Finder file sorting preferences - Finder ignores zero in filename

It is obviously an intentional design feature, not intended for people of our age and up close and personal experience with computers (punched my first 80-Column card around 1970, and have worked for Univac, DEC, Compaq, HP, and other companies big and small).

But Apple does not really target users with our experience.

If you want to tell Apple they are doing it wrong, then here are some links you can use:

BugReporter (Free ADC (Apple Developer Connection) account needed for BugReporter)

<http://bugreporter.apple.com>

Anyone can get a free ADC account at:

<https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action>

Finder has always sorted file names as they should appear. There is no need for leading zeros.

Since 3, 03, 0000000000003 is just 3, it sorts the file into where the threes go.

I don't think there is a way to alter the sort algorithm.

In the filename all characters should be characters, not numbers. Otherwise you get scrambled your file lists:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ypgudfumvayl1j/Bildschirmfoto%20von%20Finder%20%2823- 07-16%2C%2013-45-08%29.png?dl=0

You would have to contact Apple about that.

Apple's content-based sorting algorithm works tremendously well for me. I don't have to pre-design my numerical suffixes with padding, then rename all files when I failed to recognize the need for another order of magnitude.

Your screen shot appears to sort the files correctly.

I started working with computers in 1970 (hardware construction and OS and Application programming) an did and do it all my life until now. Never i found an explanation like that. Most Applications in this world will fail to find a file with this logic. Its a bug. nothing more and nothing less. If it works for you thats ok., but it is a bug. For my work its a horror.

And my screenshot shows that it is sorted incorrectly and why I all the day am searching for a solution...

It's not a bug. It is designed that way so you don't have to prepend padding characters to sort things numerically. You may not like it, but it has been that way since very early in the Mac OS.

Numbers in file names are almost exclusively used to add ordinality to the naming convention. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to sort the names based on that ordinal value.

Most humans don't think in this sense, "I will never need more than 640 files, so I will append two zeros at the front of my numerical suffixes. Oops, I need more than 1000 files, now. Crap..."

Nobody wants to see,

PO1

PO10

PO100

PO2

PO3

…

PO11

PO12

Reinard Schmitz wrote:

I started working with computers in 1970 (hardware construction and OS and Application programming) an did and do it all my life until now... For my work its a horror.

Apple has used this system for the last 15 years. If you want to do it the other way, I think you have to use Terminal or an alternative finder app.

You are right. Nobody should see that, but:

P0001

P0002

…

P0021

…

P0234

…

P9999

So: If you have really 10 thousands of photos with the naming convention Pxxxxx.jpg and by mistake your workflow missed to transform the filename from the Camera (i.g. P3155.jpg to P03155.jpg) but the last file was P03154.jpg where would you search in a long finder list for the file? In the area of P0... or in that of P3... ?

The Finder sorts P03xxx and P3xxx to the same place in the list, so I will miss this file when I go to the P3... area.

I use Apple since 2003 and never ran in this problem, it just happened today for the 1st time. And I have to find a solution for this uncertainty.

It is leading (or padding if you like) in the numerical portion of the name.

I would search in the three thousands as the numeric value 03155 is equivalent to 3155.

I don't see any uncertainty at all.