So I've realized over the years that I have a certain way of displaying directories and files that I prefer...namely, always having the directories listed first, followed by the files.
I normally use alphabetical sorting, with a few exceptions, for instance, my Downloads directory always displays most recent files first.
But when working with the display of directories, there have been many times that there's been a certain "important" directory that I want to list first.
I usually do something like name it starting with a dash or an underscore so it will appear first. But there are also times I'd like to have specific directories appear last, and I'd like to do something other than have directories with names like "z_archives" or "z-oldstuff".
Anybody have a good solution to this, basically I'm wondering what other ways there might be where the sorting order is alphabetical, but I can still have specific directories appearing either first or last somehow.
I don't like the look of punctuation and other symbols in filenames, so I name directories or files to appear at the top with a leading @, as in @Records and @Data. I do this in bank account nicknames and Android as well. Occasionally I resort to @@...
For directories and files at the bottom, I use a leading Z, followed by an uppercase letter rather than an ugly underscore, as in ZRecords and ZData. Few words start with Z, so the filename is instantly recognised. But I also resort to German, as in ZweiTB and ZuSpeisen.
One solution, which has been mentioned on the forum before, is to use the "Description" or "User Description" column to adds values representing your desired sort order.
So in your example, all of the folders with a value of 3 in the user description are sorted alphabetically. Does that mean that the primary sort is the UD, and then it goes to alphabetical automatically for those with the same value?
Yes, if the sort column is a tie then Opus will look at other columns.
(You can do explicit multi-column sorting as well, if you want to make it sort by e.g. Description and then Date and then Name, but if you just want Description and then Name then you don't have to do anything special.)
How does one set up the explicit multi-column sorting?
And is it possible to use one sorting method for directories, and another sorting method for files?
Example:
In my downloads directory, I'd like to sort the folders using the User Description field with a numerical value as shown in a previous post; but I'd like to sort the files based on date modified, most recent shown at top.
