I don’t know if this is a bug, or a feature I am requesting. When I am using View > List, with Sort > Unsorted, I would like to be able to reorder the contents of a smart group, like I can for non-smart groups.
This is neither a feature nor a bug but smart groups are basically (saved) searches and therefore don’t support this.
Ah, bummer. Since a database’s tags do not appear inside the database anymore (you have to go to the sidebar to see them), I had created a smart group inside the database to list all tags. This works, but they are out of order and can’t be rearranged, so it’s rather clumsy for my needs.
I guess my best option is to create a smart group for each tag, then put those into a normal group so I can sort them.
Just curious but which order would you actually prefer and isn’t supported by the various sorting options yet? Or did you already sort the tags on your own in version 2?
For my tags, I prefer them unsorted. I like to be able to reprioritize my tags on the fly by dragging the currently most important ones to the top of the list. When the tags list appeared inside the database itself, this was possible.
One workaround might be to use ratings and to sort by them.
One workaround might be to use ratings and to sort by them.
I could do that, but I always keep my list view unsorted, and I wouldn’t want to change this just to gain sorting for a single smart group.
Feature request: I guess this is a feature request: to be able to set the sorting method of a smart group as part of its settings.
Question: However, I’m noticing something odd (or, unpredictable by me at least) about how the contents of a smart group get sorted when they are in View > List:
- when my main list is sorted, the contents of a smart group follow that sort, as expected (see image 1)
- but when my main list is unsorted, the contents of a smart group are snow arranged in a way I can’t determine: they aren’t alphabetical, by size, or anything. How are they being ordered? (see image 2)
Image 1: list is sorted by name, and so are the contents of the smart group
Image 2: list is unsorted, but smart group sorted in an undetermined way
Thanks for the suggestion! However, smart groups support already all sortings except unsorted and it’s unlikely that this will change as it’s a dynamic search, not a a static item like groups.
The order is basically undefined in this case, not sure if sorting by name would be better.
smart groups support already all sortings except unsorted and it’s unlikely that this will change as it’s a dynamic search, not a a static item like groups.
I see. However, I wonder: couldn’t they behave like indexed groups do? If I have an indexed group in an unsorted list, I can rearrange them how I want. If new file gets added in the OS, that file appears at the bottom of the group. I could imaging an unsorted smart group working similarly: any members that have been manually sorted appearing first, any new members appearing at the end.
Of course, I have no understanding of the mechanics beneath!
The order is basically undefined in this case…
I’m curious: in these cases (e.g. image 2 above: viewing database as an unsorted list, with the smart group expanded) what determines the order of the members of the smart group — is it first found gets shown first, etc.?
…not sure if sorting by name would be better.
For me, some kind of predictable sort would be preferable, since the current result feels random. It’s not a problem when the database has only a few tags, but is clumsy when there are 20, 30+ tags.
Exactly.
An upcoming beta will probably revise this.
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Thanks. Always fun to learn more about how these stuff works under the hood.