GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 681176
Offer file sort options via 'Edit > Preferences'
Last modified: 2012-08-09 14:52:09 UTC
PLEASE OFFER FILE SORT OPTIONS --- via 'Edit > Preferences'. Explanation: Nautilus (and Caja) perform strange-filename-sorts --- quite unlike the output from 'ls' when SPECIAL CHARACTERS and (different-length) NUMBERS ARE IN FILENAMES. Nautilus (and Caja, no doubt) ignores special characters when sorting the files. In many cases, this can make it hard to make a file appear where you want it in a directory listing. You can Google 'nautilus sort order' to see many examples of user frustration. Some example 'hits': - TITLE: [gnome] Nautilus: Completely Strange Sort Order at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1685444 - TITLE: How do I force folder view sort order to not ignore special characters? at http://askubuntu.com/questions/115741/how-do-i-force-folder-view-sort-order-to-not-ignore-special-characters - TITLE: Changing The Sort Order In Nautilus at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/changing-the-sort-order-in-nautilus-862231/ - TITLE: How Do I Change Nautilus Sort Order? at http://forums.opensuse.org/archives/sls-archives/archives-suse-linux/archives-desktop-environments/384605-how-do-i-change-nautilus-sort-order.html There is an easy way to make the sorts a little more 'as expected', via inserting a little '.gnomerc' config file in your home directory structure, to change the filename sorts of Nautilus. Put the line export LC_COLLATE=C in the $HOME/.gnomerc file. However, Nautilus (and Caja) developers should give us some better sort options through the Nautilus/Caja 'Edit > Preferences'. SOME SUGGESTED SORT OPTIONS (preliminary): 1 sort like 'ls' (honoring request to keep directories together) 2 sort without case-sensitivity 3 sort ignoring special characters 4 sort treating numbers numerically rather than as character strings 5 sort according to both 3 and 4 6 sort according to 2, 3, and 4
Which exact version of Nautilus is this about? I don't see much sense in providing yet another option for something as exotic as ordering of files. Nautilus should pick up a sane default instead, which is what it already does: Nautilus uses the collation rules of your locale, so that's not a bug. You could change your locale if you want to. Proposing WONTFIX.
So you are saying that all those people in those 'nautilus sort' links that I provided above in the bug report (and the troubled-people in the hundreds of other such hits that you would see on Googling the terms 'nautilus sort order') should know how to 'change their locale', as if that is a natural thing that everyone knows how to do. (Where is that option in the Nautilus 'Edit > Preferences' panels?) If Steve Jobs were monitoring this thread and if this were software for a Mac, I don't think he would take very kindly to your reply. If you do a search for the string 'sort options' on the following web page http://www.subdude-site.com/WebPages_Local/RefInfo/Computer/Linux/LinuxMint_Installs/linuxMintDebianEdition_install_blaze.htm you will find an image just below a 'hit' or two on that string. That image provides a 'user friendly', non-nerd, non-geek way that the sort options could be presented to the user. I am not expecting that all 6 of those (suggested, preliminary) options be implemented. But at least a few of them would go a long way toward reducing a lot of the reports that I see in these bugzilla.gnome.org pages concerning Nautilus sorts. Oh ... I almost forgot the Nautilus release question. Since this is a 'feature request' for something that has never been implemented in ANY release of Nautilus, you can go to ANY release of Nautilus and find that the capability is not there in any kind of 'user-friendly' way.
Please don't revert the bug summary (same for your other bug reports). (In reply to comment #2) > So you are saying that all those people in those 'nautilus sort' links that I > provided above in the bug report should know how to 'change their locale', > as if that is a natural thing that everyone knows how to do. Obviously I didn't say that, because otherwise I would have written it. You can see what I said in comment 1. > (Where is that option in the Nautilus 'Edit > Preferences' panels?) Nowhere, as the locale has nothing to do with Nautilus but is systemwide. Third result on google.com is http://askubuntu.com/questions/115741/how-do-i-force-folder-view-sort-order-to-not-ignore-special-characters
Offering a series of options for this will not happen. I understand the bulk of the issue is due to matching the expectations of how sort ordering works in other file managers (e.g. bug 355152), but we should fix that instead with a good default that works for everybody instead of deferring this choice to the user. Closing as a duplicate of 355152 (but the part regarding options would really be WONTFIX). *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 355152 ***