my handmade milkshakes.

Hopefully the sorting is addressed in a future version.

[Matt]

Sorting tiles by date will use the average date of all the files in the tile. (excluding empty dates)  This works for me.

Marty, if you use an expression to change formatting AND you want special sorting (not alpha-numeric), you need to specify this in the expression.

[park]

I didnt know that it averaged them out. That's cool, but maybe there could be a normal "Sort by Most Recent" preset too.
Also, maybe "Sort by Date" should be labelled "Sort by Avg. Date"

I wonder how it works. I cant really picture which of my pics or albums would sort first by this method. When would it be useful to sort this way?

I would imagine that my "Japan" pics would sort first since they outnumber all the other places, and I've taken them the more recently than other places. But that isnt the case. My "England" pics always sort first.

[Marty3d]

Sorting tiles by date will use the average date of all the files in the tile. (excluding empty dates)  This works for me.

Marty, if you use an expression to change formatting AND you want special sorting (not alpha-numeric), you need to specify this in the expression.

I didn't know you could specify sorting on expressions! Is it a new feature? How do one do it?
For example: I always use FormatDate([Last Played,0],elapsed) as one of my columns. Where do I put the sorting in the expression? If I click its header now to sort by it, the sorting is like I described it in the previous post.

[iflynn]

Media Center can't even provide tracks on an album in the right order without a degree in computer science.

To be constructive it is too complicated and sophisticated for its own good. To be uncharitable, it can be extremely frustrating and time-consuming indeed.

[Marty3d]

An idea:

When you're in Customize Current View > Columns to show > Edit (expressions are the only ones that CAN be edited here):
In addition to Name and Expression, why not have a dropdown with sort type:
1. A to Z
2. Numeric
3. Date

And have this option as well in Tools > Options > Library > Edit >Configure Library Field

Good? Would have worked for me!

Edit: Late night strange grammar

[Matt]

Media Center can't even provide tracks on an album in the right order without a degree in computer science.

To be constructive it is too complicated and sophisticated for its own good. To be uncharitable, it can be extremely frustrating and time-consuming indeed.

Default sorting always uses track number inside an album.  We haven't heard the complaint that this doesn't work before.

If you post more details, you may get some help.

[Mr ChriZ]

Late to this one...
But I have to admit, I think from Artist view
MC Really should default to sorting by Album, before Track Numbers.
Heres an example where I've gone into Artist View and told it to play Beautiful South.
Screenshot

Now I can't think why anyone would want it to default doing that?
In this case I only have two albums.  Some artists have many albums, and
I'll never get past track 1.

I know how to configure it so it plays the albums in order.  Although
it's a far from obvious operation.  Plus I seem to have a nack of accidently setting it back.
I've configured this so many times now, and each time I some how
have got back to sort by track number, either through a slight change in the way MC works (OK my fault for following Betas), or because I've uninstalled/reinstalled.
Just my 10 ha'pennys anyhow... 

[Matt]

By default, MC sorts albums before track numbers.

Pick "Sort by Default" from the Options menu at the top right of any library view to get back to stock.

[Mr ChriZ]

Thanks Matt!

I reckon theres a Monster closely related to the sock eating monster in the
washing machine which comes down at night and randomly messes
with my settings now and then just to confuse me!

[park]

I understand that things wont change in mc11, but it would be nice to know whether or not jriver agrees that the sorting presets on main menus need attention.

I never want to go into "Customize current view" again. I'm quite happy changing between the different presets on the fly if they were a bit more intuitive.
(ie. albums in track number order for all presets, and "sort by date" meaning most recent song or photo rather than the average of all songs for that grouping.)

Ideally there would be a long list of readymade presets that we choose to put on the outer menu, including lots of "average ..." presets (average number of plays etc.). That way the outer menu is as busy or clean as we care to make it.

[park]

The changes in the latest build (11.1.86) have gone a long way in making the sorting presets on the outer menu more usable, thus useful.

Thanks a lot for this.

[datdude]

I'm confused why album tiles don't sort by the current view sorting logic?  If you want it in that order, than customize the sorting of that view.  If you want it to playback in track order, then the underlying MC logic should allow for this, yet keep the sorting, however the user prefers. ?

I guess now I am stumped on sorting logic.

[park]

The sorting logic would now seem to be:
If you are looking at album thumbnails, they sort the way you choose, and then play back as albums.
If you are looking at songs, they sort as you choose, and you choose which ones you want to play.

Seems to make much better sense to me.

[datdude]

Not for the tiles.

Album tiles are now ONLY sorted by track.  I enjoyed sorting them by track rating which no longer holds true.  All other tiles types are sroted by rating.

This makes MC less usable for me, as I enjoyed being able to find my favorite songs fast.