[Wendy Cutler]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed. I want my current setlist to be basically in alpha order. 
But then, I want to add a divider called "Extra", and move down to that section tunes we think we're not going to use. I can't do that while I'm in Alpha sort, but when I click Manual Sort, it seems to shuffle the list. Maybe it goes back to the previous sort order, which would be great if I changed my mind and really want to go back. But I don't. I want the alpha order as of right now, but from now on, I want to insert/move stuff to where I want it. 

Could there be an option when going to Manual Sort to keep the current order or return to the previous order? Or is there an easy way for me to do that without creating a different version of the list?

Thanks.

[Geoff Bacon]

I'm not sure you can do this when A-Z is selected but you can do it when the list is Shuffled (press three dots in top line and select "Save as manual ordering").

A work around is to select all songs, three dots, "Create Setlist from Songs"

You may have to select the songs in your desired final order e.g. Press and hold first song until tick shows, then press the open square (at bottom right) to select all the other songs.

Geoff

[Zubersoft]

There isn't currently an option to save the alphabetic sorting as the manual sorting. What Geoff has described is probably the easiest approach. One thing you can do is create a temporary setlist with the alphabetic sorting, then clear the songs from the first setlist, and then add the songs from the second setlist back to the first while it is set to manual sort ordering. Then you can delete that temporary setlist.

Mike

[Wendy Cutler]

Thanks. @Goeff Bacon, I didn't know about the open square to select all the songs, and the X square just deselects them, doesn't delete them. 

@Zubersoft, I have to investigate some more. It didn't work but then my second attempt did work. I think in my first try, I was working from the list of setlists. I should be in the setlist, selecting all the songs.

 I think I have to create the new temporary setlist, set it to alpha, leave it empty. In the old list, set it to alpha, select all the songs, Add to the new temporary list; if I remember correctly, they arrive in alpha, but it's set to Manual. I can just save that and delete the original list.
And I can come back here to read my instructions. 
Thanks.

[Geoff Bacon]

@Wendy
It is a bit simpler than that; just copy all the songs into a new setlist and then sort the new list alphabetically (it sounds as though you are sorting before putting into the temporary list). After that, transfer the sorted list into the name that you want to use.
Of course, if you know you are going to do this then you can just create a temporary setlist and transfer it into a correctly named list

Another alternative is that you put all your songs into a temporary collection (rather than a set list). Sort this alphabetically and then select the songs into a setlist.

Actually I'm a bit surprised that you want an alphabetic setlist - I use a setlist rather than a collection so that I can specify the order of the songs (and they aren't in alphabetic order)

Cheers
Geoff

[itsme]

"Collections" can be sorted in the same ways as "Setlists"
It seems that all (?) groups except "Songs" share the same sorting options.
Maybe this was not the case in the early times of MSP

[Zubersoft]

That is true itsme - in the early days, the other group types did not support manual sorting, and only supported alphabetic sorting I believe. 

Mike

[Wendy Cutler]

I am revisiting this, because it's a lot of trouble for me for something that feels like it should be easy. I sorted the setlist alphabetically. Now I want to take control. Don't resort the list before giving me control. Just leave it where it was, in alpha order, and now let me carry on from there and do  some manual sorting. How do you even get it back into the order it was in before I did the alpha sort? 

If you're saying that the alpha order list and the manual order list are two different things, why make me have to copy one to the other? This tablet thing is a computer. Shouldn't it be doing my work for me? It can copy my alpha order to the manual order list.

But more to the point, manual order shouldn't refer to something I used to have. It should mean that starting now, I want control. It seems totally reasonable to me to think that once I choose alpha order, I'm going to lose my manual sort. It makes no sense to me that after I have done an alpha sort, once I choose manual sort, I'm going to lose the alphabetizing I have done. Let the people who want to save their manual order before doing an alpha sort go to the trouble to do the stuff suggested above.

[Zubersoft]

You are thinking about this wrong. First, alphabetic sorting will ensure that songs are always sorted alphabetically. It's not just a one-time "sort my song titles alphabetically but then stop sorting them for new things I add". It's always applying an alphabetic sorting so that if you add new entries, they are sorted properly. Manual sorting, by contrast, always lets you control the sort order. What you want is the ability to make the manual sort order match the alphabetic sorting as a one-time action. Yes, I can add that, and it will save steps for you, but this is not a request I have received from anyone but you. Does that mean I won't add it? No, but it does mean I'm not making it a high priority at the moment over other feature requests that I'm receiving from many users frequently. You have a workaround that will get you the result you want, even if it adds a few extra steps. If more users start requesting this capability, then I can raise the priority, but as it stands, I have an enormous backlog of feature requests to work through, so I can't prioritize every individual request I receive.

Mike