Sorting Tags

Access: Menu > View > Sort Panel, Sort Tab on PasteDown Panel, <Alt+O>

Use Library Clinic's sort facilities to sort on up to five columns consecutively (an indexed sort), in either one of the two Main Editors.

In the example shown above, if the Sort Button were depressed, the Editor would first be sorted by Location, then all rows with same-Location would be sorted by artist, then all rows with same-artist sorted by album, and finally all rows with same-album sorted by track.

When folder nodes are active, each group of files at each folder location is sorted separately. When inactive, all listed files are sorted together as a single group, regardless of file location.

Choose columns upon which to sort beginning with the top, or 1st Pass, drop-down list, then work your way down through subsequent passes. The 1st Pass list is always enabled. After choosing a column to sort on in the 1st Pass, the check box for the 2nd Pass list becomes enabled. Checking the 2nd Pass checkbox causes the 2nd Pass list to become enabled, thus permitting selection of a 2nd Pass sort column. Continuing down the list in this manner allows up to five sort columns to be defined.

Press the Sort button to the right of the lists to begin sorting. Press the Clear button to remove all column selections. Check "Empties last" if you'd like empty Editor cells to carry the least "sort weight," such that empty cells fall at the end of a sorted list rather than at the beginning (this option can also be set with checkbox "Sort empty cells last" in Preferences on the "General 2" tab).

Use Preset Buttons 1 through 6 to Save, Recall, or Remove up to six favorite sort settings. Note that each Preset button can be used to perform any one of these three functions. Which function it performs depends upon which of the three Mode Buttons on the right is in the down position when the Preset button is depressed (the Recall button is shown in the "down" position above):

Save: When this mode button is down, pressing a Preset button saves the current sort configuration and associates it with the Preset button pressed. Once saved, this same Preset button can be used again later to reload the sort configuration again. To do this, the Recall mode button must placed in the down position first.

Recall: When this mode button is down, clicking a Preset button recalls a sort configuration that was previously associated with it by the pressing the button while the Save button was down. This loads the configuration back into the sort controls.

Remove: Clicking a Present button while in this mode clears a sort configuration that was associated with it using the Save control above.

Preset buttons that have sort configurations already associated with them have button numbers shown in bold. Empty buttons still available for association have numbers shown in regular type.

You can "fine tune" a sort order by holding the control key depressed while dragging individual row-number buttons around in the Main Editor with the mouse.

Other sorting options available:

Sort By Creation Time: Sorts a group of selected Editor files by their file age. Access: Menu > Edit > Sort By Creation Time <Ctrl+U>, or use the button on the Speedbutton Toolbar

Sort Albums On Track: Performs an indexed album/track sort on selected Editor files. Sorts first by album name, then by track number within each album. Access: Menu > Edit > Sort Albums On Track <Ctrl+W>

Of course, sorting on any single data column can be done at any time simply by clicking on a column's header.