Folder view not sorting in alphabetical order

[krogan 1]

It is more about how the items are resolved/interpreted as they are ingested in the system. A physical folder with a single video file in it is resolved in Emby as a movie because that is a common method of organizing them.  So, no matter the presentation style, that movie would always be a single, self-contained item - not a folder with a video in it.  At least, that's how I think it should work...

 

Edit: For clarity - the above is with a library type that attempts to resolve movies.  If you are using a different type, then the handling will be different - thus why I asked about the type.

 

This doesnt seem to matter as stated in my previous post. I have tried just movies, mixed content, and home movies and pictures. They all display this way.

[ebr 14935]

So that would mean Sort order is by type not by name.  But we already know this as Collections come before items.

 

Only in the case of folder views where it was requested that folders sort before individual items.

[krogan 1]

Only in the case of folder views where it was requested that folders sort before individual items.

Ok so is there additional configuration items i need to do to make everything be seen as a folder then? That looks to be what the problem is but I have already placed everything in folders. Is this a bug? Anything additional i can provide to get this resolved?

[krogan 1]

new week bump!

[krogan 1]

Anybody have any other suggestions here?

[krogan 1]

Still looking for some feedback

[krogan 1]

Woo finally got this figured out. It seems that the Movies and the mixed content type both sort based on whether it sees it as a folder vs a movie rather than taking alphabetical order into account. If it sees it at as a folder, then it will sort it first and push the "Movie" content toward the bottom even though you have everything to sort by name. The only way I was able to get this to work is by creating a different content folder and have everything be seen as "Home Videos and Photos" content type. Even without the folder views enabled, this view had everything show up in its individual folders just like it appears in my windows folder structure. Here is an image showing appleseed alpha now showing as the 3rd record instead of the 109th record as indicated in my original screenshot

 

Edited February 10, 2017 by krogan

[Luke 37116]

Well done !

[krogan 1]

Well done !

Luke would it be possible to have a toggle so when you sort by alphabetical using the movies or mixed content type it wouldnt prioritize what emby sees as a folder vs a movie? Or is there a reason why it doesn't do this in the first place?

[Luke 37116]

Most file browsers will put folders first so that's what our own user feedback led us to do.

[One2Go 98]

Well after having a stable server setup, before starting on the client I want to see how the library organization is done in Emby and I came across this very same problem. Before I start on a lengthy correction of the library here are few questions that I have.

 

Library folder \\Server\Animation

This share has 92 movies in it. that are stored in 68 folders. So on the server UI when selecting movies I get 92 alphabetically ordered movie posters. When selecting Folder view I get 68 alphabetically ordered movie posters and as already stated by the OP and others the folders that have folders in them appear at the beginning.

 

Since I migrated from MB 2.6 I had folders in which subfolders with single movies were placed and in the top folder I had a folder.xml file that contained some details regarding the description of this collection. For Example here is a screen shot of the top folder Cars collection that has two subfolders one of Cars 1 and another for Cars 2. Cars 1 has several other folders with different extras and the movie in it.

 

 

and finally the display of the folder with Cars 1.

 

 

Now my concerns and questions.

 

1. I really like to have any collections appear in alphabetic order, like the Aladdin movie which is a single folder with a single movie in it should come before the Cars folders (Collection). Now please remember this just got imported by Emby from the share that had all the meta data. I do understand that some massaging of the content has to take place.

2. Is there a better way of displaying the media content, for what reason were folders with subfolders in them displayed in the beginning rather then in alphabetic order?

3. Would creating a collection of the cars movies be a more elegant way and allow for the top folder (Collection folder) to display more then just the description which folder.xml was limited to?

4. Will the change in content type to home videos force an alphabetic name sorting of all folders, those with just a single movie in them as well as those that contain subfolders?

 

This is my first stab at getting the library in a state that will resemble what MB 2.6 showed, but I am very much open to doing things a different way as I might like it even though I don't know it yet.

 

Thanks

O2G

[ebr 14935]

Emby handles collections differently than MB did.  We define them with metadata at the server level instead of inferring them through the physical file structure.  This provides a number of advantages but the main point here is that you will probably need to convert to this paradigm.

 

To do that, simply remove the "box set" folders you created manually and flatten your file structure. Then create the collections either by using the web app or by installing the AutoBoxSets plug-in and letting it do most of the work for you (assuming you use our meta fetchers and your movies have the tmdb collection IDs in them).

[One2Go 98]

I was afraid of the change. Since all my folder structure is top folder is the collection folder then subfolders are the individual parts of this collection and since I also have a Dune Smart player read the structures the change of the file structure would also involve changing the software's frontend data base for the Dune player, which I am not keen on.

 

Let me ask further, what if I keep the structure and stay with the 92 animation movies I then under the movie view create manually collections, would that not do the same?

 

I realize whatever I do at this point I would have to live with the collections as well as the folders within folders collection be sorted first, just like in Windows explorer the folders are being shown first?

 

My difficulties would be solved if there is an option to do a straight forward sorting by name regardless of the type of content.

 

Please stay with me on this since I want to get this finished having waited a few years to do the jump now that Throg's themes are available for Emby.

[ebr 14935]

That may work.  You'll probably just need to test out some scenarios on a subset of your library until you find a good compromise.

[One2Go 98]

I will experiment with my folder structure and what is preferable to me.

 

Still could a feature request be made to disable the forced name sorting with folders within folders or collections be displayed first?

 

Finally, since this is on the server side, could themes like Throg's display the collections different or are they also forced to use the sorting as provided by the server? In the metadata manager the title of the movie is also entered in the Sort Title field, could themes use that for sorting or its this never exposed to the client themes?

[One2Go 98]

@@ebr My problems were solved with Throg's themes. He has an option in his themes that allows for the legacy view of folders and it does exactly what the OP and myself were asking. Once legacy view was enabled in the theme options, the 92 Animation movies became 68 because some of them were like collections and all of them were in the correct alphabetic order.

 

Thought this might help in case it comes up again.