Ability to customize title order in collections

[laie_techie 16]

Any update?

[Luke 42077]

2 hours ago, laie_techie said:

Any update?

There are currently two methods - edit the default order for the collection in the metadata editor, and the upcoming 4.8 server release will also be adding a sort button to the collection screen..

[xlerate 8]

On 5/15/2023 at 6:43 PM, Luke said:

There are currently two methods - edit the default order for the collection in the metadata editor, and the upcoming 4.8 server release will also be adding a sort button to the collection screen..

Is there a timeline for 4.8 release?

Also noticed that the first suggested option to edit the default order for collections seems to get ignored when using Emby on Android/Google TV (in my case, CCwGTV & Nvidia Shield)

[Luke 42077]

4 minutes ago, xlerate said:

Is there a timeline for 4.8 release?

Also noticed that the first suggested option to edit the default order for collections seems to get ignored when using Emby on Android/Google TV (in my case, CCwGTV & Nvidia Shield)

Very soon.

[Lyfesaver 133]

4.8 was released....

 

Was custom ordering not added as planned?

[Luke 42077]

9 minutes ago, Lyfesaver said:

4.8 was released....

 

Was custom ordering not added as planned?

The detail screens for collections have a sort button now that you can use to sort by various criteria.

[Lyfesaver 133]

10 minutes ago, Luke said:

The detail screens for collections have a sort button now that you can use to sort by various criteria.

Do you mean this?

 

If so, how do I customize that?

[Luke 42077]

3 minutes ago, Lyfesaver said:

Do you mean this?

 

If so, how do I customize that?

I never said that arbitrary order was implemented. Actually I was very specific about it:

Quote

There are currently two methods - edit the default order for the collection in the metadata editor, and the upcoming 4.8 server release will also be adding a sort button to the collection screen..

 

[Lyfesaver 133]

I never said arbitrary either. The order is not random or done in a YOLO way. There is most certainly a defined system to go by. Namely a timeline, but instead of asking Emby to maintain it, we the users don't mind. We just need some sort of mechanism in place to define it.

NGL, I thought Emby already had it in place, as I was telling a friend of mine the other day. I thought you already had "Collection Sort Title" and then you had a drop down of current collections to choose from. The custom sort title only applied to that collection chosen, but I must have been high because (as you already know) Emby does not have that. Went looking at Emby's competitors and that's not how they do it either so I must have been smoking something, lmao. I have no idea where that "memory" came from but it is vivid as hell.

 

[Spocks_Logic 3]

So I had created a new thread, but was pointed to this one as it's pretty much the same issue.  

Original Post: 

So, I've been going through the forum and there have been a lot of similar requests but I was hoping to just revisit this as I feel that this still isn't addressed.

I know some people want to have a collection which has the best (10, 100 or 500) movies in whatever order so that way they can visually look at their list and see what is the #1 rated movie by whatever list. This was never really an issue with me until I wanted to have a collection of the Top 50 Scariest Movies of all time (as study conducted by an initiative called "The Scare Project" )

I've added all the films that I currently have in my Library to my collection and have zero way to Order, rank or view in the specific order that I would love for these to be displayed.

Currently, I would like to see the movies in order by how they would appear in the list (which means Sinister would be #1).

 

I'm aware that we have the collection sort order (Collection order referring to the Collection Metadata > Display Order) and then the other parameters that we can sort on.

 

I thought of using Community Rating, but it has data validation that only allows values <= 10 so a top 50 ++ list isn't any good.  

Could we add another key in the meta data for Top N List or allow users to create their own metadata (maybe limit it to 1 or 2) per media type that they can add to a sort and/or filter list?

[k_huntington 3]

+1 for custom sort order.

within the collection itself, i should be able to just drag and drop movies to sort in whatever order i deem fit, and have that be saved as the ordering for the collection. i'd like to have 2 different collections for saw movies. one in 'release order,' and one in 'chonological order.' same for marvel. i can't edit the 'sort as' field because then i can't have multiple different timelines of the same movies. i had this on plex, so it's doable. just a matter of making it a priorty to address is all. 

[k_huntington 3]

i found a possible workaround, that will work for allowing 2 series' chronologies... so this works for saw, since that timeline has 2 chronologies. editing the "date added" field of each movie you want to add to the collection you have, and then sorting by date added. this way you have one collection thats sorted by collection order (which seems to be release date order), and the collection thats sorted by date added is just sorted in the sequence of the date added field. so i just went up a day for each film in the order i want it to appear. have to go to the drawing board if a series has 3 or more different chronologies, but i cant think of any series that would have that because time doesnt work that way  

Edited May 28, 2025 by k_huntington

[rdf52 5]

So we still can't custom sort a collection?  Sure would like to see this added to a future release

[visproduction 315]

I don't write any code for Emby and I am just guessing.  Doing a custom sort is sort of tricky to create.  For example, elsewhere you can sort background images.  This works by adding a number after the file name fanart, so you get fanart1.jpg, fanart2.jpg...

This is efficient, because the file names are easy to grab and there is no database lookup to decide the order.  The database runs just as fast as before, the user can reshuffle all the images, the files get a new number and the background order changes.  A good solution.

So renaming video file names with custom numbers would break a lot of other things.  So, for collection order, changing file names method cannot be used.  An appropriate method would be to add a dbase column data that allows additional sort numbers.  There are several problems with this:

1. Adding a new column can slow down dbase lookup by some percentage... small, but not zero.
2. Making a separate dbase lookup just for collections would work, but all collection sorts work now without a special dbase table.  So the dbase table would have to be created and connected just for this one feature.  This is a lot of additional work and a bad choice.
3. How would the user best be able to make the new custom order list?  Drag and drop + enter a number.  The problem with entering a number is that if you already have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... and you want a new video to fit in between 2 and 3, how are 4, 5... renumbered?  Could 2a, 2b be used?
4. Who would be able to adjust this, all users or just the admin?  It seems like it should be just the admin, since the collection is defined, styled and customized probably only by admins.  So make the rights available or should it be fixed as admin only?
5. Create and test the new user UI that make the order list work.
6. After all the above, what impact would this make and what possible bugs might occur that damage the dbase speed for search select and present the page.  Even if there is only a 1% speed hit, for every page opening, how can that be justified for this one feature?

I don't know how accurate these are.  I just wanted to point out this feature request is easier to said than done.  It is not a flip the switch and write one line of code to make it happen. 

In software commercial production, the dev team often gives story points to a project manager and the team can do,  say 30 points ever sprint or development period per week or every two weeks.  If something like this is estimated to be 15 story points, the project manager tells the stake holders, your requested feature will be using the entire team for one week.  The owners can figure out how much it costs to pay 8 developers on the team plus the project manager, salaries for a week and that becomes the estimate cost of the feature.  Obviously, only really important features that take a lot of time, would be justified.  Easy to make features, that take very little time would more likely be approved.

I don't see any internal discussions much about code dev issues for features.  Getting into that detail is way too much for most forum posts.  I just think it's worth mentioning that sometimes a feature you can describe in one sentence is not all that easy to produce.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2025 by visproduction

[crusher11 1100]

On 3/7/2024 at 3:57 AM, Luke said:

The detail screens for collections have a sort button now that you can use to sort by various criteria.

Why is “Random” not an available sort option when using that button? It is for libraries. I have a number of collections that are basically just a form of watchlist, like the Sight & Sound Top 250, or the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I'd love to be able to just filter them so it only shows films in the collection that I haven't watched (which is also not an option at present), and then sort them by Random to pick something to watch.

[GabbaGool 1]

Not sure how +1 this feature request, but we sure do need a custom sort option.