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The Wolf · 09:32 PM

I know someone has to have this figued out. Is there a way to name documents so that they appear in chronological order in my Finder in column view?

i.e...

01-01-03 letter to santa
02-02-03 letter to gwb
08-03-03 letter to you
01-02-04 misc info
02-01-04 additional info
08-02-04 extra info
01-01-05 request for help

...this example will NOT work, but I want it to!

Hal Itosis · Mar 26, 2006, 09:37 PM

One would pretty much have to go with YYYY-MM-DD:

2006-03-26

chabig · Mar 26, 2006, 09:45 PM

That's exactly right. You have to go from the largest units to the smallest units.

wataru · Mar 26, 2006, 11:24 PM

Or you could just name them whatever you want and then sort the window by date created or date last modified.

The Wolf · Mar 26, 2006, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis

One would pretty much have to go with YYYY-MM-DD:

2006-03-26

Cool, thanks for the info.

On a side note, I was using the dashes (xx-xx-xx) initially b/c I was using AppleWorks. Now, I see that Pages allows us to use slashes (xx/xx/xx). However, it seems the dashes and slashes will may stay in the right order if used together. Anyone have any input as to whether I should stick with the -'s or if it's safe to start using /'s now?

TETENAL · Mar 27, 2006, 12:48 AM

If you are using YYYY-MM-DD, you should stick with dashes since that's the ISO date format.

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-serv...ime.html#three

Use slashes when you mean the US date format to distinguish the two.

JKT · 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Cool, thanks for the info.

On a side note, I was using the dashes (xx-xx-xx) initially b/c I was using AppleWorks. Now, I see that Pages allows us to use slashes (xx/xx/xx). However, it seems the dashes and slashes will may stay in the right order if used together. Anyone have any input as to whether I should stick with the -'s or if it's safe to start using /'s now?

Edit: It seems I am talking out my arse when it comes to Tiger for this next bit... oops.

Absolutely, positively DO NOT use / as a separator for file names. Pages should not let you enter this at all and if it is, that is a big cock up on Apple's part. The / is the delimiter for a directory in OS X. Should you ever e.g. have to use the Terminal to do something with your files, you could run into problems if you use / in the name.

If you are on Tiger, use an Automator Workflow to batch rename files. E.g. this one will add the date to a filename, foo.foofile to give you yyyymmdd foo.foofile:

To use it as a Contextual Menu Plug-in save it into ~/Library/Workflows/Applications/Finder/ (create the folder if you need to). It can also work as an Application for drag-and-drop use.

Be aware that Apple has stuffed up in Automator as well as one of the options is to use / as a separtor in the date

Also be aware that you must have the item(s) you want to add the date to selected. If you control-click something that isn't selected and choose this Workflow, it will rename the folder containing it, or any other items you have selected but not your item.

The Wolf · Mar 27, 2006, 08:59 AM

That is sweet. I will try it a little later today.

Macanoid · Mar 27, 2006, 09:19 AM

Or you could use this freebie: File List

The Wolf · Mar 27, 2006, 09:28 AM

Crap, I don't think I can use Automator. I'm getting an error message:
"Can't make day of missing value into type Unicode text. (-1700)"
I'm assuming my AW files don't have a creation date.?.?.?

EDIT: OK, I take it back. AW is fine. It's the effing M$.doc files the won't work. CRAAAAAAAP!!!

JKT · Mar 27, 2006, 09:36 AM

Hmm, I would think it impossible for any file not to have a creation date. Does it work on other files?

chabig · Mar 27, 2006, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

Absolutely, positively DO NOT use / as a separator for file names. Pages should not let you enter this at all and if it is, that is a big cock up on Apple's part. The / is the delimiter for a directory in OS X. Should you ever e.g. have to use the Terminal to do something with your files, you could run into problems if you use / in the name.

I agree with you. In fact, didn't the OS (pre-Tiger) prevent you from using slashes? Tiger now allows them. It's replacing the slashes with colons, but displaying slashes to the user. Very interesting. However, it's very unlikely the average user is going to have to use Terminal to work with their files. I would find it much harder to explain to my wife why she shouldn't use slashes than it would be to simply deal with them.

JKT · Mar 27, 2006, 10:35 AM

That I did not know (Tiger will display / but convert to : for the file-system) but that would explain why Apple does allow Automator to use / ... doh*. However, another consideration is for whenever you need to send files to someone else. Personally, I avoid using any "special" characters that may cause other people problems (read Windows users), which is one way you could explain it to your wife if you ever had to.

FWIW, I just used the Terminal as an example situation where it can cause problems as I learnt it the hard way in an earlier version of OS X (10.0.x??) when I named a folder with a / in it.

* Why a colon? Surely that makes the name incompatible with OS 9 and earlier systems??

chabig · Mar 27, 2006, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

Why a colon? Surely that makes the name incompatible with OS 9 and earlier systems??

I wondered the same things, since colons weren't allowed in OS 9 and earlier. I guess Apple simply decided that OS 9 has been gone long enough.

Chuckit · 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

* Why a colon? Surely that makes the name incompatible with OS 9 and earlier systems??

It's all sleight of hand. The colon prohibition in OS 9 was because of HFS+, which is still around. While the Unix side of things sees a seemingly innocent colon, OS 9 and OS X apps going through the native frameworks will see a slash. On HFS disks at least, as far as I can tell, it's actually Unix that's being tricked here.

The Wolf · Mar 27, 2006, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

Hmm, I would think it impossible for any file not to have a creation date. Does it work on other files?

Well, I tried it with AppleWorks files and tiffs. Both worked as expected. The .doc files in question were created on a PeeCee. I am not sure if that is causing the problem or not.

Originally Posted by Chabig

I agree with you. In fact, didn't the OS (pre-Tiger) prevent you from using slashes? Tiger now allows them. It's replacing the slashes with colons, but displaying slashes to the user. Very interesting. However, it's very unlikely the average user is going to have to use Terminal to work with their files. I would find it much harder to explain to my wife why she shouldn't use slashes than it would be to simply deal with them.

Interesting! Does that mean it will automatically convert the slashes in PC document file names as well? See, I do all my stuff on my AiBook, but my assistant uses a PC (at least until an Intel iBook comes out).