"Date added" is based on what?

[Maury]

Under 10.6, fans in the Dock have the ability to be sorted by "Date added". This is extremely useful, but...

I have a custom doc icon that makes the folder look nicer (I'm sure you've seen them). In order to keep them on top of the stack, you set the creation date to far in the future (2020). But if I use "Date added" instead of "Date created", they don't sort correctly.

So, what is the "date added", and is there a way to set it using Terminal?

 

[GGJstudios]

Under 10.6, fans in the Dock have the ability to be sorted by "Date added". This is extremely useful, but...

I have a custom doc icon that makes the folder look nicer (I'm sure you've seen them). In order to keep them on top of the stack, you set the creation date to far in the future (2020). But if I use "Date added" instead of "Date created", they don't sort correctly.

So, what is the "date added", and is there a way to set it using Terminal?

Your problem is you're trying to control the appearance of the folder by maintaining a file's position in the stack. A better approach would be to change the folder icon before adding the folder to the Dock, then right-click on the folder in the Dock and select "Display as: Folder". That way, the Dock icon remains the same, regardless the contents or position of items in the folder.

 

[Maury]

Your problem is you're trying to control the appearance of the folder by maintaining a file's position in the stack. A better approach would be to change the folder icon before adding the folder to the Dock, then right-click on the folder in the Dock and select "Display as: Folder". That way, the Dock icon remains the same, regardless the contents or position of items in the folder.

But display as folder hides all the contents. Display as stack shows the latest download. It's much nicer.

But this isn't about the Dock. My question is much more fundamental. What is "Date added"?

 

[mjsmke]

"Date added" is based on what? The date added is based on the date added.

 

[Xenc]

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I'm not certain, but it could mean the date the file was added to your machine, as opposed to when it was initially created (such as the case of a file downloaded from the internet).

 

[GGJstudios]

But display as folder hides all the contents. Display as stack shows the latest download. It's much nicer.

Yes, but you're changing the appearance of the stack with your custom icon, anyway.

I have a custom doc icon that makes the folder look nicer

You can have the custom icon show all the time by changing to Display as: Folder. Then, regardless of how you sort, your custom icon will be displayed. The appearance is the same. Only the method is different.

But this isn't about the Dock. My question is much more fundamental. What is "Date added"?

It is what it sounds like: it's the date the item was added to that folder.

I'm not certain, but it could mean the date the file was added to your machine,

It's the date added to the folder. You can verify this by taking a file that has been on your computer for a long time and dragging it to the Downloads folder. Even though the file was added to your machine some time ago, the Date Added sort will put it at the beginning of the list.

 

[Maury]

Yes, but you're changing the appearance of the stack with your custom icon, anyway.

I read this several times before I saw where the confusion is creeping in...

The custom icons I'm using are only 1/2 normal height. If you Display as: Stack and then sort so the folder is on top, then you see the folder icon on top of the next icon in the stack. When sorted properly, you see the last thing you downloaded inside the folder icon. It's very nice.

This does NOT work if you Display as: Folder. That's because you only see the folder icon in that case, not any of the other items in the stack.

It's the date added to the folder.

A better way to phrase my question would be "if I was using the Unix 'touch' command, what switch would I use to change 'date added'".

Unix normally has three timestamps on its files, atime, ctime and mtime. None of these map onto "date added". So this timestamp must be somewhere in HFS+, right? If so, is there any way to modify it?