Custom sorting based on YAML frontmatter creation date?

[bloominburges]

How do i use your add in to sort the files in a folder by the note’s “created” property in my YAML frontmatter? I want it to do it off of this frontmatter property, NOT the file property as the source of truth like some other admins do.

Thanks

[SebastianMC]

Hi @bloominburges,

the base idea of sorting specification which you described is:

---
sorting-spec: |
  > a-z by-metadata: created
---

The above simple sorting spec works under the following assumptions:

• placed in a sortspec note in the folder which you want to sort. To sort a folder different than the location of sortspec note you'd need to explicitly specify target-folder: path-of-target-folder-here
• the files contain metadata created with values which can be ordered alphabetically when treating them as text. That means a date format like yyyy-mm-dd (e.g. 2024-11-16). If the format of values is different, e.g. date in US format mm/dd/yyyy (e.g. 11/16/2024) or - in general - format where day and/or month comes before the year, that obviously won't work. To deal with that type of formatted dates you need a feature requested here Organize by date in metadata #171 (still in development)

[bloominburges]

Got it… thanks.
What about if i want reverse? I tried “> z-a by-metadata: created”, and it didn’t work

[SebastianMC]

The syntax of sorting order specification in this particular example comprises three elements and two of them are relevant to your question:

1. The direction of the order - ascending or descending. In this case the token is >

• > stands for descending order, larger values go first. You can use more verbose syntax for it: order-desc: as an equivalent for readability
• < can be used for the ascending order, smaller values go first. Verbose equivalent syntax is order-asc:

To change the order direction to reverse you need to switch > to <, and vice versa

2. The actual sorting order - in this case the token is a-z which represents the alphabetical sorting. It has no reverse equivalent and the direction specification (1) is used to switch between alphabetical and reverse alphabetical.

The spec to use is then:

• < a-z by-metadata: created to put earlier dates first, and
• > a-z by-metadata: created to put later dater first.

[thomas-bouvier]

Hi @SebastianMC, thank you for the great plugin!

I am trying to achieve the same thing, except my metadata attribute is named "Last updated at" (containing an ISO date string).

---
Created at: 2024-02-24
Last updated at: 2024-12-11
---

I used the following sortspec:

---
sorting-spec: |
  < a-z by-metadata: "Last updated at"
---

My notes don't get sorted in the folder. Is it because attribute Last updated at contains whitespaces, or am I encountering the same issue as op?

[SebastianMC]

Hi @thomas-bouvier,

in the scenario which you described you only need to remove the quotation marks and you should be good:

---
sorting-spec: |
  < a-z by-metadata: Last updated at
---

The metadata values expressed using ISO date format of YYYY-MM-DD can be used directly for sorting: treating them as plain text for sorting gives correct result.

[thomas-bouvier]

I confirm this is working. Thank you. I think this issue can be closed.