Arranging photos in a contact sheet always starts from Filename order

[KeithRJ]

Hi,

I am using PMP 6.0 build 6784 on Windows 11 64-bit and every time I want to manually arrange my photos in a contact sheet it always starts from Filename order even if I have selected some other order first.

I often want to adjust the order of my photos when in Capture Time first. In other words I want PMP to NOT reorder my photos to Filename order when I select Arrange from the order dropdown.  I want the Contact sheet to remain in the order I have just before selecting Arrangement.

As a workaround I selected Capture Time for sort order and renamed all the photos to add a sequence number to the from of the filename.  After doing this I can order my photos starting with pseudo-Capture Time order.

While doing the rename I also noticed that the .pmarrangement.dat file is NOT updated with the renamed files.  I think this may cause issues in the future.

[Kirk Baker]

Keith,

I am using PMP 6.0 build 6784 on Windows 11 64-bit and every time I want to manually arrange my photos in a contact sheet it always starts from Filename order even if I have selected some other order first.

I often want to adjust the order of my photos when in Capture Time first. In other words I want PMP to NOT reorder my photos to Filename order when I select Arrange from the order dropdown.  I want the Contact sheet to remain in the order I have just before selecting Arrangement.

Choose View->Make Arrangement to start your arrangement with the current sort order.  The sort popup menu will change to Arrangement and then you can make changes.

HTH,

-Kirk

[KeithRJ]

Thanks for the reply Kirk.

If you do not have an Arrangement and you select Arrangement from the sort drop-down PMP creates a new Arrangement using File Name order.

Should this not just create take new Arrangement from the current sorry order thereby working the same as the menu option to create an Arrangement?

The second part of my post reports that when renaming with the Attachment sort order selected the arrangement hidden file is NOT updated to reflect the name changes.

[Kirk Baker]

If you do not have an Arrangement and you select Arrangement from the sort drop-down PMP creates a new Arrangement using File Name order.

Should this not just create take new Arrangement from the current sorry order thereby working the same as the menu option to create an Arrangement?

It could work that way, yes.  But currently it does not.  The instructions I gave you should get you moving forward.  If you'd like to request that it work the way you describe, please make a feature request.

The second part of my post reports that when renaming with the Attachment sort order selected the arrangement hidden file is NOT updated to reflect the name changes.

Understood.  This would have to be fixed.

-Kirk

[Bob Russell]

Hi Keith,

  I tested the renaming of the image files while in the Arrangement sort mode and the pmarrangement.dat file is updated as soon as the rename operation is done. When I open the pmarrangement.dat file in a text editor app, I can see the new filenames from the rename operation.  Have you tried deleting the pmarrangement.dat file and then let PM create a new one? Quit Photo Mechanic and then delete the .pmarrangement.dat file using the Explorer window. Start Photo Mechanic and open the same folder of images. Use the Make Arrangement option from the View menu. Now can you rename the images in the Arrangement sort mode and have Photo Mechanic update the pmarrangement.dat file?

Best regards,

--Bob