How to stop secondary column sorting?

[Coldblackice]

Not exactly sure when I first starting noticed this, but I've been having a frustrating issue with multi-column sorting occurring, and happening by default on all my searches, driving me crazy. Is there a reason this started happening? And is there a setting to stop it? I must be blind if so, as I've looked and cannot find one.

Background:

I'll open a fresh search, search for something, sort by a column, but upon not seeing results I expect, I look again and notice there's actually a secondary column also sorting. Re-sorting by the column I want doesn't fix it, I instead have to click the other column header multiple times to get rid of its sorting before I can then sort by the column I need. Given I'm often sorting by different columns in searches, this can mean having click both column headers multiple times just to get back to a baseline no-sorting.

The ability to multi-sort columns is a cool, useful feature, but it'd be great if this could be applied only by CTRL-clicking column header(s) for example; whereas clicking without any modifiers does a normal single-column sorting, clearing out any secondary sortings (or at least a setting to enable such).

I've looked for secondary-sorting in settings but can't find anything about it, and I've combed over the "Home" tab a number of times, assuming it to most likely be there.

PS - A minor issue, but IMO the "Home" tab of "Settings" doesn't really convey meaning. I always expect the "Results" tab to contain what "Home" does, and since I don't change these settings often, I usually end up first going to "Results" tab looking for the settings there, and upon not finding them, having to then click through the tabs until finding the column-defaults under "Home".

Not a big deal, it just might be more efficient merging "Home" and "Results" tabs into one. Given "Results" is just a handful of checkboxes, these could fit within the empty space to the right side of the "Home" tab, titling the tab "Results". Just a thought.

[void]

Shift will set the secondary sort.

Is your Shift key getting stuck down?



Have you set the sort from a filter with a sort: search?

[Coldblackice]

Shift will set the secondary sort.

Is your Shift key getting stuck down?

Have you set the sort from a filter with a sort: search?

Hmm, strange. My Shift definitely isn't stuck, likewise, when I do hold Shift, nothing happens when I click column headers, no secondary sorting nor even primary sorting happens. FTR, I'm on v1366a and also Everything sort everything by date-modified-descending as a default.

I also just checked my filters and none of them have sortings set* (which I didn't recall was even possible, useful to know):

Everything Filters_FORUM_2024-02-06_17-06-48.png (35.62 KiB) Viewed 590 times

Everything Filters_FORUM_2024-02-06_17-07-19.png (15.96 KiB) Viewed 590 times

Is there somewhere I might have inadvertently set some setting having to do with this?

*Side note, could be useful adding an extra column(s) to "Filters" dialog indicating if additional customizations have been set. For example, a checkbox indicating a custom/non-default sorting is applied via that filter, details of which are viewable by opening that filter's specific dialog. Not a big deal though

EDIT:

I think I may have discovered the issue, or at least things leading up to it, and it involves a few different things:

*I just realized that doing CTRL-T to open a new search tab carries over the previous tab's sorting instead of a fresh search with baseline defaults set via Settings

*I also just discovered that shift-clicking a column header sometimes applies a secondary sort, sometimes does not, but crucially, it doesn't visualize this with a highlighted column header ...until if and when I open a new tab from that tab, then suddenly the new tab shows more than one column highlighted:

*Although I have Everything set to sort by Date-Modified-Descending by default, in the past, if I click on another column header, the expectation was sorting to happen entirely off that column alone. Now, however, it appears to apply a secondary sorting by default, without holding additional keys. This is made even further confusing by not visually indicating it right away with a second highlighted column. Only by opening a new search tab does it suddenly show the two column headers highlighted.

This is what was confusing me: I'd open a new search tab only to discover that it "randomly" had a double sorting right off the bat, not realizing it was from my previous tab which didin't visually indicate it. Likewise, I wasn't realizing that Everything is by default doing secondary-sorting when clicking column headers.

So if I did a search for something, sorted by "Name", not realizing it's invisibly sorting by Name+Date-Modified, switched to another task, then later came back to that search window, opened a new tab, searched for something, only to discover that two columns are sorting/highlighted. Not only that, but clicking on another column to sort wouldn't reset the sortings. I'd have to click the already-highlighted columns multiple times to undo their sorting.

[void]

This is a tab bug.

When setting Home -> Sort and creating a new tab, the header will show both the existing sort and the home sort as current.
(The home sort is actually used)

It will be fixed in the next alpha update.

For now, switching tabs will refresh the display issue.

[Coldblackice]

This is a tab bug.

When setting Home -> Sort and creating a new tab, the header will show both the existing sort and the home sort as current.
(The home sort is actually used)

It will be fixed in the next alpha update.

For now, switching tabs will refresh the display issue.

Aha, now it all makes sense. You're right, switching back and forth between tabs clears it. This is what was confusing me, particularly with searches where it's not immediately obvious whether or not a secondary sorting might be applied or not (like with many various different folder paths / dates with few files in between).

Thanks for helping clear that up!

[void]

Everything 1.5.0.1367a fixes an issue with setting up the home search for a new tab.

The correct filter should now be activated.
The correct sort should now be shown.