[Feature Request]: Universal editable sorting title

[QuaSet]

Description

I think the "Sorting title", which is now only available for games with Japanese titles (as far as I know) should be activated for all titles, and it should be customizable.

Reason

It would allow people to customize the order of the games in their library in a pretty simple way while still displaying the official title. For example personally I prefer to have my japanese games display their title in japanese, but I'd prefer if they were sorted as if their title was romanized. Other series incur into problems due to the usage of roman numerals (IX being placed before VIII for example), or the inconsistent naming of their entries (R&C "3" is placed before "2" because the former has no numeral in its official title)

Examples

Popular ebook library software Calibre does this: Both the title and the author have a secondary field to sort the books by.

[stenzek]

The sort field can be used with any language, not just Japanese.

You can also override the title with the custom properties in ini.

[QuaSet]

The sort field can be used with any language, not just Japanese.

If I right-click and choose "properties" of any western game I don't see the "Sorting title" field at all, and in Japanese games it can't be changed. Other than that I'm not sure what you're talking about.

You can also override the title with the custom properties in ini.

That seems like a bit of a cumbersome way to solve this problem. There's already a "Sorting title" filed in the property, why not take advantage of that?

[stenzek]

If I right-click and choose "properties" of any western game I don't see the "Sorting title" field at all, and in Japanese games it can't be changed.

Because those games don't have sort fields in the GameDB. Doesn't mean you can't add it.

That seems like a bit of a cumbersome way to solve this problem. There's already a "Sorting title" filed in the property, why not take advantage of that?

Because custom properties only has title, not sort-title. I don't really see the need to allow overriding the sort title, when you could just change the title.

[QuaSet]

Because custom properties only has title, not sort-title. I don't really see the need to allow overriding the sort title, when you could just change the title.

I explained why I think it should be done in the request with examples, and mentioned and showed a very popular piece of software that provides such a feature. Offering simple customization options to the users is clearly a concern since you can edit the "Title" field to begin with, otherwise you could just tell people to change the name of the file. I'm simply making a case for something I would find useful. If you disagree then I don't really see the point in replying further just to insist on your indifference, or to keep vaguely addressing a more complicated way that you don't bother to elaborate properly on.

[stenzek]

There's a degree at which customization becomes both a burden on the maintainers, since the complexity of the code blows out, and from a user's perspective, overload in the UI. That's why we can't accommodate every niche feature request.

I'm happy to leave it open if someone finds a way to implement it in a way that doesn't make the UI more cluttered, but in the meantime, there are alternatives.

[ClarSco]

Here's a good reason for allowing the "Sort Title" field to be edited seperately from the "Title" field:

I've got all three "The Legend of Spyro" games, which at present are sorted as:

• Legend of Spyro, The - A New Beginning
• Legend of Spyro, The - Dawn of the Dragon
• Legend of Spyro, The - The Eternal Night

However, the intended play order (release order) within the series is:

1. The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning
2. The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night
3. The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon.

Having a manually editable Sort Title to, for example: "Legend of Spyro, The 1", "Legend of Spyro, The 2" and "Legend of Spyro, The 3", I could:

• Keep the correct titles in the List and Grid views
• Have the series sorted under "Legend" rather than "The"
• Have each title in the series in the intended play order

Alternatively, I could sort the titles in the series deemphasising the subtitle articles if that were more important to me (eg. to reflect the file directory structure which could be useful for larger libraries):

• Legend of Spyro, The - Dawn of the Dragon
• Legend of Spyro, The - Eternal Night, The
• Legend of Spyro, The - New Beginning, A

[PuddingDeity]

I don't really see the need to allow overriding the sort title, when you could just change the title.

Because any games that have a sorting title are sorted by the sorting title, not the title. Even if you edit the title, it doesn't change how they're sorted at all. Then if you choose to prefer English titles it switches to a unique English title field, which also can't be edited.

In short, with any game that has an existing "sorting title" the only way to change how its sorted is by changing the sorting title, which as best I can tell isn't possible even in the custom_properties.ini

I'm happy to leave it open if someone finds a way to implement it in a way that doesn't make the UI more cluttered, but in the meantime, there are alternatives.

Allowing for games that already have a sorting title to be edited in software wouldn't add any UI clutter whatsoever. The field is already there, making it possible to edit wouldn't change the UI at all. Whether or not enabling the sorting title field for other games is necessary or worthwhile is arguable, and I don't have enough of an opinion to really argue for it, but at the very least it should be possible to change the way Japanese games are sorted at all.

[J-McFc]

A while back I was able to change add the "name-sort" in the gameindex.yaml file, allowing for proper series sorting (Jak series in particular). But it seems this was removed as the option does nothing now. So at one point you could change the sort order, even if it wasn't an ideal method. Here's hoping someone can implement this one day.

[TellowKrinkle]

A while back I was able to change add the "name-sort" in the gameindex.yaml file, allowing for proper series sorting (Jak series in particular). But it seems this was removed as the option does nothing now. So at one point you could change the sort order, even if it wasn't an ideal method. Here's hoping someone can implement this one day.

That should still work, aside from the issue where the updater replaces gameindex.yaml when it updates. You might have to click the rescan all games button for it to take effect though (and I guess technically, even if the updater replaces the gameindex yaml, it won't break anything until the next rescan).

[jacobmix]

I'd like to add for patched games for RA subsets or other mods this would help a lot. Not to mention games series that aren't numbered in their official title as already discussed. Currently using "File Title" in list view to sort my games as anything else sorts pretty messy in my opinion.