XYplorer Beta Club

Or don't I just see it?

I've checked "Sort folders apart" and "Mixed sort on path names", and for all but two of my directories this is perfectly OK, they contain only a few files and those are on top.

However, I've got two directories with large numbers of files and very few directories, and there seems to be no way of getting the directories at the top and sort the files in alphabetic order, no matter what select in the configuration or however I sort on the various columns.

Am I missing something, or is this a limitation, that could somehow be relaxed, i.e. have a more directory specific sort order that overrides the one set in the configuration, and that can be saved as a Folder View.

Could those "directories" actually be links and you've disabled overlays? A quick check would be disabling this

View | Show Items | Show Folders in List

do those directories you speak of disappear? When you are in the relevant folder, does this show a check mark next to it:

View | Sort By | Sort Folders Apart

No,they are not links, they don't disappear, and yes, I sort directories apart, which is a global setting.

Can you show a screenshot with one of the folders selected and the info panel properties page or the Attrib column visible then, because it sounds like those folders don't have the Directory attribute somehow, and are being mis-identified, maybe they were created on a foreign OS or something similar, if that is the case you could just re-create them and copy the contents into the new folder it should fix it, assuming that when you create a new folder through XY, it sorts at the top/disappears with the previous menu item I mentioned. What drivetype is this is it a exotic filesystem?

Did you read my very first post?

Folders without directory attribute? Did I ever mention something like that? I'm working on a W7-64 system with two NTFS formatted drives.

All I want it to be able to sort a directory listing, for a few cases where a directory contains sh*tloads of files and just one or two subdirectories in such a way that the directories are at the top, and the files are sorted in date-descending order. For what it's worth, most of the files are RAR files containing backups, and the reason for getting the directories at the top is simple, if I extract one of those backups, I want to have direct access to the directory I extract it to, rather than having to scroll to the bottom.

In essence: dir /og-dn

Did you read my post? The reasons for you wanting to sort a certain way are irrelevant, if the option I mentioned in my first reply "Show Folders in List" doesn't hide the folders, then none of the settings in XY will work in relation to folders, since they aren't being recognised as folders, anyway since you aren't answering my questions, I'll let you get help from someone else from now on if they are willing.

Sorry I think I must be misunderstanding your initial post and still do, and only just noticed this was in the Wishes section. mea culpa.

Did you check whether the two misbehaving directories have a FVS that causes this?
I don't use FVS myself but my list view looks exactly as you wish for, folders on top and files underneath, all sorted by date modified.

RalphM wrote: ↑07 Apr 2019 05:07 Did you check whether the two misbehaving directories have a FVS that causes this?
I don't use FVS myself but my list view looks exactly as you wish for, folders on top and files underneath, all sorted by date modified.

That's not the cause.

Here is a screen print, having reduced the number of files to something manageable: All I want is the two directories at the top, followed by the (.BAT/.RAR/.VPO) files in time-stamp descending order, i.e, as mentioned before the way they would come out using "dir /og-dn". And for what it's worth, yes, I set the time-stamp of the two .BAT files into the future so that they always end up at the top, and in the past for the .VPO's, they need to be at the bottom.

As per your screenshot your list is sorted by the column "type" - how could you expect a chronological sort like this?
Either you add a secondary sort by date modified (hold shift while selecting the column for the secondary sort) or keep investigating why a simple sort by date modified with "Sort Folders Apart" doesn't work for you (it certainly does at my end).
Did you ever try whether it works in a fresh instance?

My screenshot is just that, a screenshot.

Just go to %temp%, create a temporary directory, CD to it and and recreate the files and directories in the screen-shot, you can just use "echo . > filename and create empty directories use XY to set the timestamps, (or automate this with a .BAT file and a touch utility of your choice, I use touch32) and then try to sort them into an order that

• places the two directories on top, followed by
• the two .BAT files, followed by
• the three .RAR files, followed by
• the .VPO file

And then come back and tell us how you did it.

Sorry mate but recreating your file structure is a bit much to ask just in order to test and reproduce YOUR problem!
Wouldn't it make more sense to show a screenshot that actually shows the problem rather than leading us to wrong conclusions?
Further you're suddenly changing the description of the problem as now you seem to want to sort by file types first and then by dates

You didn't even answer whether it works in a fresh instance or if secondary sorting helped, therefore all I will add is good luck solving that problem.

...

Great, care to explain how you did this?

Standard settings from a ::fresh; instance + [x] Keep folders on top