Fix sorting of files/folders with special characters in the beginning

[alexanderdd]

 * Nemo version (nemo --version) 4.0.6
 * Is issue with desktop or windowed nemo? windowed
 * Distribution - (Mint 17.2, Arch, Fedora 25, etc...) Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon
 * Graphics hardware *and* driver used
 * 32 or 64 bit: 64bit

Issue
Special characters in the beginning of folder names and files are ignored for sorting.

Steps to reproduce
When sorting the following folders alphabetically, the "_" in the beginning is ignored and the next character is used for sorting:
Aaron
Peter
_Sandra

Expected behaviour
When sorting the following folders alphabetically, the one with the "_" in the beginning is first.
_Sandra
Aaron
Peter

Other information
The only situation where I can think of the current behavior as good is if somebody put the special character in the first posion by accident, in all other use cases the user put the special character there on purpose so ignoring it for sorting is bad UX.
Also, the current behavior is counterintuitive for people coming from other linux distros (I used kubuntu and xubuntu before, I think the behavior is differen) or from windows. I think we should strive to welcome those users with their habits.

Maybe also relevant (but not in favor of the proposal there): #1967

[roberdaniel]

I adhere to the request.
I can't understand, special characters are ignored intentionally?
I clarify that it is not just the initial characters, in any part of the name they are ignored.

[roberdaniel]

I dont know if it is "by design" or is a bug or a kind of missing or the programmer was drunk, but it is inconceivable.

[Tyco72]

It is absurd that after so many years there is still not the option to sort the file names in the usual way.

[bannisdale]

I totally second the request.

In my old file system, I had a few folders starting with ! so they would be the first one to show up. However, now they're just somewhere in between all the other ones. Which feels ... not right. :-)

[Meru]

would actually be cool to have this... at least as an option that is by default disabled

[alexanderdd]

I disagree. If it becomes a setting, it should be enabled (not disabled) by default. As I have pointed out before, the current setup ignores a deliberate user action, which is bad UX. Is this behavior inherited from upstream? Should we file a bugreport there, or should we fix it in nemo? Meru <notifications@github.com> schrieb am Mi., 24. Apr. 2019 22:59:

…

would actually be cool to have this... at least as an option that is by default disabled — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2085 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AG2EN5MPWNUBAOOM363SWI3PSDC3DANCNFSM4G46FCLQ> .

[smurphos]

Sorting order Nemo is a function of your locale, different locales can have different conventions. For strict ASCII sorting (which is what I think posters in this thread are after) add export LC_COLLATE=C to your ~/.profile, log off, log back on.

[bannisdale]

@smurphos This seems to work beautifully, thanks a lot! :)

[Meru]

@alexanderdd I agree with you. But I am looking at it from user's perspective, while you - from dev's. From my perspective, any solution is fine, as long as I will be able to make it work the way I want to. But if things should be made right, it should be made the way you suggest.

P.S.
haven't looked into locale thingy yet. but even if it works, this solution would not look optimal for such an important thing as filesystem browser and less experienced users won't even know they need to look for this github ticket to figure it out

P.P.S.
As a side note, I develop some python apps on windows, mainly and make a heavy use of underscores and exclamation marks and always wondered about this issue since when I open my repo in Mint I have hard time finding the files I need.

[Tyco72]

@smurphos:

add export LC_COLLATE=C to your ~/.profile, log off, log back on.

I had tried this but it seems to don't work. Does it maybe depend by the distribution? I have Mint 19.1

@bannisdale:

This seems to work beautifully, thanks a lot! :)

Which distro have you?

(Anyway it would be good if there was an option for the sorting in the file manager)

[bannisdale]

Newest Mint, Tessa.

[Tyco72]

Newest Mint, Tessa.

me too. Could you paste here the part of the .profile file that you edited (or even the whole content)?

[bannisdale]

I basically just copied the line and pasted it below everything else. I'll give you a walkthrough when I'm on my PC again tomorrow.

[bannisdale]

Okay, so.

• Open your File Explorer. You should see Home/$username. If not or if you are unsure, navigate to My Computer > Home or File System > Home > $username.
• Right click somewhere. Check "Show Hidden Files" (might be checked already)
• Scroll down until you find the .profile file.
• Open the file. I used notepadqq to do this.

You should see the following file:

As you can see, I already included the line that smurphos mentioned at the bottom of the file.

• Save
• Reboot

The result, at least for me, looks like this:

Before that, the !downloads folder was sorted below A Test Folder as if it were starting with 'd'.

If this doesn't work for you, I'm afraid that I probably won't be able to provide more information, so sorry in advance. :)