Can't sort by date in Aperture's iPhoto browser

I've been wrestling with this for awhile and my searches have uncovered no discussions of the problem. Hopefully someone can share a workaround or at least tell me I'm crazy.

The gist: how do I get Aperture's built-in iPhoto browser to sort iPhoto Events by date?

Over the last year I've switched from iPhoto to Aperture. I prefer iPhoto Events as an organizational scheme, sorted by date, so I am re-creating a chronological scheme with Aperture -- as many do. I've been gradually and selectively importing hundreds of iPhoto Events into Aperture Projects by dragging them from Aperture's built-in 'iPhoto Browser'.

Here's the problem: Aperture's iPhoto browser shows Events, but they are annoyingly sorted alphabetically, rather than by date. This makes it a real pain to transition chronologically. I can't find any control to re-sort by date. Inexplicably, on a couple of occasions I have opened the Browser to find it sorted by date! Temporarily rejoicing, it soon reverts to alphabetical after one session. WTF?

I have a hunch these couple times were flukes... possibly having to do with iPhoto being open at the same time, I dunno. Still, I now know it's possible; and if it involves some weird workaround to re-create it, I'll do it.

I'm running Leopard 10.5.8, Aperture 2.1.4, iPhoto 7.1.5.

Any insights much appreciated.

Brilliant!

AFAIK, you're the only one in the world to figure that one out and share it with the rest of us.

mwp98223 said:

I'm trying to correct this issue in Aperture 3. Either this is different in Aperture 3 or I'm must not getting it. Aperture 3 already "sees" the iPhoto library and events because I imported the library on installation (the files remain in the iPhoto structure)

The events are listed alphabetically and I appear to be able to sort by "kind" or "name" but not date. This seems like a shortcoming, we should be able to sort events by date, not name.

Click to expand...

So you already have imported your iPhoto library into Aperture 3? This thread so far has been about the iPhoto Browser which gives Aperture a view into iPhoto's library for the purposes of importing pics into Aperture.

You're right that Aperture doesn't appear to let you sort Projects (Aperture's notion of 'Event') by date. My workaround has been to create a chronological organization & naming structure so that alphabetical=chronological. At the top level, I have some basic categorical divisions by folder (professional and personal, etc.). Within those are folders for each year or year-range (1997-2002, 2003, etc.). Within those are numbered folders for season or month, depending on how many pics I took that year (01_ Winter, 02_ Spring, 06_ June, etc.). Within those are projects numbered by the day-of-the-month (03_ Rose Garden, 11_ Amusement Park, etc.).

This provides a chronological-alphabetical list of Projects under All Projects. With this scheme as a base, categorical collections can be easily accomplished with folders of albums (which merely reference photos, whereas projects store photos).

However, it would be really nice if Aperture followed more closely iPhoto's convention of Events so we wouldn't have to jump through such hoops. I hope and suspect that future Aperture updates will continue the trend of incorporating the usability innovations of iPhoto.