Trouble with Time Sort

[Diver]

I have an application where I need to sort the slides by time. The times run from 0800 in the morning to 16:00 hrs. No matter what I do, it will NOT sort correctly on the time of saving (it will in other programs - PTE will not. I cannot rename them as I use the names in another program for database lookup. I need to sort on the time of saving.

Anyone else find this too?? .... or is just me?

[alrobin]

If you click on "Name" at the top of the list of images on the left-hand side of the main window in PTE, you can select how you want the images ordered. Time is one of the options. You can also reverse the order if you wish.

[Diver]

Ive done that but to no avail. It has trouble I believe with 0800 or leading zeros. It does not seem to sort correctly between 0800 and say 16:00 hrs. It gets confused with the leading zeros.

Application is to keep the shots in cronological order. Bug???

[Guest guru]

I think you're right, Diver (George?). I too made some experiments, and noticed a not correct order. PTE seems to consider not only date/time, but also the name of files.

[Danabw]

Here's what I find when I look at the "Date" sort option on the Sort list:

1. The default sort is most recent to oldest. Default sort order should be changed to oldest at the top, down to most recent at the bottom. That is the most likely desire in a slideshow, particularly one of an event (or a sunset, for example, or an outing). Not a must, but preferred.

2. The date/time info displayed and sorted on in the file list is the Windows file "Date Modified" date, not the JPG EXIF date. That means that the Date sort won't sort your images by the date they were taken (stored in the JPG EXIF data by every digital camera of the past few years). Not optimal. What we really need in the file listing is the an additional capability to sort on EXIF date/time. This is more of a "must" item, I would think. The Date modified sort has never been of any use to me because it didn't sort on picture taken date.

3. There appear to be some bugs in the Date sorting. A folder of pics was sorted in the following order when I selected Date/Reverse order:

D...004.jpg 23.03.2002 13:10

C...609.jpg 08.03.2002 21:40

banner.jpg 05.06.2002 22:06

D...033.jpg 23.03.2002 13:11

Why the two pictures appear where they do in the sort is beyond me. They stay in this weird position if I turn off Reverse order as well. Other images are mis-placed. Igor may be right that PTE is somehow combining date and name?

4. And of course, all the date sorts (EXIF date sort and existing Date Modified sort) need to understand that 09:00 comes before 19:00. (I haven't checked that, but sounds like the sort isn't dealing w/that issue.)

Dana

[Danabw]

Igor:

Are you going to be looking into the date sorting?

Dana

[Guest guru]

Don't worry, Dana, Igor reads and notes ALL our remarks. But he works hard, and he doesn't like very much to write posts... He likes better to write PTE code.

Let's him work. I'm sure this little bug will be corrected soon.