Just to clarify, QU does sort by date (and time) properly!  It's the simple fact that you do not have the data to support time sorting when shooting at 9 fps.  The operating system(s) don't support it and neither does EXIF.  That is not a Qimage issue.

P.S.  There are easy ways to resolve this BTW.  Use QU's auto-rename function to rename the files by date and time and at the end just include the numeric part of the original file name.  Then if you have 5 pictures that were taken on the same second, you'll get file names like
2010-09-07 13.46.52 [0374]
2010-09-07 13.46.52 [0375]
2010-09-07 13.46.52 [0376]
2010-09-07 13.46.52 [0377]
2010-09-07 13.46.52 [0378]

And they'll always be in sequence as long as your camera numbers them sequentially.  Then just sort by filename and you get the proper sort.

Mike

Just because I know for a fact you are wrong:

QU absolutely DOES sort properly by date/time.  Date/time is defined as the file modified date/time or the EXIF date/time neither of which contain data that can resolve 9 fps.  If the Nikon software is sorting in sequence, then they are either sorting by date PLUS filename (which is a different sort entirely) or they have a proprietary timecode in the file that only Nikon can read (which isn't very useful).

Mike

It's a problem with any camera that shoots that fast since both the file date/time and the EXIF date/time stamp will be the same if you shoot faster than once a second.  Nikon must be getting their data from a proprietary "maker notes" tag in the file.  That's not something I plan to support but I *can* make it so that if the date/time stamp is the same for a bunch of files, it keeps the file names in order.  In other words, I can make the file name the secondary sort.  I think that would do it for most people.

Mike

The operating system only supports file date/time down to ~2 second intervals, so Qimage is bound by that.  That said, I think you must be looking at the wrong column.  Where are you getting your file times?  Explorer no longer shows seconds (because MS knows the OS cannot resolve to the second), so where are you getting your file times?  Qimage sorts by file modified date.  Maybe you are looking at file creation date or some other date?  It definitely will not sort 9:24:22, then go to 9:24:23, and back to 9:24:19.

In fact, something is very "funky" with your column that you list as "file date time" because if you list the actual file date/time, you won't see a combination of even and odd seconds.  So I know you got your data from some place other than the actual file date/time.  Did you get it from the Nikon data?

Mike

I've tried the new version. It looked promising when I tried sorting 12 files in "date +" order. Then I sorted in "date -" order and the order did not change at all. Then I tried a larger directory area (containing jpg, tiff and raw files, and it seems the date sort is TOTALLY unusable. It seems to have no order at all, and, worse yet, it won't even retain the same incorrect order if you select between + and - (i.e. it does not "mirror" the order) . It IS consistent in its inconsistency, however. I think some problems (although not all) may have to do with the use of special characters. The Nikon naming system uses an underscore "_" as the first or fourth digit to determine the color space used. For example, if I shoot sRGB, the file will be named _xxxXXXX (with the xxx being selectable by me using any character and XXXX being the 4-digit frame number assigned by the camera). If I shoot AdobeRGB, the file will be name xxx_XXXX.

I did go back and reload Qimage Studio and I notice it has the same problems I originally posted here (but that's better than whatever you did to Ultimate). I never noticed it before but was not using QI Studio the same way I would like to use Ultimate.

As for what field I use for my data given in my posts, I have been using Nikon's "date shot" field.  Their software  displays "created"; "modified" and "shot" dates/times. The "date shot" shows milliseconds, both in Nikon ViewNX and Nikon Capture NX2. FWIW, I haven't really dealt with any programming since in the 60's when we used punchcards in Fortran or Cobol...

EDIT For my info, what are the hex locations of the fields you are using for the date sort (it looks like you use the one starting on line 400 which is the second date I see)? It may help me shake this down. All I want to do is get a correct  date by milli-second sort! Am I the only one that shoots more than 1fps?

EDIT (file removed) See the attached file for HEX locations...not really sure if that helps as that location seems to change...

RE:
With v118 sorting by date + or - is fine too. The file data shows I was getting up to 3 images with the same time to the second as expected and all are in sequence.


I assume the sort is done AFTER you have renamed every file? What happens to your sorting if you just transfer the files directly to disk from the CF (or whatever) card in your camera without a rename? Does the "date sort" sort them correctly, + and - ? Thanks.

v2010.119 contains the final tweak for date sorting.  It sorts properly by date and time (as it always has) and then sorts (forward or backward as appropriate) by file name for files that have the exact same date/time stamp.  v2010.118 sorted like Windows Explorer which isn't ideal because Windows Explorer always sorts in ascending order by file name if the date/time stamp are the same even if you told Explorer to sort by date(-).  v2010.119 works better WRT photos because it takes into account that higher numbered photos are shot later in time... something Explorer won't do and can't really assume.

If you want to compare Qimage to something, compare it to Windows Explorer.  It now does a better job than Explorer.  Forget about Nikon products.  I will not be supporting proprietary data where you have to open the file and search inside each file to find a proprietary time in the milliseconds.  Now you get a sort that is better than Explorer and that's as far as I'm going to go and quite honestly more than is needed.

BTW, if you shot a sequence 24-38, waited even a few seconds, and then you shot 39-53 and you got 39-53 first and 24-38 second on a date(+) sort even with 118, your date/time file stamps are WRONG!  Use Explorer to confirm this: Windows Explorer will show you that the date/time on the 39-53 set is before the date/time stamp on the 24-38 set.  I presume that can happen if you did something like modified or somehow "recreated" the 24-38 set after the 39-53 set.

Mike