how to set the initial order for the 'user order'?

[michaeljz]

Hi all,

I'm doing a project for which I first generate an image sequence from a clip. Then I would go into the sequence of images and do some rearrangement of them. Surprisingly, I have not been able to do this seemingly simple task so far. Here's what I have tried.

In the Project Bin where all of my images are, I clicked the 'list view', sorted them by name. this gave me the exact order of the images that I needed.

Then, I clicked the Icon view. Set the sorting to 'list view sort'. This retained the order of the images as before. I then tried moving an image to another spot but it turned out that reordering in this setting wasn't allowed.

So while I was still in the Icon view, I clicked 'User order', hoping that would be able move that image around. However, the icons were now sorted in a completely random order, instead of the order as I established with the prior steps!

So I'm looking for an effective way of setting the initial order for the 'user order' option. I can't do that by manually putting these images in the desired order because there are thousands of them. 

The above steps that I tried was suggested by the Google AI. But as I said, it didn't work for me. Please help!!

Thanks.

michael

[RobShultz]

You may want to look in to how automate to sequence works. (The four bars to the left of the bin/folder icon in the project panel.)

In icon view you can re-order your images in the bin, select them all and then use the automate to sequence to send them into your timeline. You can also control/cmd click on them and then when you execute the automate to sequence they will go in the order which you selected them. I hope that this helps.

[michaeljz]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried using the 'automate to sequence' idea but I didn't even get to that stage. Here's what happened.

The following picture is the Icon View of all the image in the bin displayed in List View Sort. It's the order that I desired.

 

As you can see, in the second row, I have a file named humming 1003.jpg Copy 01, which is a file that I want to move to the first row. But I can't do that in the current "List View Sort". So I switched to "User Order". But then it immediately display all the files in a different order as below:

 

As you can see, the order is completely random (and I can't possibly work with that order.) I can't even find the file humming 1003.jpg Copy 01 in the first few rows! Let alone moving it to the right position. Therefore, I couldn't even reach the stage where I could apply the function "Automate to sequence".

What do you think?

michael

[PaulMurphy]

The initial User Order in a bin is based on the order in which clips are added into that bin. If you'd like to set a custom sort order that you can still modify later using User Order:

1. Switch to List View and sort the clips using your desired column (e.g., name, media start, etc.).
2. Create a new bin.
3. Select the sorted clips and drag them into the new bin. They will retain that order as the new User Order.

[michaeljz]

Hi Paul,

Thanks so much for your reply. I tried what you suggested. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. Here's what happened.

I had a bin named 'photos' where I stored all the images. I clicked on the 'tape name' to sort them based on the file name. It did exactly what I wanted and sorted the files by name, e.g. humming 1000.jpg, humming 1000.jpg copy 01, humming 1001.jpg. etc. 

 

Then I created a new bin named "sorted by name". 

Then I selected the sorted images and copy-n-pasted them into the new bin (dragging them had the same result.) Here's how the new bin looked in List view (which is what I desired):

 

Then I switched to Icon View. Notice that the new bin condinued to display the images in the desired order in "list view sort".

However, when I switched to "user order", the images showed in an entirely different (random) order.

 

 

Unfortunately, this screwed me up because it has no order for my purpose at all. 

What did I do wrong?

Thanks.

michael

[PaulMurphy]

Switch your Icon View sort order to User Order first, then follow the steps above.

When you switch back to Icon View, the User Order should match the list sort order.

[michaeljz]

I just did. It didn't seem to make a difference. Here's the specifics of what I did:

1. In the original bin 'Photos', set to icon view, set the sort order to User Order.

2. Still in bin 'Photos', switched to List view. Then clicked 'tape name' to sort the files by name.

3. Select all image files. 

4. go to bin 'Sorted by name' (which happens to sit inside the bin 'Photos' if that matters). Set the view to icon view, set the sort order to User Order. Then paste what I copied. 

5. Checked the files. They were in random order!

 

6. Within the bin 'Sorted by name', switched to List view. The files are in the correct order! But unfortunately, I can't manually change the order in that view. Hence my problem.

What do you think?

[PaulMurphy]

It could be the copy/paste that is causing the issue. Try this instead - after sorting by Tape Name, drag them to the New Bin icon at the bottom right of the Project panel.

[michaeljz]

Tried that, but it brought up a new problem - it turned out that I couldn't drag-n-drop 1300 files to that icon. It just quietly did nothing. Oddly, if I tried to do just a handful like 14 files which were in Icon View with List View Sort, then I was able to drag-n-drop to the New Bin icon. And when viewed in Icon view and User Order, those files were in the correct order. 

This might appear to be promising if it can scale to thousands of files. I have a feeling though that when the number of files increases, that same problem will sneak in. The reason for this guess is that, in my previous unsuccessful trials, even though the complete set of about 1300 files appeared to be in random order, some big streaks of them were in the correct order. Just that I haven't figured out at which point it started to behave sporadically...

[R Neil Haugen]

Paul's steps are something that assistant editors were always supposed to do, to setup projects correctly.

A lot of users now don't know about "the way things need doing" in setting things up, and it's a problem in getting the performance you want. But it's more a knowledge thing than anything, as a practical matter.

Do Paul's steps on project setup, it works as you expect.