Reported IrfanView defaulting to sort 'by Name' despite 'No sort' being selected. :S

[Axinite]

Operating system: Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64
Hardware: Apple Retina Macbook Pro 2012 model (so Windows in bootcamp)

Hi.

I'm not sure how this has happened but upon testing it it seems like a consistent bug. Perhaps it occurred when I updated to 4.36 in recent times? Or maybe it's my upgrade to Windows 8.1 that was the change? (It was VERY recent that I started noticing it.)

This is the behaviour/procedure:

- I have 'Options > Sort directory files' set to 'No sort' by default. (Pretty sure I always had it set to that as naturally, I'd want IrfanView to follow whatever custom sort order I have set in the folder of images I'm opening from in Windows Explorer!)

- The behaviour is, that if I have a Windows folder set to anything apart from 'Sort by ... Name', IrfanView is still stuck on 'by Name' as its directory order. So if I have a directory of images sorted 'by Size' in Windows Explorer (and say in descending order), and I open the first image at the top of the directory, IrfanView despite being on 'No sort', is showing this top image as '45/259' in the directory. 45th image, not 1st, and I've cross-checked to see that '45th' pertains to the order if sorted by Name. But if I'm correct (and how IrfanView's always behaved :S), it should follow the order of the Windows directory and not be stuck on 'by Name' like this!

Can you reproduce it?

It is extremely crippling of being able to even use IrfanView, as you can imagine - as when you arrow through the images in IrfanView expecting them to be in the same order as in your Windows folder, it's not and jumps like crazy in a totally different order despite having 'No sort' ticked!...

Thanks.

[Mij]

Hi Axinite
I think you are wrong in believing that what you describe is new. AFAIK it is the way it has been ever since Windows 2000. The Windows system delivers the list of files from a folder to an application in a close to alphabetical order and that is how Irfanview displays them if you select "No Sort". "No sort" just means that Irfanview does not sort the list of files delivered to it by the operating system.
The exact order does vary a bit according to the local language settings and is set by a registry key but it has no connection with how you might have asked Windows Explorer to sort them for display there. In fact it is possible to have two separate Explorer windows on screen together showing the same folder sorted into completely different orders. So how would Irfanview know which of them you wanted to follow?
You might be thinking back to Windows 98 which did supply the file list to applications in non-alphabetic order. In practice though the "No sort" option was little more use since the order was just taken from how they had been saved in the File Allocation Table used on the disks.

The only way I know of transferring the order of the files shown in an Explorer window to another application is by using Drag and Drop. Irfanview only allows you to do it for Slideshows however - you can just drag a bunch of files from an Explorer window to the "Slideshow Files" pane of the dialog and they retain their order in the list created there. Highlight files in the Explorer window by holding down Shift or Control keys as you select sequential sets or individual files, or press Ctrl+A to select all files in the folder. Be sure to click down on the topmost selected file when you drag them to the Slideshow dialog though otherwise the list, although still in order, will start at the wrong place.

I wrote a Script file to allow you to do something similar for the main Irfanview viewer window. You can find it in the Command Line and Scripts forum. Look for "Opening multiple files in Irfanview" in the Working Scripts sub-forum. (I have not provided a link since it will be incorrect if we revert to an HTTPS address here, as Stefan has proposed).
It was originally written to allow users, with huge folders containing large numbers of files, to open just part of the folder at a time thus saving the long delays involved in sorting every file name in the folder when trying to view just a few images from it. I do propose to post an improved version of that script there quite soon to overcome one of the snags you may find if you use it for transferring whole folders at a time.