Feature request: Group files in a folder

[KB9]

Folders can be messy with images/videos not in proper order etc. So consider adding grouping files feature (drag & drop) to allow better folder organizing.

A rather visual organizer/grouper than file system based.

Similar to that in digiKam application.

https://docs.digikam.org/en/main_window ... hotographs

[jkm]

And what does "Proper" mean?

To me, "proper" would mean sorted according to some rational and definite criteria, whether it be name, date, camera model, whatever. XnViewMP already lets you sort by those things. There's a small set of predefined sort criteria on the menu, or add any exiftool-accessible field to the column header, and you can sort by that.

If you really mean "arbitrary", then you can do that too. Simply select "Custom sort" and then you can drag and top files to reorder them in whatever arbitrary way you want. You could group all the sunset photos together, or portraits, or whatever. The app will remember whatever arrangement you select for that folder.

There may be some enhancements on other types of grouping in the future.

[KB9]

Really - interesting. Very good.
But better method is needed.

I know XnViewMP is not a photo (/video) gallery - but we should be able arrange our folders better and prettier.
A folder can have hundreds of files. Sub sub subb foldering is not really practical - too much compartments -> behind file system navigation.

[cday]

But better method is needed.

What additional option(s) would you propose if they receive support and can be implemented?

[mudo_j]

When I switch from Xnview MP to digiKam - or, in the past, to some other "heavyweight" DAM tool - in the middle of my "work", it is most often when the folder becomes too crowded and I need a way to manually group this and that to reduce the muddle.

A single panorama, for instance, can mean a bunch of stacked raw files, intermediate tiffs, an even bigger merged tiff, an xcf and multiple/many versions of the final output.

Grouping can make this much more clear and manageable. (Even more so in combination with colour labels, ratings, keywords ...)

On the other hand, it would - I suppose - make the catalogue/database bigger and even more complex.

Manual grouping is time consuming, so I use it only when actually needed. It gets written only to the database, so it can not be easily transferred between computers etc.

So I would most certainly like to have this feature added some day, while I would also like the program to stay fast and responsive.

Anyway, I wish everybody - an especially the developer - a nice day!

[jkm]

As I said earlier, the app already allows manual rearrangement of files.

When folders get “too large” users would be well served to learn about the various filtering options the app has, or consider whether putting or keeping so many images in a single folder is appropriate for them.

There are also features like Albums and Smart Albums to allow targeted or arbitrary organization of images.

There are additional enhancements under consideration for future release, as I said.

There might be some confusion with terminology, especially with the term “stack” or “stacking”.

Historically this term is used to refer to a compositing process in macro photography or astrophotography. Stacking in Astrophotography combines exposures to reveal faint details. Focus stacking in macro is used to increase the depth of field in a composite image. There are excellent applications available that perform these functions extremely well.

Lightroom (mis)uses the term “stack” to refer to arbitrarily grouping images together, sort of as a virtual folder. Not to be confused with focus stacking or exposure stacking for Astro.

Lightroom-style “stacks” or groups, both manual and automatic, are being considered for a future release. No additional information is available at this time, so please just be patient.

[KB9]

Can't really organize if there's not much more than MS File Explorer+
FE has such as libraries and files can be tagged too.

But it's also one of the best features of XNV-MP it's much more lightweight when can use FE as base - meaning while XnViewMP offers a lot it's still a bit File Explorery~

By so we are bound to file system folders. Yes there's tagging and rating and color coding but files are too many to manually select different anchors for them. Though it's achievable culling is quite fast in XNV-MP. But something more is needed.

In the browser there's folders and we can filter them. To my understanding there's no albums or smart albums view - instead of folders I could see my albums and smart albums listed. Or tags as icons click to open to view tagged items. Or something like that. Need to find through tabs and context menu sub menus metadata. Too much here and there.

Grouping/stacking files in a folder would be very helpful to organize and quickly stack images for later processing - out of the way. So one can focus on primary content in a folder. I do almost all my XnVIewMP needs in browser view. Screen is divided into 3 parts I'm getting lost in thumbnails as can't fit too many on screen.

I'm rambling now. Albums and smart albums I haven't used them that much as they seem to be side features there under menus and tabs. Problem is you can't get album/smart inside folders.

Maybe also albums/smart could be brought more into reach? Reachable in the GUI.

Tagging, rating, coloring, assigning an album and advanced search results. And folders. Would be great to organize folders without major categorizing first and constantly filter and toggle enable and disable.