Sorting on the date column in gui file managers

Problem

When opening a new instance of a file manager the files are typically listed in alpha order.

Often it is desirable to resort on the date column so the most recent files/folders are at the top of the list However. the first click on the date column headers always displays an ascending date sort rather than a descending (latest first) sort.

Cause

Cause: It seems that no one ever paid much attention to the fact that this behavior is both illogical and at odds with the way this is handled in Windows and MacOS.

Not yet known.

Workarounds

The workaround is obviously to click a second time but this is unnecessarily annoying and distracting when the default sort could easily be descending.

One of the ways to promote the adoption of Fedora (and linux in general) is to minimize the cognitive dissonance between Fedora and whatever a potential new user may be accustomed to.

I somewhat concur here. When I am downloading certain files such as bank statements the file names being stored are identical except for the dates in the file name. Thus, in my case downloading the file is really not a problem but then when it comes time to do the reconciliation with my home accounting system the latest file (last one downloaded) is at the bottom of a long list of files in my archives due to naming.

Not everyone would want to have the dates or the file names sorted in the same default order, but if there were a way to have nautilus or whatever else you were using as a file manager to be able to set preferences for sort order it would seem quite beneficial and flexible to meet the users needs.

OTOH, the column for date in nautilus is date last modified and not date created so that could throw another wrinkle in what people would get vs what they would expect.

You raise some good points but, how many people want to see stuff from 2010 at the top of the list the first time they click on the header? I don’t know about you but I have been doing this for a long time, keep most of mymfiles on a samba server, and have files dating back to the late 80’s. Only rarely, when I’m trying to find something really old, do I want the list to start with the oldest first (whether it’s created or modified date).

Also, all I’m suggesting is that the first click on the date column header result in a descending sort. Of course, subsequent clicks should toggle the sort as they do now.

IMHO. Please do not confuse a bug with a feature request.
I would suggest to discuss that on https://discourse.gnome.org/

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Gnome’s file manager has even more funny sorting rules for file names.

I agree this is a feature request.

please help me out. I’m using cinnamon. Do those feature request go to gnome, or somewhere?

Sorry. You didn’t specify that. So you should address your observations to some cinnamon discussion channel or issue tracker.

Hi @fedoradan , this doesn’t qualify as a Common Issue in Fedora. You simply need to file a usability improvement request for your file manager. If you’re using Nautilus, you can file it here. If you’re using something else, you need to find its own bugtracker. We don’t develop the apps here, we just compile them into a distribution.

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