Folder Sorting Issue in DT 4.6

[luxagraf]

Describe the bug

Darktable 4.6 has reversed the sort order of the folders view in the collections module. Here's a screen shot of the view in 4.4:

And this is what the same thing looks like in 4.6:

Steps to reproduce

Import folders named by year Select "folder" view in collections module the oldest folder will be at the top

Expected behavior

in darktable 4.4 the newest folder was at the top

Where did you obtain darktable from?

distro packaging

darktable version

darktable 4.6.0

What OS are you using?

Linux

What is the version of your OS?

Arch Linux x86_64, Kernel: 6.6.8-arch1-1

Are you using OpenCL GPU in darktable?

No

[luxagraf]

Forgot to say that I’ve read through the documentation and played with the new settings under the collections module preferences, but I can’t seem to get the old sort order back for the folder view. Can anyone point out where I’ve gone wrong here?

[luxagraf]

Hmm, yeah looks like an "ASC" got added:

https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/15392/commits/c42e03da2f0395e5825512b4a4d80c162692ebd0#diff-2c4ad8c3aa04d783a05735ec0fbeb46a420d90c81153134287e320ff0a52f36b

[TurboGit]

This is expected behavior, folder are always named ascending. What you are looking for is a date folder view.

[TurboGit]

But this was not the behavior in 4.4

Right, it has been changed to:

• Always sort in alphabetical order all names
• All date based collection either ascending or descending based on the preference

Why?

If you select for example descending in preference to get the recent ones first and older at the end of the list you'll also get the Z entries for collection/folder/cameras... first which is not really user friendly.

A better approach to please every one would certainly to record sorting automatically (removing the preference altogether) for each collection kind independently. But that's something not that trivial UI wise.

[luxagraf]

Hmm, I guess what confuses me is the notion of what's use-friendly and what's not. What I was trying to say with this bug report is that the current approach is not user-friendly. It might be logical, I don't debate that, but it's not user-friendly to me. Are there metrics suggesting that the old behavior was confusing to users? Or was it just changed because it wasn't logical?

I can't think of another Linux app that doesn't allow sorting to be reversed. Unfortunately I don't know C well enough tackle this, but I hope someone else does. And the tooltip is clearing incorrect and should be updated.

[bengtfalke]

so it is not possible any more to change the sorting order of the folders in the Collection view? I have pulled all my hair out in trying to change that preference setting in the Collections from Ascending to Descending.... it is not possible... right?

[brunolas981]

I don't like it now either

[elstoc]

I would also prefer to have the option of reverse sort by name. It's not uncommon to have folders start with a date and having an always-ascending sort is a pain when you have lots of folders.

And AIUI the "sort by date" in film roll is not a sort by folder date but the date you first imported into darktable, which is also far from ideal. For example I have some stuff on an old camera that I haven't imported yet, but I have imported more recent images. So now there's no ordering that isn't screwed up in some way -- either unchangeably-ascending or by date with some stuff weirdly out of order.

[TurboGit]

I'm on it... stay tuned.

[bengtfalke]

Thank you for that, TurboGit!

[TurboGit]

See #16072