File Explorer Custom Sort

Feature requests
20

Use case or problem

I’m trying to group related notes together.

Currently the files and directories are displayed in the panel in the alphabetic order of their names. Another available option is sorting by note’s modification time. Both of which cannot fulfill the needs exactly.

Proposed solution

Like OneNote, Obsidian may consider supporting reordering the notes by users through dragging and placing. The custom orderings can be stored in obsidian’s meta data file.

Current workaround (optional)

Currently, I have to name them carefully so that they are sorted together under the alphabetic order. Or, I just have to create annoying nested folders to group them together, messing up the structure of a vault.

5 Likes
21

…+1

2 Likes
22

+2 +2 +2

2 Likes
23

+1… coming from onenote

4 Likes
24

Where I came from as well. Out of curiosity, do you also miss subpages?

3 Likes
25

In the starred pane, currently it has already allow custom sort.

In file explorer for custom sort, I believe it will happen.

1 Like
26

yeah only way to solve this for now is the rename folder with A/B/C/ or 1/2/3…
sadly

2 Likes
27

+1. (Also coming from Scrivener.) It’d make actual writing projects much easier. Now I also just name the files 00_xxx 01_xx etc., but not ideal.

1 Like
28

Relevant discussion:

related requests:

3 Likes
29

(off topic) IMHO, you can create “subpage” by creating link in the main-page like
![[MainPageName/SubpageFilename]], Then open the link and edit the “subpage”.

Dedicated threads:

2 Likes
30

That’s a pretty clever way of doing it. The main problem (still kind of minor) would be collapsing subpages in file explorer.
The other implementation that I would like to would be to treat folders and files with the same name as a single item, akin to Scrivener’s system.

2 Likes
31

Small QOL feature: I would love to be able to manually reorder my list of folders in file list instead of alphabetical or most recent. The current work around is putting numbers/prefixes to order them a certain way, but theres downsides to that obviously

Also I believe starred list only orders in most recently added, would be nice to be able to rearrange them too!

27 Likes
32

+1 this seems a little thing but for me would be a big improvement in my workflow and I hate having to put numbers in file names and directories

5 Likes
33

+1 for this

3 Likes
34

yesssss +1

3 Likes
35

The notes in the stared panel are ordered according to the time when they are marked as stared.
However, some time, I need to check the stared notes based on some other orders, eg. the alphabet of the file name. Moreover, this requirement on the ordering may change frequently.
If stared note can be re-arranged in the stared panel, that will be very convenient.

4 Likes
36

This would be super helpful. It’s a small feature that’s always been available on older apps like Cherry Tree.

8 Likes
37

I second that MUCH. That would give Obsidian high-level outliner capabilities found in pro writing software.

2 Likes
38

Older apps designed as hierarchical outliners with a database.

Doing it in Obsidian would require storing sequence data between sessions.

Personally, I wouldn’t want that in the main app, but could be done in a plugin.

4 Likes
39

I understand that Obsidian is no Scrivener (or CherryTree), yet if it would be open towards these manual hierarchical features, it would beat these tools at their own game very fast.

5 Likes