File Order on Open

[Hangman]

Is there any logic to the order in which a group of files are opened in AD and AP. I have a group of seven files called, 1.png, 2.png ... 7.png. If I select all from the finder and open them in either AD or AP they always open in a different order, i.e. the order of the file tabs reading from left to right when open in AD and AP is different each time they are opened with the exception of the last file which always appears as 7.png.

These are the results showing the tab order in AD and AP when selecting all seven files in the finder and then right-clicking and selecting Open With. It's not a real issue and doesn't really cause any problems though it would be helpful if they opened either in the order they were selected or alphabetically.

[MEB]

Hi Hangman,
No, currently Affinity apps ignore any type of pattern/sequence in the file names. This is already logged to be looked at.

[Hangman]

Hi MEB,

Okay, thanks for letting me know... it currently seems a bit random and also a bit odd that the last file in the group always opens last but good to know it's being looked at. Logically it would be good if they opened in filename order or in the order in which they were selected in the finder.

[carl123]

I think Affinity tries to open as many files as possible at the same time and that may be dependent on the number of CPU cores you have 

What order those files open may be due to the size of the files plus what other things the cores are doing at the same time

The only possible logic I can give for the 7.png file always opening last is if you have a 6 core machine, that would mean the 7th file always has to wait until one of the other 6 cores have finished opening their file.

Do you know how many CPU cores you have?

The above is pure speculation only a Dev could tell you exactly what is going on

[Hangman]

Hi Carl,

Just the four cores...

[Wosven]

It would be nice for the file to open in some order, especially if the feature "open as layers" is added.

For example, with Gimp, you can open a serie of files named xxx_1, xxx_2, xxx_3... xxx_n, to export later as animated GIF, and the file xxx_1 is at the bottom, xxxx_2 is in second position, etc. I don't know if it's checking files' name or if it depend of the Finder or Explorer (but the result is the same on Mac and on Windows).

[Pšenda]

On 8/12/2019 at 5:03 PM, Hangman said:

Logically it would be good if they opened in filename order or in the order in which they were selected in the finder.

But sorting files is done by Explorer/Finder, according to its display parameters (sort by name/date, descending/ascending, ...)
Try to view files without sorting (if Explorer/Finder allows, I use Total Commander) - this will be order, in which the OS passes the file names to Affinity.

[Hangman]

12 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Try to view files without sorting (if Explorer/Finder allows, I use Total Commander) - this will be order, in which the OS passes the file names to Affinity. 

1

But the 'issue' (if you can call it that) is that AD and AP open the files in a different order each time (see my first post) so even if they were opened in their unsorted order you would surely expect the files to at least open in the same order each time I think, as in I assume even an unsorted order has order if that makes sense?

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

But the 'issue' (if you can call it that) is that AD and AP open the files in a different order each time (see my first post) so even if they were opened in their unsorted order you would surely expect the files to at least open in the same order each time I think, as in I assume even an unsorted order has order if that makes sense?

The order may be affected by editing the files and writing them back to disk.
You can try the following - create a new directory and copy some of your files to it using the Explorer/Finder. They should be copied and written in a sort order, as shown in Explorer/Finder. Then try to reopen them if the order is still unsorted, and different each time.

[Hangman]

Just now, Pšenda said:

The order may be affected by editing the files and writing them back to disk.

 

These were simply a batch of seven png files sitting in their own folder. The files aren't edited in any way in between opening, simply select all seven files, open in AD/AP, quit and repeat and each time the order they open in is different.

As MEB said earlier in the thread...

20 hours ago, MEB said:

No, currently Affinity apps ignore any type of pattern/sequence in the file names. This is already logged to be looked at.

 

so this looks to be currently by design but something that may be rectified at some point.

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, Hangman said:

so this looks to be currently by design but something that may be rectified at some point.

As I understand it, the OS queues up the files to be opened in the order they are selected, but which one actually opens first depends on several factors that an app requesting the files cannot control directly. This is in part because the display order of files has nothing to do with how the data they contain is stored in the file system, & in part because various amounts of their data may currently be available from inactive memory, disk caches, read ahead buffers, & so on. Yet another factor is apps like Affinity do not necessarily need to read the entire file to open it, sort of like how an entire database file does not need to read to access a specific record in it.

So in a way, it could be considered as "by design" of the OS, the file type(s), the file system, the memory manager, etc. & thus not something that can be "rectified" at the app level.

Of course, this does not mean the files can't be sorted in the Affinity workspace. For example, a new tab or window could be created for each selected file before any are opened, sorted by file name or any other criteria the OS can pass to the app. There would have to be some mechanism to handle any files in the queue that can't successfully be opened for one or another reason to prevent the app from hanging, but while it could be tricky, it seems doable.

[rjJunior]

New to the forum and wondering whether any progress has been made on this file order issue.  Opening is one thing (how it can be that Preview opens the files in proper order, i.e., Filename123, Filename124, etc but AP can't is just whack) but, as far as I can tell, no option in AP exists to sort by filename.  Do I really have to open files one at at time to have them appear in their proper filename order in the tabs view?  Please tell me I am missing something here.

[Old Bruce]

16 minutes ago, rjJunior said:

New to the forum and wondering whether any progress has been made on this file order issue.  Opening is one thing (how it can be that Preview opens the files in proper order, i.e., Filename123, Filename124, etc but AP can't is just whack) but, as far as I can tell, no option in AP exists to sort by filename.  Do I really have to open files one at at time to have them appear in their proper filename order in the tabs view?  Please tell me I am missing something here.

Welcome to the forums,

Sadly no you are not missing something here. It is truly wack/whack. Another thing you will notice is that (on Mac at least) If you double click on a file to open it in Photo the program will open it but not display it if there is another document already open. It is these little things that drive us all mad.

[lepr]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

If you double click on a file to open it in Photo the program will open it but not display it if there is another document already open

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[rjJunior]

Nothing like consistency 😏  Thanks for all the info!

[SWS]

I'm missing the correct opening order, too. When working with sequences of 10 or more ascending files, it is hard to keep the right order in editing.

In such cases is working with other apps much easier.

[John Batten]

I'm a newbie here, having used P'shop for 17 years. This issue seems to be still here. Is there a way of instructing Affinity to open multiple files in file name order? Having them open in random order adds enormously to the work flow.

Affinity is a wonderful application but the lack of file order and an LR database is a major problem for anyone who takes a lot of photos that need comparing. I think I'm going to have to go back to Lightroom and then from there opt for ...Edit in...Affinity.

Edited December 9, 2021 by John Batten
Incompetence

[Old Bruce]

Just now, John Batten said:

Is there a way of instructing Affinity to open multiple files in file name order?

Having them open in random order adds enormously to the work flow.

No. This has been asked for previously and the developers are aware.

"Having them open in random order..." I get caught every now and then, 'What is happening????'. And a few times it was a case of deciding that I would be better off by just closing everything, without saving, and starting over. And paying more attention to what I was doing.

[R C-R]

32 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

"Having them open in random order..." I get caught every now and then, 'What is happening????'.

As best as I can tell, the order is not random: it depends on how quickly the file system makes each file available to the app, so it is sort of a 'first come, first served' thing.

But since the user has no way of seeing or controlling that, it might as well be random. 

[Old Bruce]

Just now, R C-R said:

But since the user has no way of seeing or controlling that, it might as well be random. 

Quite a while back I put together a Python script that would take the selected files and sort them alphabetically and then open each one in Photo in order. That worked but it was cumbersome and I couldn't be bothered to actually figure out how to have them opened in Date Created or by Size. As I said it was cumbersome so I gave up on it.

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Quite a while back I put together a Python script that would take the selected files and sort them alphabetically and then open each one in Photo in order.

I assume you mean the script loaded the files one at a time, stepping through the list & (possibly?) waiting for each one to load before moving to the next one -- IOW, the equivalent of manually opening one file, waiting for it to load, then opening the next one, & so on.

If so, I wonder how long the script typically took to load a sorted list of files vs. the 'first come, first' served' way it works now. Did you ever test for that?

[Old Bruce]

It would

  Allow me to navigate to the a of photo files.

  make a list of the selected files, and sort that list

  read the first filename

  tell Photo to open that

  read the next filename 

  tell Photo to open that

  ... repeat until no more files in the list

So slower than opening 20 files from Affinity's File > Open... But not a great deal slower. I would say a percentage or so.

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

So slower than opening 20 files from Affinity's File > Open... But not a great deal slower. I would say a percentage or so.

Did you happen to test it with files of very different sizes, or whenever for any other reason the load time might be considerably different file-to-file?

[Old Bruce]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Did you happen to test it with files of very different sizes,

Yes. Still opened in order, lined up in the main window in order. I am sure that I could have made a scenario where it would break but I just wanted to see if it was possible, kind of a proof of concept thing.

I would love to be able to sort a folder of files in the Affinity File > Open... window according to date or size or name or tags and have a selection of them open and be arranged in that order. But as far as I know no application allows me to do that. Possibly the 'as far as I know' is because graphics are the only files I actually want ordered on opening.

[aslusers]

I would like to add this maddening behavior I've been experiencing: 

-I hope 9 files

-They open in random order

- I move the windows into the order I need them (numerical by file number)

- I open one more additional file

- ALL THE WINDOWS GET MIXED UP AGAIN

 Why?   Why!?

I'm working on compositing images from the recent total solar eclipse, and I have had to reorder the windows so many times.    

PLEASE just have them open in file number order.   I'll wait the extra few seconds for the processor to do this.