Feature Request: Default Playlist sorting option

[Eff X]

Hi there.

I have a feature request in regard to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=82247&p=278418

VLC simply sorts files in the order that the operating system list them. That's why the same order comes all the time until the folder is changed. VLC is not alone. ogg123 does the same thing for instance.

Is there any chance there will be an option to change this default sorting?

I'm using VLC on Windows, it's the same problem there. If I choose "Play in VLC" in the right click menu of a folder, the playlist order seems random (although static per folder). Which is annoying because I would like to hear a mp3 album from the beginning to the end. But I hear Track 7, then 3 and then 5 (, and so on) for example. My naming pattern is "Artist - Album\Track number with leading zeros - Track title". By manually sorting the playlist by Uri ascending I get the order I wanted to have.

What I would like to have is an option (in the preferences), where I could choose between this default behavior (operating system) and any ordering option of the playlist (uri ascending, title descending, and so on ...). So everytime I add multiple files to the playlist they will be added in that chosen options order. (Although I would already be happy with uri ascending as default.)


I hope this request doesn't exist already. I backtracked only the first 3 pages of feature requests and didn't find a similar one.

Kind regards,
Eff X

[nosiesnetnieuws]

Over one year later, and wholeheartedly seconded. The annoyance of having to manually sort my ripped CD or my multi-episode series in the right order *every time* is slowly becoming a show-stopper for me.

It may be that VLC is not alone in this, but that's a turnaround argument. One could also argue for offering no FLAC playback in VLC; Windows Media Player can't play FLAC, so VLC would not be alone in this. However, because Windows Media Player cannot play FLAC and VLC can, I don't use Windows Media Player. Because VLC cannot play my CD in the right order without me having to stop playback and press a few buttons, I am thinking about not using VLC anymore. I don't care if VLC is not alone in this...

I understand the real argument behind reading in the files in the order the OS returns them (reducing time and memory complexity), but

1. generally folders of files have few files; and
2. one can check how many files there are BEFORE sorting them, and sort them only if there are indeed few files; and
3. sorting is not really a time-complex operation (n log n should be enough) anyway.

Reading through the forums and requests, I see many people asking for this feature, and this feature is very simple to program.

My two cents.

[Win7Mac]

Hard to believe this issue is still not taken care of.
But OK, then please do it NOW!

PS: There's another topic on this problem here:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=98980

[logicalpositivism]

I guess the defaults must be intended for people who do not listen to albums(?), but for many people that is what we do almost all of the time -- play albums. Playlists should be irrelevant and unnecessary for this use case -- there is already a set order in which the tracks should be played, so not having any way to make them play in that correct order by default is a definite show-stopper.

In my case, the files almost always contain the correct track numbers as meta-data for the player to use. And if I click on the album folder and say "sort by track number ascending", VLC will use that data. For that album. Until I restart it.

And when track numbers are not available, sorting by filename is the logical backup option, and again, VLC absolutely can do this if you tell it. For that album. Until I restart it.

The functionality is basically there already. We just need a setting to (optionally) pick a sort order to use as the default.

The absolute ideal would be an "album order" option which uses the tracks numbers if they exist, but automatically falls back to filename sorting otherwise; but given how long this bug has been around so far, I would gladly settle for the more basic approach.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

The last sorted order should be remembered in VLC.

[logicalpositivism]

The last sorted order should be remembered in VLC.

So if I tell it to sort an album by track number, VLC will automatically sort all future albums by track number also? (until given a new sort order)

If that's correct, that's excellent. (It doesn't happen in my version of VLC (hence my query), but I'll be happy knowing that it's been implemented.)

If you mean that it will only remember the sort order for the single specific album for which you changed the setting, that wouldn't solve the problem.

[logicalpositivism]

Jean-Baptiste Kempf: So far as I can tell, that doesn't work at all.

I've just updated to the latest version (via http://linuxforums.org.uk/index.php?topic=10002.0 ) and nothing much appears to have changed in this regard from the version 1.x that was from the normal Ubuntu 11.04 package.

a) Changing the sort order only affects the albums which are "open" at that point in time, so when I subsequently open a new album, it has the wrong sort order.
b) When I restart VLC, it forgets it all anyhow.

So to reiterate the request: Please (please please) could we have a new option to set a *default* sort order which will be used for *all* albums played?

(edit: I should note that the default listing seems like it might just be an alpha-numeric string sort of the track number -- tracks 2-9 come after tracks 10-19 -- so maybe it's actually attempting to do the right thing, but failing to use an appropriate sorting algorithm?)

[raymalone]

This isn't working for VLC media player 2.0.2 again.. When I select a number of files, just say 5 .avi files and either click play/add to VLC playlist it still randomly plays the files. When I go to playlist via CTRL+L, right click and select sort by title ascending, it doesn't save that command for the next time I open a playlist. Sure ye can implement a default option of having the multiple files open in alphanumerical order. Also I'm on windows 32bit if that helps. Do you have anything else you can tell me to help fix this issue? Kind regards, Ray.

[tomq]

Every time I play an album, I have to:
(1) select the songs
(2) select ADD TO VLC PLAYLIST
(3) right click on a song in the playlist
(4) select SORT
(5) select TITLE ASCENDING
(6) click PLAY
(7) start listening.

It would be great if I could:
(1) select the songs
(2) select PLAY WITH VLC
(3) start listening.

Note that the default sorting order makes little sense to me - reading this thread it seems it's based on the OS default. Why not pick the folder ordering at the very least?

... Just made this account specifically because this issue annoys me every time.

[dajare]

Four years later ... still not. Still makes sense. Still a desiderata.

We live in hope.

[larsskj]

I miss that feature a lot as well - and I've started searching for an alternative player...

[flac_jonez]

OSX 10.11.6
VLC 2.2.4 Weatherwax (Intel 64bit)

I'm still perplexed. I have files named to be in the correct error. I moved them to a folder in the right order as well.

Open Finder, navigate to folder of files I want to play.
Open VLC.
Select all (.flac) files.
Drag and drop to VLC.
The tracks show up in the UI in the correct order but play in a very weird order.

I know this has been talked about forever. Would manually creating a playlist and setting the order work? Do I have to do this?

[flac_jonez]

My bad. I must have pressed cmd-z in the wrong window and turned "Random" on. :~(

[d69898]

+1 from me. Would like the option to choose default playlist play by number or order in windows/file viewer.

[KarlMayer]

Not sure there is any sense requesting this yet again, yet another four years later. Seems this has been a bug forever. But anyway: here it is: please implement this.

Have created this account just for this request...

[vintage]

I've used VLC forever, and this still sucks.
Please allow us to use track number as the default sort!

[IntuEdge]

This appears to have been implemented. Now I need a way to turn it off.

I accidentally clicked the "Title" column heading on a customized playlist (Windows 10), and it sorted the list by title. Couldn't find any way to undo it. Cleared and reloaded the playlist, but it immediately sorted by title. Quit VLC and restarted, but it remembered the default sort, and now I can't load my custom playlist without it getting resorted by the app.

Work around -- nothing on my list has any data under genre, so now I have VLC set to sort by genre. I can load my playlist and it stays in the original order.

I deleted the genre column from my display, but restoring it shows that VLC still wants to sort by it.

I would love an "unsorted/raw" option.

Thanks for the great work -- I love VLC Player (and its support for remote control).

[vintage]

This appears to have been implemented. Now I need a way to turn it off.

I accidentally clicked the "Title" column heading on a customized playlist (Windows 10), and it sorted the list by title. Couldn't find any way to undo it. Cleared and reloaded the playlist, but it immediately sorted by title. Quit VLC and restarted, but it remembered the default sort, and now I can't load my custom playlist without it getting resorted by the app.

Try adding a column for Tracks to the playlist, and clicking on that.
(Alternate (right) click on the title bar, and make sure "Track number" is selected)