P: Live Sort Options in Shares

[Alex Dixon]

We’ve seen several requests about the desire to allow setting different sort orders for album shares in Lightroom web. While we’ve recently added options to re-sort by different sort criteria in Lightroom Web, this won’t allow for live sorting or user-controlled sorting in shares.

A few things I’ve seen:


Request  1: I like to have a single share for family/friends to folllow, which might have lots (thousands) of photos. It’s important that they can see the newest photos.

Request 2: I have a specific sort order I want to use for client proofing/review (I should note that we have a tech preview for client proofing available on https://lightroom.adobe.com/)
To help us build the right features, we’d love to get more info on what you’re trying to enable for the folks you share with. It’d also be useful to know which Lightroom clients you use.

Thanks!

[Todd Shaner]

I'm surprised no one has replied. I'd be happy with the known bug fixed so that shared albums respect the "live" sort order of the LR Desktop and Web app.

[Jim Wilde]

What do you mean by "live sort order", Todd? Custom Order, or something else? AFAICT, Custom Order is respected throughout the system, including album shares.

"LR Desktop"....are you meaning LRCC or LR Classic?

[Todd Shaner]

What I mean is any changes made to an existing album such as 1) Add pictures, 2) Delete pictures, or 3) Change sort order (Custom, Date, Filename) is updated and reflected in the same sort order for the Web app, Mobile app, and Shared album link albums.

[Jim Wilde]

1) and 2) I agree, and in my experience they do indeed update across the whole ecosystem, including shared albums. 

3) is more complicated, as most of the LRCC apps have local sort order options. So I personally wouldn't expect my changing of an albums sort order from say, date to filename in one app would sync to the other apps (because I may want a different order in those other apps, and the option to change order does exist on those other apps).

Changes to Custom Order, OTOH, should sync across the ecosystem so that when using the Custom Order sort option in another app, the new order is displayed, no matter where it was set. And again, it's my experience that changing the custom order in one app (where it is allowed) DOES sync to all the other apps when Custom Order is selected in that app. The only wrinkle is that shared albums were ONLY displayed in Custom Order, and there is not currently any different ordering options when viewing a shared album from the URL link. The Custom Order itself could be set in LRCC mobile, LR Classic and the "Display" tab in LRCC Web, but whatever ended up in that "Display" tab is what the user sees when viewing the shared album. But once understood, I find that changes to Custom Order do sync consistently across the ecosystem.

The new option to "reorder" to e.g filename in the "Display" tab of LRCC Web potentially changes things a little, and to be honest I'm a little ambivalent about that new option. Largely because for many of my shared albums I've used the "story-telling" capabilities with added text and dividers with a custom order, all of which is done in the "Display" tab....so using the new option, if used, would totally lose the custom ordering and the custom text (unlike Classic where I can switch between Custom and other orders, LRCC Web does not "remember" the previous Custom Order when the new reorder option is used). Thus whatever re-ordering is used in the "Display" tab becomes the new Custom Order across the ecosystem, including Classic, AND the new order when viewing the album from the shared URL.

Todd, you mention a "known bug"....what does that refer to?

[Todd Shaner]

Todd, you mention a "known bug"....what does that refer to?

This happened to me when I synced a LR Classic collection that had about 200 image files with Capture Time Ascending sort order and then created a shared album in LR CC Web. When I added an additional images 75 image files to the same LR Classic Collection they all appeared in LR CC Web and the shared album link below (later capture time) the original files. I was able to correct it by selecting Custom Sort Order and then move one file to a new location, move it back to the original location, and reselect Capture Time sort order. All of the image files then appeared in the desired Capture Time Ascending order. This should not be necessary and is the "bug I am requesting be fixed.

The same bug apparently is also present when using LR CC Desktop and Web apps to create the shared album. At the below link *Alex Dixon mentions, "I should also note that if you expand the controls in the bottom of the "Display" tab, the filtering options are also there (and can be used before you turn on the share). So there's a little bug/inconsistency here as well."

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/limited-filtering-options-in-shared-photos

[Jim Wilde]

I don't see that as a "bug", rather a slightly irritating consequence of the current design in which the order of images in the shared album is determined by the order of images in the "Display" tab in LRCC Web. The thing is that the display order in the "Display" tab is a de facto "Custom Order", which creates a problem when adding more images to an already established album, i.e. given that the app assumes that the current order has been user-defined, how would you expect new images to be sorted? The only logical way is to add the new images either to the front or the end of the existing set, after which the onus passes back to the user to manually move them into the desired order.

The new feature in the "Display" tab, allowing the current custom order to be reverted to, e.g. Capture Time, helps avoid that messing around that you were having to do in Classic to "reset" the Custom Order....but that will only last until the next time you add more images, after which you may need to revert again.

A better solution would perhaps be to allow the sort/viewing order of the shared album to be determined on the "Sharing" tab in LRCC, with options such as Capture Time, Filename, or Custom (i.e. the current default). Better still would be to give those options to the viewer of the shared albums.

[Todd Shaner]

A better solution would perhaps be to allow the sort/viewing order of the shared album to be determined on the "Sharing" tab in LRCC, with options such as Capture Time, Filename, or Custom (i.e. the current default).

Yes, that would certainly solve the problem I outlined. Once the sort order is selected it should respect that setting when image files are added or deleted from the LR Classic synced collection or LR CC album.

Better still would be to give those options to the viewer of the shared albums.

Agreed, as long as the original sort order established in LR CC Desktop and Web can be reselected to prevent as you mention loss of a custom story telling sort order.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The current issue/problem of sort order being self-adjusted on the web is such a PIA. I do not understand how something so basic can be so "altered" against the wishes or needs of the users. For those of us who rely upon the placement of images this is so annoying. This is probably my greatest annoyance of using lightroom.adobe.com

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I did write to Adobe about an issue that I experienced. On my desk top I have LR CC edition 7.5 with he nice lady popping up at the beginning.  I purchase a new lap to and asked to have LR installed and I got LL program that is totally different and not as user friendly as the edition on my desk top.  How can I get my desk top version,  No one at Adobe has answered my request.  Comments????

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Bill, you probably installed Lightroom CC (the new cloudy one) instead of Lightroom Classic (the one you were using). Try these instructions to move your Classic catalog between computers: How do I move Lightroom to a new computer?  And have you imported all of your photos into the new LR CC you downloaded? If so, you might want to clean out the cloud before you enable sync in your Classic catalog.

[Alex Dixon]

Gary -- are you using LrCC or LrClassic? And is the piece that's annoying for you similar to Todd's 3rd case (we're not using the same sort as you have selected in the other app?).

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Ability to define sort order when publishing an album to the web (how pictures are presented on the web page). Nice to have: ability for the user to change sort order dynamically on the page.

[xaci_68]

Same problem here, running Classic last release: it's something even my son can think about, but apparently not Adobe! WE NEED THE CORRECT SORTING ON THE WEB GALLERIES

[catherines30789229]

I'm not understanding what most of these replies are talking about, but I shoot weddings with a second photographer. I have to custom order most of the time to create a logical flow of the day. Once I do that, I rename all of the images with sequential numbers and create a "Finished" folder and sync that to the web. No matter what I try, the sequence of photos on the web view (through "public link") are NEVER in that order. 

This is terribly annoying because I like to be able to have another set of eyes go over the edits before exporting them, and it's a little difficult when the photos are all over the place. You would think that after three years of people complaining about this it would have been fixed by now. I can't believe that it's that difficult to create the ability to sort the images by multiple values available on the public view.

[ragrawal]

Hi,

One clarity if you can help with, Is the order messed up only in public links or on LrWeb also.

After creating the Finished folder in LrClassic (which has images arranged in some custom order and then renamed to sequential numbers), when you sync it to LrWeb, do you see the same order there or not? Or is it that when you share the public links, other people are not able to see the same order?

Thanks,
R. Agrawal

[nicke94568331]

Any update on allowing users to simply set and forget the sort order on shared albums that just about every other photo sharing site known to man has had from the start:

Capture date with the newest photos at the top.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lightroom Classic shows the correct sort order, Lightroom CC shows the correct sort order, once I copy the link and open the album up in any number of browsers, the sort order is wrong. Not only is it wrong, the order is based on absolutely nothing I can understand. It simply looks arbitrary. We pay for a product and have embarrassment to show for it once we try to share. 

[Tomas TT]

Hello. All my clients see the photos in order that makes no sense. I agree, it's a shame 😞