Browser: Sort by Random

[Slaycer]

Greetings,

I've got the following situation: I'm using XnView MP at the moment as a tool for displaying my digital collection of comics and other galleries (as folders) and it's working great, the best software I've tried so far! The only thing which bothers me is, that they sort themselves by names, creation date etc. When I'm looking for a collection it's kind of necessary but sometimes I wanna "surprise" myself with old ones or those which aren't in the first 5 rows everytime (it's getting boring )

TL;DR
Is there a possibility that *Sort by Random* for Folders will be added in a future update? (talking about since I've seen some suggestions about this topic in the past and would like to see some statement at least). Otherwise, is there an alternative way to sort by random?

Kind Regards,
Slaycer

[m.Th.]

Hi Slaycer!

Wellcome among us!

A true Randon sort per se isn't available. Hint: It would be easy to add it (as „Reshuffle” - a common feature in Media Players) however there are other features planned AFAIK.

What if you sort them in Descending order?
Also, what if you will use a sorting order which gives you „unexpected” results? For example File Size?

Another thing is that, perhaps you can see them in order but next time to start from the last one which you saw (you can mark in various ways this).

[helmut]

Thank you for your request, Slaycer. IIRC this use case has been requested several times before (I'm sure our librarian XnTriq could provide many references) which indicates that this is a common use case.

The slide show of XnView Classic offers a random order. Though, in XnView MP the slide show function isn't available, yet, and this would be just a workaround, not really a random order.

From what I can see there are two ways to include this into the user interface of XnView:

A - Sort by » Random
There could be View » Sort by » Random which shuffles the files in the current folder when activating and shuffles the files in a folder whenever browsing a folder.
Advantage:
+ Fits nicely in the user interface

B - Shuffle function
Instead of a new sort order, a menu entry "Shuffle files" could be offered. When triggered, the custom sort order feature could be used to create and keep this random order. The random order would not change until the Shuffle function is used, again.
Advantage:
+ Random order is static and user controls when to apply a new random sort order.

[Slaycer]

Thank you for the fast answers!
@m.Th. I'm already trying with other sorting functions but still I'm gonna see the same collections again after a while x)

@helmut Both possibilities, A and B, would be what I'm looking for! I've also tried a seperate Batch script which picks me a random folder, but it's getting overflowed because of these many folders and can't give me an output . At the moment, I'm using an Excel sheet, which generates random numbers to all the folder names and then sort it - with a click I can shuffle it. But it's basically a two-step way to get my random function working with this method, I would appreciate a better solution inside XnView

[helmut]

Thank you for your feedback and info, Slaycer. That's an interesting workaround that you use. Are you familiar with VBA which is included in Excel and which can be used to automate a lot of things? With not too much effort this could be fully automated.

Until now I thought we were talking of random sorting of images in a folder. If I understand right, it's not just the images in the folder that you want to sort but the folders themselves. That's an important bit when drafting a solution and pretty much a different affair of things. Currently, even the custom sort order cannot be applied to folders.

- Batch rename: Random number
Another way to achieve this comes to my mind: Batch rename using a random number. I just checked and Batch doesn't offer random numbers, yet.

[Slaycer]

Yes it's about the folders, because the first page will show up as an image cover (like the beginning of a book/comic). As "m.Th." mentioned, I'm able to change the order by sorting other informations like creation date, ascending/descending etc, but I'm already recognizing some orders x).

That hint with Visual Basic sounds interesting I'll give it a try, never used it before but I'm adaptable .

[cday]

Yes it's about the folders, because the first page will show up as an image cover (like the beginning of a book/comic). As "m.Th." mentioned, I'm able to change the order by sorting other informations like creation date, ascending/descending etc, but I'm already recognizing some orders x).

That hint with Visual Basic sounds interesting I'll give it a try, never used it before but I'm adaptable .

It's Visual Basic for Applications ...

[XnTriq]

IIRC this use case has been requested several times before (I'm sure our librarian XnTriq could provide many references) which indicates that this is a common use case.

• XnView Classic
  • Browsing through pictures in random order (but no slideshow)
  • random sequence
  • A slightly less random "random order"
• XnView MP
  • Shuffling the .XnViewSort file
  • Request: RANDOM sorting
  • Request: Sort by Random/Sort by Shuffle

[helmut]

Thank you for searching the forum and posting the links, XnTriq!

[helmut]

... That hint with Visual Basic sounds interesting I'll give it a try, never used it before but I'm adaptable .

Good. Let me know in case you need some assistence.