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How to sort Projects & Albums by date?

In the library, I can keep Projects & Albums arranged by Kind, Name, or Manual. How do we sort it by date? We can sort albums/events in iPhoto by date, so surely we can do this in Aperture 3 also?

I have over 700 events that I imported from iPhoto, and I would like to avoid having to manually sort all of them, and having to continually manually sort them in the future. If we can order Projects by date, Photos by date, then why can't we sort Projects & Albums by date? I'm hoping I'm missing something really obvious. Thanks!

Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 18, 2011 2:01 AM

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15 replies

Feb 18, 2011 2:50 AM in response to mrbofus

Of you select 'projects' at the top of the inspector, you can arrange by date in the right-hand side of the screen.

If you want them organised by date in the inspector pane, you could create folders per year and sub-folders per month then put your projects in there.

In my opinion however there is no need to sort your projects by data. Since a project can of course span over multiple years, what date would you sort it on? This is where smart albums and the search HUD come in , they are way more practical for this stuff.

Feb 18, 2011 2:57 AM in response to Ir. Bob

My goal is to get events on my iPhone and iPad to be sorted in the same order. In Aperture, even if I have them sorted in the right-hand side the way I want, the iPhone/iPad will only show Projects/Albums/Events in the order it shows in the Inspector. Since there is no way to sort by date in the Inspector, I have to manually sort over 700 Projects/Albums/Events if I want them to show up properly on the iPhone/iPad.

Feb 18, 2011 5:44 AM in response to mrbofus

Sorry but the Library tab of the inspector doesn't sort by date.

While the Library tab has the same look and feel of the Finder it isn't a Finder and date sort would have no meaning there. Folders in Aperture don't have dates attached to them neither do Albums. And while Projects pretend to have a date its really a bit of a kludge because Projects contain multiple images that all have there own individual dates.

The only place date sort really makes any sense is at the image level. How iPhoto fakes a date sort on the library I can't say, never used it all that much.

Feb 18, 2011 6:10 AM in response to mrbofus

mrbofus wrote:
But that's where my confusion lies; if Projects can have a date and be sorted by them in the browser, even if it is a bit of a kludge, why can't we have that option in the Inspector pane?


We can't have that option because Apple didn't give it to us 🙂

Seriously I can't answer that, no one can except Apple. You're free to suggest it as an enhancement goto *Aperture->Provide Aperture Feedback*

But one thing to keep in mind, if I have 3 projects A, B, C which date sort in that order. And I have 2 folders, folder 1 with projects A & C and folder 2 with project B how do they sort in the Library tab? Which folder goes first and why?

Feb 18, 2011 12:02 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

I already submitted feedback to Apple.

That's too bad; I assumed Aperture would be like iPhoto, but better. And it is for the most part, but the customization and iPhone/iPad syncing seems to be worse. Weird.

Projects A, B, and C should sort the way you want it in both the browser and the inspector. Clearly Apple realized a need to let us sort by date, but oddly chose to limit it to the browser. So it shouldn't be a technological hurdle, since the program is capable of sorting the projects by date.

Feb 18, 2011 12:35 PM in response to mrbofus

mrbofus wrote:
I already submitted feedback to Apple.

That's too bad; I assumed Aperture would be like iPhoto, but better. And it is for the most part, but the customization and iPhone/iPad syncing seems to be worse. Weird.


Well iPhoto is really geared toward a consumer mindset, Aperture is aimed at a different market,

Projects A, B, and C should sort the way you want it in both the browser and the inspector. Clearly Apple realized a need to let us sort by date, but oddly chose to limit it to the browser.


Not oddly, in the project browser they're flat, date sort makes sense. In the Library tab of the inspector they are in separate folders date sort makes no sense. Even if the folders had dates (as in the Finder) and that was used to add the ability to sort by date it wouldn't be the date you want it would be the date of the creation of the folder or the last time its contents were modified it would have nothing to do with the images in the projects in the folder.

Again if three projects A, B and C date sort in that order and A and C are in one folder and B is in another how would you sort them?
Folder 1
project A
project C
Folder 2
project B

or
Folder 2
Project B
Folder 1
Project A
Project C

So it shouldn't be a technological hurdle, since the program is capable of sorting the projects by date.


No not a technological hurdle just a semantic one.

Feb 18, 2011 4:04 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

You're assuming that everybody is organizing projects into folders. I don't. So I have Projects A, B, and C just listed as Project A, Project B, and Project C. If things are organized the way they are in your example, date ordering within the Inspector pane might not be necessary, but there is more than one way to organize things.

You're right in agreeing with me that it is not a technological hurdle; it's Apple deciding that people don't need to organize projects by date in the Inspector pane, so their semantics are limiting our organization options, since Aperture is capable of ordering by date in the Browser.

Nov 18, 2011 6:23 PM in response to mrbofus

There is a workflow technique that I use that ensures that albums within a project are sorted by date.


Step 1. is to name the album beginning with the date in the format YYYYMMDD making sure that zeros are in place where necessary. I use the form: YYYYMMDD some name (that makes sense and is short).


Step 2. After importing photos to the album you can right click on the project name and you can sort by NAME. Sorting alphabetically of YYYYMMDD is sorting by date.


I use the same filenaming technique for my computer files so I don't have to do a CMD i to see what date they were created.


I was looking at your post because I was trying to find out all the different solutions people may have for organising photos within Aperture.


Another technique is to keep all your projects as single Aperture libraries. Aperture 3 allows you to switch libraries quite easily. If you've named your photos or albums carefully, Spotlight will locate them in a hurry. But I can locate mine quickly by locating the relevant project and the dated albums.

Nov 26, 2012 5:15 AM in response to mrbofus

iPhoto 1.0 did that automatically until iphoto 4 or so... 🙂 it even sorted photos in dated folderes using exif data. For whatever reason a "brilliant" person in apple decided to date the folders with the importing date, some absolutely useless. And also decided to take out the calendar feature and created the also useless events concept, which is ok for a couple of mum and dad pictures, but useless if you have thousands of pictures and hundreds of events and projects.


Aperture mimics iPhoto and missed this too for the sake of compatibility. Flickr has way better sorting capabilities in that respect than Aperture & iPhoto. In flickr you have a calendar where you see all pictures by date... something absolutely ease to implement in both Aperture and iPhote but Apple decided not to.


Halfway Solution: Smart Folders and show date under every picture. That way if you create a Smart Folder 2012 (11) NOV: inside you will see all pictures of that month and you can spot fast the pictures shot on Nov the 10th.


This is the way a name folders and pictures:


Year (Month Number) Month's Name 3 first letters - Day of the Week 3 first letters - HourMinuteSecond - Event Name or Activity - City - Country


2012 (11) Nov Sun 13h23m34s - 11 Apostoles - Great Ocean Road - Victoria - Australia


I've being naming my pics this way for the last 10 years and I spot instantely where I have take every picture just reading the name. You can use IPTC and Aperture or other rename app.


I name folders like this:


Year (Month Number) Month's Name 3 first letters - Event or Activity o Proyect


2012 (11) Nov - Event or Activity o Proyect


Using Month Number sorted folders and pictures by date.

Nov 26, 2012 5:15 AM in response to Graham Lindsay

Another technique is to keep all your projects as single Aperture libraries. Aperture 3 allows you to switch libraries quite easily. If you've named your photos or albums carefully, Spotlight will locate them in a hurry. But I can locate mine quickly by locating the relevant project and the dated albums.

Yes, Spotlight will locate the library, but you cannot use Aperture to search inside all libraries in parallel. You will lose a lot of Aperture's power by splitting your library in several smaller libraries. My Aperture libary contains all the pictures I have ever ever taken. So, if I am looking for a picture of a rainbow, or a sunset, or a pretty orchid, I can search for rainbows, sunsets, particular flowers in one go and do not need to remember, if I saw the best sunset in Hawaii or n the Galapagos islands.

Dec 1, 2012 1:24 AM in response to mrbofus

Not sure if it's only since a very recent update, but you can now order Folders / Projects in the Library Inspector by date.


At the top right corner of the Library Inspector there is a dropdown menu with the option, "Keep Projects & Albums arranged by -> Date".


Warning... It doesn't seem like it's very good at sorting, though. When I first tried, it reordered all my projects, but definitely not in date order. I opened the Project Info panel (shift + i) for a few projects to check the dates listed there. After this, I re-selected to sort by date, and all of a sudden the few projects where I'd opened the Project Info Panel were now sorting in the correct date order. So I opened the panel for a few more, re-sorted again, and now these too were in the correct order.


The only way I could get the "sort by date" to work was to open the Project Info Panel for every project.

Apr 22, 2013 9:46 PM in response to avm3

This newer feature solved the same issue for me. Fortunately, you no longer need to open the info panel on each project, all projects are now sorted correctly as soon as you select the "Keep Projects & Albums arranged by -> Date" option.


Except there is no option to sort by *Descending* date, to get your most recent Projects to the top of the list.


The date sort in the Inspector is Ascending only, which is ludicrous: the oldest projects (i.e., finished ones) end up at the top of the list instead of the most recent ones -- the ones you are more likely to be working on. To get to recent and active Projects, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the Inspector.


Furthermore, based on the weridness that Pete A and I both experienced, Aperture sorts not by the date the Project was created, but by the oldest photo date within the project. My Project X has one photo from March 2011 and over a dozen from August 2011, but it is listed on top of Project Y even though all of Y's photos are from June 2011. Again, ludicrous. It should sort by the creation date or last modified date of the Project itself, just as it does for photos, with both ascending and descending options.


The only workaround is to use Graham Lindsay's method above, using YYYYMMDD as the beginning of every Project name. It works, but it is cumbersome. Apple should know and do better.

Apr 23, 2013 5:57 AM in response to Jonathan Freund

Hi Jonathan,


I agree that being able to reverse the date sort in the Library inspector should be possible.


I think your assertion that Projects should be sort-able by _their_ creation date, and not on the date(s) of the Images contained needs to be further thought out. The current method comes across as a bit of design arrogance, but in practice I think it makes sense and is both justified and smart. Aperture is rigorously Image-centric.


There are at least two other workarounds you might consider:

- Use Projects View (which has several sorting and grouping options, including "by date, descending").

- Move your Projects into Folders based on their status. I have Folders for "Import here!", "Need to be Keyworded", "Done", "Archive" and more. This post details some of what I do.


Of course, once you use Folders to group your Projects actively, you can use them in Projects View as well (you can drill down as well as group by Folder.


Two other work-arounds you might consider:

- Use the "Favorites" tag for active Projects. Then filter the Library Inspector for Favorites. (IME, this has limitations that make it un-advised, but YMMV).

- Use some kind of text-tag in the Project name, and filter Projects in either the Library Inspector or Projects View by these text tags. (These text-tags could be put in the Project Description Field as well. Aperture includes the contents of this field when it filters on Project name.)


HTH.


--Kirby.

How to sort Projects & Albums by date?

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