list view sort order

[aaronfross]

Hello,

I want to display items in the Project window in List view, in alphabetical order. Always. When I add something, I don't want it to be listed in a custom sort order. I want it to always be in alphabetical order. ALWAYS.

The Sort Icons button is grayed out when in List view. It only works in Icon View.

If I, for example, duplicate an item, it starts out with the name of the original item. Then I rename it. The renamed item does not get sorted by Name. It is out of alphabetical order. The only thing I can do is click on the Name column in the metadata display at the top of the window.

So every time I duplicate something, I need to click that Name column. Not once, but twice, because the first time I click it results in the order being reversed.

This is poor UX. Someone evidently thought that it was more important for renamed items to remain in the same order instead of being automatically sorted. But that flies in the face of the entire concept of sorting.

What should happen is that a renamed item gets sorted automatically. The item remains selected. If necessary, the window scrolls to reveal the selected item. This is how most programs work.

The number of super annoying quality of life issues in Premiere really drives me crazy. How can it be so bad? It just defies comprehension.

Or am I missing something?

[Carlos Ziade]

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/customizing-project-panel.html

If none of this works, submit a feature request for future updates and let us 

know to vote.

[PaulMurphy · Accepted solution]

I suggest creating a custom keyboard shortcut for Refresh Sort Order. When you're in List view, you can use this shortcut to instantly update the sort order of the currently sorted column in the Project panel.

Refreshing the sort order in both Icon and List views needs to be manually prompted. This is similar to how things work in UIs like spreadsheets. Personally, I think this is preferable to automatic sorting, which could cause items to move out of view the moment you rename them.

[aaronfross]

Hey, thanks for that! I foolishly thought that F5 would refresh the panel, like in every other desktop application in the known universe. When F5 didn't work, I assumed that there was no such Refresh function.

But that's not the first time that some critical Premiere function was only available from a super obscure menu, and not bound to any keyboard shortcut. I could only find "Refresh Sort Order" by right-clicking on the panel title. I did some searches on multiple pages of the Premiere documentation and could not find the word "refresh" anywhere.

The Adobe help system is so problematic, I can't comprehend why if I literally type "premiere refresh sort order" into the search field, I get hits for Lightroom. Oh wait, I know why. It's the result of profit motive, i.e. labor savings. Tech writers are the first people to get laid off.

Anyway, I bound that obscure command to F5, and now it's working as expected!

Regarding the analogy to spreadsheets, I think that's bogus. The analogy here is to a file browser. And as I mentioned in my post, the preferred behavior is to automatically update the sorting , and automatically scroll the panel to reveal the selected item.