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When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

sebastiano.tronto.net

231–240 of 385 posts

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#231

I agree with Microsoft/Google/KDE's order. The author's situation is extremely rare, and the situation where someone wants "10" to be before "9" is far more common. Moreover, desktops don't label this sorting "alphabetical" (E: and it would really be "lexicographic"*), they label it "by name" (an informal criteria), so technically they're not lying. > I miss the time when computers did what you told them to, instead…

I will add that I'm plenty "smart" enough to understand that "10" comes before "9" in a strictly alphabetical sense, and I still want my file managers to sort "9" before "10". I don't want to put leading zeroes before every all the single digit numbers in my file names. (And then potentially go come back later and add even more leading zeroes once the maximum number reaches three digits.) --- I split all of my audiob…

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Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#232

I agree with Microsoft/Google/KDE's order. The author's situation is extremely rare, and the situation where someone wants "10" to be before "9" is far more common. Moreover, desktops don't label this sorting "alphabetical" (E: and it would really be "lexicographic"*), they label it "by name" (an informal criteria), so technically they're not lying. > I miss the time when computers did what you told them to, instead…

I will add that I'm plenty "smart" enough to understand that "10" comes before "9" in a strictly alphabetical sense, and I still want my file managers to sort "9" before "10". I don't want to put leading zeroes before every all the single digit numbers in my file names. (And then potentially go come back later and add even more leading zeroes once the maximum number reaches three digits.) --- I split all of my audiob…

Well, that's not alphabetical order.

It's great if DEs build this and give it a name. It's even better if they have a different one that deals with SI prefixes too. But it's not good if "alphabetical order" means that.

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#233
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue at hand is how numbers are sorted. That has nothing to do with unicode.

Unicode has many different representations of digits, and I would dispute using the term “alphabetical” to refer to digit ordering in any case.

You are starting to sound like a troll. Yes, unicode has many representations of digits. That has nothing to do with the question of whether 2.jpg should come before or after 10.jpg.

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will add that I'm plenty "smart" enough to understand that "10" comes before "9" in a strictly alphabetical sense, and I still want my file managers to sort "9" before "10". I don't want to put leading zeroes before every all the single digit numbers in my file names. (And then potentially go come back later and add even more leading zeroes once the maximum number reaches three digits.) --- I split all of my audiob…

Well, that's not alphabetical order. It's great if DEs build this and give it a name. It's even better if they have a different one that deals with SI prefixes too. But it's not good if "alphabetical order" means that.

I mean, nine does come before ten in alphabetical order.

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#236
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? There's a user expectation that photo20.jpg comes after photo3.jpg. There's no user expectation around whether photo1.jpg or photo01.jpg comes first. Just like there's no user expectation around whether photo1.jpg or Photo1.jpg comes first. Users also don't have the slightest idea about what order punctuation gets sorted in. Just sort the things that matter in the way users expect (natural sort order)…

> There's a user expectation that photo20.jpg comes after photo3.jpg. my user expectation is the opposite i get what you're saying but it's not achievable in practice, at least not consistently

It sounds like a problem with too many expectations therefore someone will be disappointed.

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#237
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The file sorting isn’t something relegated to niche users because of the prevalence of tv episode file name sorting (eg S01e01) and it has necessitated the leading zeroes to make it work properly with “alphabetical sorting”.

And that would sort correctly with both methods, though, especially when each "field" is delineated (e.g. Show.S0XE0Y.Episode.Name.HEVC.1080p.mkv)

You’re saying that files with s1e10 and s1e9 would place 9 first?

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will add that I'm plenty "smart" enough to understand that "10" comes before "9" in a strictly alphabetical sense, and I still want my file managers to sort "9" before "10". I don't want to put leading zeroes before every all the single digit numbers in my file names. (And then potentially go come back later and add even more leading zeroes once the maximum number reaches three digits.) --- I split all of my audiob…

Well, that's not alphabetical order. It's great if DEs build this and give it a name. It's even better if they have a different one that deals with SI prefixes too. But it's not good if "alphabetical order" means that.

What desktop environment called this alphabetical?

Re: When I say “alphabetical order”, I mean “alphabetical order”

#240

This is reminding me of the whole "Worse is better" essay and debate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27916370 The author wants the "worse" sort, one based on ASCII/Unicode codepoints, without any intelligence for numbers that 99% of GUI users want. For their purposes, they've assumed something about the implementation, to the point that a convenience feature is actually a misfeature for them. But the author her…

>Understanding the target audience for your product results in very different design decisions This is an excuse. Just add an option to sort both ways. It isn't hard. There is no target audience in this planet that benefits from less options or less features. Even if you had the features under an "advanced mode" UI that's still a better software than not having the feature in first place. Have people forgotten the 80…

> There is no target audience in this planet that benefits from less options or less features.

I'm currently involved in UI design and, to my frustration, adding more options or features seems to send a vocal minority of the user base into a foaming-at-the-mouth violent rage. It's like any change resets the entire contents of their brain, and it's our fault we're making things so confusing for everyone...

And let's not get started on how we're wasting time adding things that they don't personally need, and therefore no one could possibly need, ever. No, clearly by adding this sorting method, we must have directly stolen development time from the feature they want, which is a personal attack directed at them and every member of their family going three generations back.

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