Help with Permanent Custom Sort Order

[Newbie2016]

Hello Everyone

Am new here and would appreciate if someone could help me. Thanks in advance I am running the Pro edition 9 (the latest release) on Windows 8.1 and I am delighted with everything that it has to offer - except for one, the permanent custom sort order function. For some reason, it doesn't work as it's supposed to.

After I toggle the pyramid icon at the top or after I select the manual list option, I am able to manually sort things around in any folder/tab that I choose. Trouble is, the moment I shift to another folder/tab and then back to the original folder/ tab (that I had just manually sorted), my sort order there defaults to its original setting - "descending". Needless to add, it also doesn't preserve my manual sort order across sessions (meaning after I close and restart XYplorer).

Is this is a basic folder configuration issue? What do I do?

[TheQwerty]

Hello Newbie2016 and welcome to the club!

Sorry for the delay in response - I don't use this feature much and was hoping someone more familiar would reply.

Admittedly, I too am struggling to understand how this is meant to work. I believe it currently persists over switching tabs, but not across browsing. Meaning if you navigate away from the custom sorted listing and then return to that path the custom order is not restored automatically.

There are two ways to restore the sort order without manually moving items.

1. Via the SortByList() scripting command.
   1. For instance, this will move folders Music, Photos and the file readme.txt to the top of the list (in that order):

      Code: Select all

      sortByList('*\Music;*\Photos;readme.txt', ';');

   There's no good way to automate this though and maintaining the script can be a bit of a pain. Granted a more complex script could improve this some, but I don't think anyone has shared one yet.
2. Using Set Home to store the order and then Go Home to restore it.
   1. Ensure XY is configured to restore the layout by enabling this option: Tools | Configuration | Tabs | Going home also restores the list layout
   2. Arrange the items in your desired order.
   3. Stored the tab's home using: View | Tab | Set Home
   4. Navigate away from the current location.
   5. Return "home" using: View | Tab | Go Home
   This unfortunately ties the sort order to the tab, meaning each tab can only remember one location and its order, so if you want to custom-sort multiple folders each will need their own tab.

Perhaps the best option for you would be to use the Paper Folder method described here: https://www.xyplorer.com/release_14.30.php#PCSO
Just note that with this method you may need to ensure you're sorting by the Index column to get your custom order.

Sorry that's not a terribly useful response.
Hopefully, someone more familiar with this feature can offer you some better advice!

[admin]

Hi,

PCSO should be retained across tab switches and sessions, but not across going to another location in the same tab. Please see here:
https://www.xyplorer.com/release_16.60.php

Don't hesitate to come back here if you have further questions.

Don

[TheQwerty]

Is there any way to tie the PCSO to the location itself, instead of the tab?
Like maybe a connection between PCSO and FVS?
Although I suppose with multi-location FVSes, that would be difficult.

[admin]

No, it's totally tied to the tab.

[TheQwerty]

So it would be fair (and possibly helpful) to think of it as...

PCSO is a temporary ordering.
Paper Folders are a long-term and static option.
Sorting by Tag, Label, and Extra or Custom column are the long-term and dynamic option.

Although kind of weird because we've changed the definition of PCSO over time.

Wouldn't it be super-awesome if someone created a fantastic tutorial detailing these?

[admin]

So it would be fair (and possibly helpful) to think of it as...

PCSO is a temporary ordering.
Paper Folders are a long-term and static option.
Sorting by Tag, Label, and Extra or Custom column are the long-term and dynamic option.

Although kind of weird because we've changed the definition of PCSO over time.

Wouldn't it be super-awesome if someone created a fantastic tutorial detailing these?

Temporary? Custom sort orders are remembered per tab, across tab switches, and across sessions.

Fantastic tutorial? Sure, fantastic is always awesome, but PCSO is so easy, it's designed to just work without tutorial.

[TheQwerty]

It requires the tab never changing location to work really well though and I wouldn't expect that to be a frequent case or entirely expected.

In some respects it makes me think there should be an option to have Manual Sorting also enable Lock Location.

From my view attempting to use PCSO for any amount of time seems rather pointless compared to the other two options and describing the tab version as "Permanent" is a bit misleading.


Anyhow... hopefully this has helped Newbie2016 understand the feature better!

[Newbie2016]

TheQwerty and Admin - thanks for the welcome and for taking the time to respond to my query in some detail. Have been away all day - will try out what you suggest and see if it makes a difference. I have a couple of flwp questions but let me first check.