toggling sort between date-descending and name-ascending

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ok_image_viewer
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2025 7:54 pm

toggling sort between date-descending and name-ascending

Post by ok_image_viewer »

Version: XnView MP 1.9.5 64-bit (2025-10-12) Windows

Hi - In my use of XnView MP, I am finding myself frequently wanting to skim over images and change between different sort orders. As mentioned in the topic title, I usually go by created date field in descending order. However, sometimes it makes a lot more sense to use the filename field sorted in ascending order.

Let's say a sort "schema" would be a set of individual sort options: field (name, date, size, etc), order (ascending, descending), and Name order (numeric/normal/alphabetic)

It would be great if I could somehow make it easier to jump back and forth between two sort "schema" without having to change all three of those settings manually. So far I have been poking around but not getting anywhere significant yet. I am looking at the following general ideas:
  1. scripting using the CLI (ran out of energy already, my brain is full from scanning too many forum posts, lol)
  2. tweaking the xnview.ini file in a text editor - I have found some settings under the BROWSER section, but I don't know how to read the values/arguments, e.g., sort=5; sortOrder=0... however if I were to figure it out, then the question of toggling between two alternate .ini files is unsolved
  3. using the custom sort - pretty much same confusion as with the xnview.ini file
  4. customization - I see a subforum for contributions, but I see mostly custom skins and add-on utitlities, such as auto tagging.
  5. using the view -> layout; trying to see if I can define a given sort order to one layout and a different sort to another layout
I'm also thinking of ways to get creative, e.g., by cobbling together an auto-hotkeys script somehow. I'm asking here first, though, because I would really hate to be getting that inventive over a problem that might have already been solved more elegantly by someone else.
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