New Item Sort Order

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Problem Description: When browsing the media library, new content added to the media library displays after content added previously. Expected behavior is that newly-added content should be integrated into older content so that results display in a consolidated manner. Ideally users should be able to sort results, or at least the results should display in a useful order.

Troubleshooting Steps: Add a media folder with content, scan media folders, browse the library and note the order of items in the new media folder, add new content to the media folder (items that are not alphabetically after items already in the folder), rescan media folders, browse the media folder and note that original items are displayed first and newer items are last.

Playback Application and version: Web browsers (latest IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari)

Subsonic Version: 5.2.1 (build 4428) – March 4, 2015

Server Version: jetty-6.1.x, java 1.8.0_60

Hardware Platform: Windows

Java Memory Limit: 1024 MB

Problem Filename: N/A

Output from ffmpeg -i: N/A

Last ten log file lines: N/A

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Upon further investigation and searching the forum, it appears that Subsonic distinguishes between folders containing media files in the root of the subfolder from folders containing no media files in the root of the subfolder (for example folders containing only subfolders).

The former (i.e., folders with a media file in the folders' roots) are considered "albums", whereas the latter (with no media files in the roots) are just "folders".

Thus, when browsing a folder in the media library, Subsonic displays first any "media files" in that folder, then it displays any "subfolders", and finally displays the "albums".

It gets even more confusing when "Sort albums by year" is checked. In this case, the "albums" listed at the end of the results are listed in date order (as determined by Subsonic, which often is inaccurate), with the "dated" albums listed first, then "undated" albums. This makes it extremely difficult to find desired content, especially when the listed folder contains many items.

So folder listings are ordered in the following ways:

Check "Sort albums by year":
- media files
- folders
- dated albums
- undated albums

Uncheck "Sort albums by year":
- media files
- folders
- albums

This conclusion is based on limited observations and may not accurately represent Subsonic's true operation.

Example media structure:
- Music -> Adele -> 21 -> {media files}
- Music -> Styx -> Best of Styx -> {media files}
- Music -> Styx -> Cornerstone (1979) -> {media files}
- Music -> Styx -> Discography -> {no media files, only subfolders}
- Music -> Styx -> {media files, including Lady}
- Music -> Yes -> Fragile -> {media files}

"Adele" is a folder, "21" is an album, "Styx" is an album, "Best of Styx" is an undated album, "Cornerstone" is a dated album, "Discography" is a folder, "Lady" is a media file, "Yes" is a folder, and "Fragile" is an album.

Browsing the "Music" folder would display as: Adele, Yes, Styx -- folder, folder, album.

If "Sort albums by year" is checked, browsing "Styx" would display as: Lady, Discography, Cornerstone, Best of Styx -- media file, folder, dated album, undated album.

If "Sort albums by year" is unchecked, browsing "Styx" would display as: Lady, Discography, Best of Styx, Cornerstone -- media file, folder, album, album.

As there is no delineation between the latter sections, having all items run together in this way (order) is confusing and unintuitive.

Without the ability to re-sort listings, it would be great to display "Music", by default, as: Adele, Styx, Yes.

And it would be great to display Styx as: Best of Styx, Cornerstone, Discography, Lady -- or as: {media files, including Lady}, Best of Styx, Cornerstone, Discography.

With respect to this issue, since Subsonic appears to be as designed, the above will be posted (separately) to the Feature Requests forum.

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It appears there is at least one other order grouping--videos--when Subsonic produces listings while browsing the media library. Videos, it seems, follow all other categories on the page.

Thus, you could have a folder containing all of the following, displayed in this order:

- audio/songs
- folders
- dated albums
- undated albums
- videos

Within each of those categories, the items are alphabetical, so when looking for an item on a page, you might have to scan through the entire list, looking at each item (the middle groups all run together).

A folder with many items could have, therefore, items from A-Z, again from A-Z, then mixed (by date), and another A-Z, and a final A-Z, making it extremely difficult to see if item "MNO", for instance, is anywhere in that folder.

[darrendavid]

I'm running into this same/similar issue - I simply want everything in a folder (all subfolders) sorted alphabetically. Is there a way to force this?

Darren