I’d like to be able to sort a list of selected files alphabetically, but it’s beyond me.
It was simple in Hypercard because of it’s ‘short name’ feature.
I’ve tried this…
tell application "Finder"
try
set thelist to (selection as list)
set xx to length of thelist
repeat
repeat with x from 1 to xx - 1
set firstGo to item x of thelist
set SecondGo to item (x + 1) of thelist
-- this bit of course, won't work
if firstGo > SecondGo then
set item x of the list to SecondGo
set item (x + 1) of the list to firstGo
end if
end repeat
set xx to xx - 1
if xx = 1 then exit repeat
end repeat
end try
end tell
tell application "Finder"
try
set thelist to (selection as list)
set xx to length of thelist
ignoring case, punctuation and white space
repeat
repeat with x from 1 to xx - 1
set firstGo to name of item x of thelist as string
set SecondGo to name of item (x + 1) of thelist as string
if (firstGo > SecondGo) then
set swapthis to item x of thelist
set item x of thelist to item (x + 1) of thelist
set item (x + 1) of thelist to swapthis
end if
end repeat
set xx to xx - 1
if xx = 1 then exit repeat
end repeat
end ignoring
end try
end tell
The Finder’s sort command was reinstated as from Tiger.
tell application "Finder"
set theSelection to selection
set theList to (sort theSelection by name)
end tell
Like the Finder’s selection, it returns a list of Finder items, not paths. It also has the peculiarity that numeric portions of names are sorted numerically and then subsorted lexically, rather than being sorted purely lexically. So if you’ve selected four files called, say, “m1958.jpg”, “m1959.jpg”, “m01959.jpg”, and “m001959.jpg”, the sorted order is:
