Sorting problems

Is there anything that can be done about sorting DVDs alphabetically? It drives me insane that movies like The Deer Hunter and The Bone Collector are in the T's! It just looks terrible. Could there at least a possibilty of going into the movie and sorting it so it alphabetizes where we want it? For example: sorting The Lost World: Jurassic Park as Jurassic Park 2. When you have over 700 DVDs like I do the drag and sort feature just doesn't work. It always freezes.

How do 8 days go by and not even a moderator or administrator respond to this, even if nothing can be done at the moment?

It's on the todo list but I'm not sure when this will be completed.

The easiest thing would be to alter the titles like :

The Bone Collector

becomes

'Bone Collector, The'

Is this a good solution? I'm not so sure, maybe I need to store 2 titles one for sorting and one for displaying.

I've come over from collectorz.com software that categorizes movies, and that is how they sort it too ('Bone Collector, The'). Libraries also sort it that way.

But i'm not entirely convinced it SHOULD be sorted that way. For example, the movie is called 'A Beautiful Mind'. It should be under 'A'. Sure, the director could've called it 'Beautiful Mind', or 'The Beatiful Mind', but they chose specifically to call it 'A Beatiful Mind', so that is the full and complete title, and it shouldnt be altered just so it fits into your 'B' category alphabetically. And where to stop? 'Das Boot' is going to be 'Boot, Das' ?

Incidentally, IMDB, the internet's central database for all things movie-related, puts 'A', 'An' and 'The' in front where it belongs, not after a comma.

About your second suggestion, sorting The Lost World with Jurassic Park, once again, the director/creator of the film decided to name in such a way, so we should respect their decision. That's like suggesting to name 'Revenge of the Pink Panter' as 'Pink Panther, Revenge of the' just so it falls in line alphabetically with rest of pink panther movies. I personally don't agree with that. Keep the names unaltered.

But i'm not entirely convinced it SHOULD be sorted that way. For example, the movie is called 'A Beautiful Mind'. It should be under 'A'. Sure, the director could've called it 'Beautiful Mind', or 'The Beatiful Mind', but they chose specifically to call it 'A Beatiful Mind', so that is the full and complete title, and it shouldnt be altered just so it fits into your 'B' category alphabetically. And where to stop? 'Das Boot' is going to be 'Boot, Das' ?

I actually agree with you, personally I prefer the movies just sorted without alteration. I can understand the reasons for doing it (having too many titles under 'T' and 'A'?) and probably other reasons as well. It seems not to be the preferred method of sorting as there has been a few requests on here.

Incidentally, IMDB, the internet's central database for all things movie-related, puts 'A', 'An' and 'The' in front where it belongs, not after a comma.

They do when displaying the movie but if you go onto a listings page they actually sort with 'The' at the end e.g. :
http://www.imdb.com/TitlesByGenres?genres=Action&start=M&nav=/Sections/Genres/Action/include-titles

(Matrix Reloaded, The (2003) etc...)


Thats why I was talking about the 2 columns, one for sorting and one for displaying.

Is it possible to add an option in each user's settings page, 'Ignore THE, A, AN, when sorting'? And then add a bit of logic the the code that sorts it alphabetically, that if there's one of those three (or more) words, ignore and read first letter of next word. That way, you can avoid having 2 columns and two entries in the database.

oh, since we're on the topic of 'sorting', can you add 'sort by popularity, ascending and descending', to the list? If I give my list out to friends and family, it would be useful sometimes to send it sorted by most popular titles first, regardless of ratings.

and by popularity, i mean combined score of BOTH watched and 'want to watch' numbers.