"Arrange items" needs an option (or multiple options) to reverse-sort

[rmwiseman]

I like to have my Nemo windows with the most recently-modified files at the top. It appears to be possible to automatically sort newly-opened windows by modified time, but always with oldest at the top. It would be really useful to have a "reverse order" tickbox or both "By Modification Date" and "By Modification Date (reverse)" or similar.

I'm using Nemo 2.8.7 on Mint 17.3.

[u2n]

Same preferences here. Achieve by:

Edit | Preferences | Behavior tab | Ignore per-folder view preferences <<-checked
and:
On Views tab, pick: By Modification Date
then:
Click column header Date Modified to select desired sort direction, in our case, newest on top.

Note there is a separate issue with the date pointer direction. In all of Linux, the convention is: pointer down = oldest first, pointer up = newest first. MS Windows uses the opposite.

Currently I see pointer direction changing arbitrarily when fiddling with other settings. Sometimes it follows Linux, sometimes Windows. If/when I'm able to nail this down to a repeatable sequence, I'll file a bug report.

[rmwiseman]

I'm now using Nemo 3.8.6 on Mint 19 and this feature is still missing. I find it very hard to believe that it's only a minority of people who like to see their latest files at the top of the list by default! I did check out the source from Github to see if I could work out how to implement the feature, but I fear my changes would be a bit of a hack. From what I've seen, though, it doesn't feel like it would be a big change to have a "reverse default sort direction" tickbox in the preferences alongside the "Sort folders before files" option.

[mtwebster]

You've always been able to select the sort type from the menu a second time to reverse it (the arrow changes direction to signify it) - it's just not documented or very discoverable. I'll be moving the sort options to the new popup window and this feature will be available there. Note the sort doesn't apply itself to generic things like the 'Computer' icon.

[rmwiseman]

Thanks for the quick response. Is there a way to make the chosen sort order default for all new Nemo windows? I've found I always have to click the "Date Modified" column when I start a new Nemo window to get the sort direction as I want it.

I did just try adding a new tickbox but there are so many layers where it has to be done, I felt I was going down a bit of a rabbit hole! (I'm not familiar with the framework being used, so that's no surprise. Even so, the code I've seen looks very clear and nicely organised.)

It's nice to hear that this option will be available in the future, so thanks for that.

[mtwebster]

Sorry I misunderstood, the steps I describe only apply to the desktop, I'll see about allowing a default to be set for the sort order in the normal windowed views.

[rmwiseman]

No problem -- I really appreciate your time and effort.

[esauvisky]

No progress on this feature? It's basically the only thing stopping me from moving from s* nautilus to nemo 😭

[mtwebster]

So it turns out this setting has been implemented from the beginning, there was just never a way to change it in the preferences.

For the time being you can use the command line to set it:

gsettings set org.nemo.preferences default-sort-in-reverse-order true

or

gsettings set org.nemo.preferences default-sort-in-reverse-order false

[rmwiseman]

Fantastic! Many thanks.