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Picture order in Finder Slideshow...?

jimthorn

jimthorn

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 24, 2003
580
2
Huntington Beach, CA, USA
The Finder's ability to launch a Slideshow is very cool, but it drives me nuts that the slides show up in a consistant but "random" order. I've tried lots of different ways of selecting the images (select all, clicking each while holding command, etc) but it doesn't seem to matter. The slides still show up in a strange order. To illustrate my point, I created 9 simple images with the filenames "image01.jpg", "image02.jpg", etc, which I also created in order. I attached a screenshot of the "index" of the slideshow, showing the slide order. So the slides aren't diplaying in order of filename or create date/time. And selecting a given number of images always generates a slideshow in the identical, but strange order. Does anyone know of a way I can run the slideshow in order (such as alpha order by filename)? This seems like a very weird default way for the function to behave. Don't most people want to see their photos in the order they shot them, for example?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks all.

edit: so as you can see in the pic below, the slides are showing in this order: 3, 5, 4, 9, 8, 7, 2, 6, 1. ?!
 

Attachments

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Select the files and ctrl-click. A contextual menu will pop up and one of the options is "Slideshow". It functions the same way as the full-screen slideshows in iPhoto and Mail.
 
Oh, I see. That is an interesting feature, but its actions don't seem to be customizable as far as the order. I am unexperienced with Apple Script, but if you really wanted to change the order you MAY be able to do it through that.
 
I seem to have discovered a workaround. Finder doesn't invoke the Slideshow the same way as Spotlight. When navigating into the folder of images I want to view and then typing ".jpg" into the Finder window's Spotlight Search Box, it displays them in alpha order. By pressing the Slideshow button in the blue bar (the triangle to the right of the "Show Top 5"), it shows the images in order!

Another noticeable difference between Spotlight's Slideshow and the Finder's is that the Finder seems to limit the "Index Sheet" function to 100 images, even if there are more images than that in the folder. Spotlight does not have that limit -- I imagine Spotlight uses Slideshow.framework's default index limit of 500.

Hopefully, Apple will improve Finder Slideshow functionality in a future update.
 
Hmm, very odd; I can't recreate your odd order.

I've just tried this with a group of pictures that I know I took in a particular order (they're the ones that make up my tar) and are called twirl1, twirl2 etc through to 16.

When I select them in Finder (from a larger group of images) to Slideshow, then they do come up in order - and the index sheet also shows them in order.
 
OK, the weirdness continues. I installed 10.4.5 (I was on 10.4.4) and rebooted. Went back to the same folder of images, selected all and ctrl-clicked for Slideshow. They're still not in order, but the random order is now different!

Now the image order is 5, 3, 1, 2, 9, 7, 8, 4, 6. WTF? And again, this weird order is the same every time.
 

Attachments

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I have not tried it since I have upgraded to 10.4.5, but I definitely have that random order problem with Finder slideshow as well. It drives me nuts and I cannot find what algorithm it uses. It does not seem to be date or name. BTW, mine is an intel Mac.

It forces me to use Preview's drawer or iPhoto for slideshows, so I cannot really do spur of the moment ones.
 
I actually noticed this as well a couple of days ago. It was quite an annoyance since i thought it would be a nice way to read manga. Boy was i ever wrong++.
 
If you set your pic folder to list view or column view, the slideshow should play in order. If the folder is set to icon view, then the slideshow will play in random order
 
VanNess said:
If you set your pic folder to list view or column view, the slideshow should play in order. If the folder is set to icon view, then the slideshow will play in random order
Click to expand...

Not so, VanNess. I have mine in list view and I explained above what's happening.
 
jimthorn said:
Not so, VanNess. I have mine in list view and I explained above what's happening.
Click to expand...

Well, you're right about list view. I normally don't use list view for pics, but I thought I tried it on my pic folders back when Tiger first came out because I noticed the same out of order problem back then. Most of my pic folders were set up in icon view at the time.

Since then, for some reason that escapes me now, I started browsing all my pic folders in column view and that's the way I've been managing my pic folders ever since. Easier to find specific pics, I think. In any event, selecting pics in column view and the slideshow will play them in order. I just checked again on my system to be sure. It works. Sorry about the list view mix-up.
 
Yargh, this is driving me nuts, too. Has anyone figured out how to fix the Finder Slideshow? 'Tis a bit of a pain using the Spotlight slideshow just to get 100+ images to show up on the index sheet in order :(.
 
Dyuta said:
Yargh, this is driving me nuts, too. Has anyone figured out how to fix the Finder Slideshow? 'Tis a bit of a pain using the Spotlight slideshow just to get 100+ images to show up on the index sheet in order :(.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I've been searching all over the internet, and not only does no one respond to this query, they act like it's posted in a foreign language. Some nit posted that the order for slideshow in Finder is based on some inscrutible algorithm. Thanks alot for that, but how much sense does that make? What's so difficult about defining the order alphabetically, or by date? Moreover, not only do users not know how to answer this question, they invariably drift off into discussions about operating systems, vintages, whatever...

Little wonder Apple isn't considered practical. Something other than random order? Greek to me, dude...
 
Dyuta said:
Yargh, this is driving me nuts, too. Has anyone figured out how to fix the Finder Slideshow? 'Tis a bit of a pain using the Spotlight slideshow just to get 100+ images to show up on the index sheet in order :(.
Click to expand...

Heck, not only does no one seem to know how to respond to this question, but the various forums for the Mac are absolute torture to join. God, what a disappointment. This was resolved in Windows ages ago.
 
freewheeling said:
Sorry, but I've been searching all over the internet, and not only does no one respond to this query, they act like it's posted in a foreign language.
Click to expand...

A workaround is to select the pictures (pre-sorted) and then right click the selection and "open with Preview." You can then chose slideshow in Preview and they'll display in the expected order. Preview may have other display limitations, though.
 
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