Dual display layout. When re-opening, the pane on the left side does not retain its sort order while the pane on the right side does. Can anyone confirm?
A Lister Layout saves everything about all the Lister windows that were opened when the Layout was saved: window sizes and positions, Folder Tabs, Folder Options, etc.
Try this:[ol][li] Open your Dual Display Layout[/li]
[li] Click on the border of the file display that is not sorting the way you expect, to activate it (i.e. make it the Source).[/li]
[li] Right-click any column header.[/li]
[li] Select Folder Options from the context menu.[/li]
[li] In the Folder Options Dialog, check the following:[ul][li] Columns Tab - Which Displayed Fields have a check mark in the Sort column. This file display will sort by those fields.[/li]
[li] Display Tab- Confirm all these options are set the way you want[ul][li] Keep folders sorted alphabetically.[/li]
[li] Numeric order filename sorting[/li]
[li] Reverse Sort order.[/li]
[li] Word sort[/li][/ul][/li][/ul][/li][/ol] You'll want to ensure everything is the same for both file displays. Once it is, save your Layout again using the same name.
Seems to work okay here. I set the left list to sort by Size and the right to sort by Modified, saved the layout, closed the window, opened the layout. Still sorting by Size and Modified.
Does your layout have normal directories in both sides?
Could you post a screenshot showing what it's like before saving and another showing what it's like after loading the layout?
Also, you should note that any Folder Options saved in the layout will only remain in affect when the initial folder paths are listed. Afterward, the Folder Format system will take over.
Read Leo's FAQ (linked in his signature above) for more information.
The left pane is in Flat View Mixed (No Folders) so that might have something to do with it.
The lister was imported from my DO8 config - I've redone the sort and re-saved but re-opening reverts back to sorting by name instead of Modified Date. I've fired up a virtual machine which had my config of DO8 installed and confirmed I haven't been hallucinating these past couple of years 
If you still want screenshots, I'll attach them.
FlatView has its own Folder Format. So when FlatView is enabled is options supersede those in your Layout. If FlatView doesn't have its own settings enabled on any of its Folder Format tabs, then I believe it pulls the corresponding settings from the Custom Default Format.
As I understand it, with the Layout you are loading this is the precedence:
File Display 1 File Display 2
Flat View ON Flat View OFF
| |
| |
V V
Folder Options come from Folder Options come
Flat View Default Format from Lister Layout
|
|
If any Flat View Format
page is not enabled,
|
|
V
Folder Options come from
Custom Default Format
[ul][li] Folder Options are what you see in effect.
[/li]
[li] Folder Formats are pre-configured sets of Folder Options.
[/li]
[li] Lister Styles can also store a pre-configured set of Folder Options for each file display inside the style.
[/li]
[li] Lister Layouts store a pre-configured set of Folder Options for each file display in each Lister inside the layout.[/li][/ul]
Setting Flat View Default Format sort worked, thanks. This seems to be a change in behaviour from DO8 where Flat View Default Format sort did not affect the saved file display sort. This may not be a good thing if you want flat views sorted different ways in saved listers.
Note: I later unchecked the Columns checkbox in Flat View Edit Format so that should turn off the default sort I'm guessing. It was checked in DO8 so the change in behaviour may be a bug fix in DO9?