Windows explorer and creating a filename which gets sorted /after/ the letters ?

Hello all,

I'm in the need for a filename that will be, in "windows explorer", sorted
/after/ all the ones starting with letter symbols (for non-important, but
still easy-to-reach files).

I thought I could rather easily find that out by just a small VBScript, but
that both showed a decorated "z" as the last-to-be-sorted character, as well
as an inability to recreate that character using the keyboard - alt 158, the
value I "chr( )"-ed to create the filename, came back with a rather
different one ... whut?

I repeated the filename creation using CreateFilenameA (kernel32) , but ran
into the same. :-(

So, next to my above, initial need I could do with an explanation to why I
can create filenames that I cannot recreate using the keyboard in "windows
explorer", and possibly a method to how to get those characters anyway
(preferrably by keyboard).

Remark: The OS this has been found and tested on is XPsp3. Though I think
that the above might well also happen on the OSes (7 & 10) of the newsgroups
I crossposted to, and as such I've opted to broaden my chance of finding
someone who knows about it. My apologies if I misjudged.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

R_Wieser asked:
I'm in the need for a filename that will be,
in "windows explorer", sorted /after/ all the ones
starting with letter symbols ( for non-important,
but still easy-to-reach files ).

Tilde (~) usually works, is easy to type, and is not displeasing to the eye.

Tilde is different from Tilda.

--
:- Siri Seal of Disavowal #000-001. Disavowed. Denied. Deleted. @
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' /|\
The first law of discordiamism: The more energy This post / \
to make order is nore energy made into entropy. insults Islam. Mohammed

On 03/10/2019 12:05, Siri Cruise wrote:
R_Wieser asked:
I'm in the need for a filename that will be,
in "windows explorer", sorted /after/ all the ones
starting with letter symbols ( for non-important,
but still easy-to-reach files ).

Tilde (~) usually works, is easy to type, and is not displeasing to the eye.

Tilde is different from Tilda.

Doesn't seem to work in W7 - I specifically tried both that and an
underscore earlier this morning after reading the OP, and was surprised
by the result.

Jeff,

'?' ( Omega, U+03A9 ) is sorted "last" ( after 'z' );

Any idea how I, in "windows explorer" enter that into filename ? I've
tried ALT (keep it pressed) x0937 (release), but that returns a copyright
symbol which is sorted way before the any of letters. Not typing the
leading zero 937 gives an unknown character (a small square), but is also
sorted before any of the letters.

I forgot to tell I already tried ALT and than a few different numbers above
255, but didn't have any luck there either.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
Was there any reason you added "comp.os.linux.advocacy" (I removed it
again) ?

Siri,

Tilde (~) usually works, is easy to type, and is not displeasing to the
eye.

As in the ASCII character 126 ? The one you often find on the top of the
key left of the "1" ?

Nope, it gets sorted as the 15-th (outof 216 filenames)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 10:14:42 +0200, R.Wieser wrote:
Hello all,

I'm in the need for a filename that will be, in "windows explorer", sorted
/after/ all the ones starting with letter symbols (for non-important, but
still easy-to-reach files).

I thought I could rather easily find that out by just a small VBScript, but
that both showed a decorated "z" as the last-to-be-sorted character, as well
as an inability to recreate that character using the keyboard - alt 158, the
value I "chr( )"-ed to create the filename, came back with a rather
different one ... whut?

I repeated the filename creation using CreateFilenameA (kernel32) , but ran
into the same. :-(

So, next to my above, initial need I could do with an explanation to why I
can create filenames that I cannot recreate using the keyboard in "windows
explorer", and possibly a method to how to get those characters anyway
(preferrably by keyboard).

Remark: The OS this has been found and tested on is XPsp3. Though I think
that the above might well also happen on the OSes (7 & 10) of the newsgroups
I crossposted to, and as such I've opted to broaden my chance of finding
someone who knows about it. My apologies if I misjudged.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Non Latin characters (not symbols) are sorted after Latin characters. e.g.
Russian, Greek, Hebrew, CJK, etc.

R.Wieser wrote:
Jeff,

'?' ( Omega, U+03A9 ) is sorted "last" ( after 'z' );

Any idea how I, in "windows explorer" enter that into filename ? I've
tried ALT (keep it pressed) x0937 (release), but that returns a copyright
symbol which is sorted way before the any of letters. Not typing the
leading zero 937 gives an unknown character (a small square), but is also
sorted before any of the letters.

I forgot to tell I already tried ALT and than a few different numbers above
255, but didn't have any luck there either.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
Was there any reason you added "comp.os.linux.advocacy" (I removed it
again) ?



Do a web search on U+03A9, then wipe over the letter
on the page, copy, then paste into explorer.

https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+03A9

It went to the bottom, in this test.

https://i.postimg.cc/j50VJvHx/last-file-test.gif

Paul

"R.Wieser" wrote

| '?' ( Omega, U+03A9 ) is sorted "last" ( after 'z' );
|
| Any idea how I, in "windows explorer" enter that into filename ? I've
| tried ALT (keep it pressed) x0937 (release), but that returns a copyright
| symbol which is sorted way before the any of letters.

I didn't know you could do that. It seems to do nothing
for me on XP. And since when does Explorer recognize
UTF-8 or unicode-16? Not in XP, as far as I know.
I know there is... or was... a charmap applet for entering
ANSI characters above 127, but I've never really used it.

| Not typing the
| leading zero 937 gives an unknown character (a small square), but is also
| sorted before any of the letters.
|

A couple of notes... You probably know this, but others
may not:

1) The display will depend on the font. Very few fonts other
than MS Arial unicode will show non-ANSI characters. (I
discovered that when I wanted to have a RichEdit window
handle UTF-8. It turned out that via a somewhat esoteric
trick, recent versions of RichEdit can do that. But my favorite
coding font is Verdana, which doesn't have characters for
unicode. I don't even get boxes in the RichEdit. I get whatever
ANSI characters it calculated from the multibyte UTF-8 strings.)

2) When you're using ANSI characters the display will depend
on the local codepage. My ASCIICat reference says 158 is "not
used by ANSI codepage 1250". (Eastern Europe and sometimes
Germany)

I use "aa" to make sure a file or folder sorts to the top of a folder.
Wouldn't it be easiest to just use "zz" to put something at the end?
I know you're a connoisseur of precise technique, but in this case
it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

In article ,
says...

On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 10:14:42 +0200, R.Wieser wrote:
Hello all,

I'm in the need for a filename that will be, in "windows explorer", sorted
/after/ all the ones starting with letter symbols (for non-important, but
still easy-to-reach files).

I thought I could rather easily find that out by just a small VBScript, but
that both showed a decorated "z" as the last-to-be-sorted character, as well
as an inability to recreate that character using the keyboard - alt 158, the
value I "chr( )"-ed to create the filename, came back with a rather
different one ... whut?

I repeated the filename creation using CreateFilenameA (kernel32) , but ran
into the same. :-(

So, next to my above, initial need I could do with an explanation to why I
can create filenames that I cannot recreate using the keyboard in "windows
explorer", and possibly a method to how to get those characters anyway
(preferrably by keyboard).

Remark: The OS this has been found and tested on is XPsp3. Though I think
that the above might well also happen on the OSes (7 & 10) of the newsgroups
I crossposted to, and as such I've opted to broaden my chance of finding
someone who knows about it. My apologies if I misjudged.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Non Latin characters (not symbols) are sorted after Latin characters. e.g.
Russian, Greek, Hebrew, CJK, etc.

Sounds to me like you'd be better using a subfolder!

If you want to muck about with obscure characters,tap WINKEY+. (that's
a period) for a menu in Windows 10. Lots of fun to be had there!

??

--

Phil, London

Jeff,

Any idea how I, in "windows explorer" enter that into filename ?

Google says:

Press and hold down the Alt key.

Lol. Thats the method I remember from my DOS times, and which I tried
first. After that I googled for some others but got, as mentioned,
nowhere.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message , R.Wieser
writes:
[]
I thought I could rather easily find that out by just a small VBScript, but
that both showed a decorated "z" as the last-to-be-sorted character, as well
as an inability to recreate that character using the keyboard - alt 158, the
value I "chr( )"-ed to create the filename, came back with a rather
different one ... whut?
[]
Not having a numpad (it's a laptop), I use AllChars
(http://allchars.zwolnet.com/)- it only does characters in the upper
256, but I find it very intuitive: for example, Ctrl, +, - gives me ±;
Ctrl, e, ', gives me é, and so on. I think even if I _did_ have a
numpad, I'd probably still use it, as the sequences (not combinations)
are easier to remember than the alt+0 codes. Works in at least XP and 7.

(Sorry, can't help with a sort-last character. I was going to suggest ~,
but you've already tried that.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

They are public servants, so we will threat them rather as Flashman treats
servants. - Stephen Fry on some people's attitudo to the BBC, in Radio Times,
3-9 July 2010

Jeff-Relf.Me @. wrote

| I use "aa" to make sure a file or folder sorts to the top of a folder.
|
| Every number and/or symbol comes before 'a'.
|

Interesting. I guess it never occurred to me to name
a file or folder starting with a number. I can't imagine why I would
want to.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"R.Wieser" wrote
[]
| Any idea how I, in "windows explorer" enter that into filename ? I've
| tried ALT (keep it pressed) x0937 (release), but that returns a copyright
| symbol which is sorted way before the any of letters.

I didn't know you could do that. It seems to do nothing
for me on XP.

(a) The Num Lock has to be in a certain state - I forget which, on IIRR
- and (b) you have to type the numbers on the numpad, not the top row.
_Does_ work in XP (I think it did even in '9x). (Not having a numpad, I
now use AllChars - see previous post - and think I might now even if I
did have a numpad again.)
I know there is... or was... a charmap applet for entering
ANSI characters above 127, but I've never really used it.

Start, run, charmap (doesn't have to be from a DOS box), or it's (as
"Character Map") under Accessories (near the calculator) on XP. I think;
on 7 it's under Accessories | System Tools, so might be on XP too. I've
found it a bit awkward - in Word, it always selects a strange font size
(13 IIRR) and adds a newline, for example - but it is there.
[]
I use "aa" to make sure a file or folder sorts to the top of a folder.
Wouldn't it be easiest to just use "zz" to put something at the end?
I know you're a connoisseur of precise technique, but in this case
it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

I use ! for topping - easy to type and stands out.

A sudden thought: there's a setting, in XP at least, that lets you
choose sort order in Explorer (and possibly other things); the "smart"
(default) setting knows about numbers even when embedded, so sorts a1b,
a2b, a10b, whereas the dumb setting sorts a1b, a10b, a2b (i. e. sorts on
a character-by-character basis). I don't know if it has any other
differences, but it might be worth playing with. I can't remember where
it is - might have been in some tweaker utility rather than accessible
in a system menu somewhere.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

They are public servants, so we will threat them rather as Flashman treats
servants. - Stephen Fry on some people's attitudo to the BBC, in Radio Times,
3-9 July 2010

In message , Mayayana
writes:
Jeff-Relf.Me @. wrote

| I use "aa" to make sure a file or folder sorts to the top of a folder.
|
| Every number and/or symbol comes before 'a'.
|

Interesting. I guess it never occurred to me to name
a file or folder starting with a number. I can't imagine why I would
want to.

I often by default rename the pics from a camera as e. g. 2019-10-03
15-33-18; IrfanView can even do it automatically for all files in a
folder (batch rename string $E36867 for anyone wanting to), from the
EXIF data in the files. [I think some other image softwares can do the
same.] You might also, even without that, have "2018 results.xml", "1965
winning team.jpg", "10th draft.doc" ...

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

They are public servants, so we will threat them rather as Flashman treats
servants. - Stephen Fry on some people's attitudo to the BBC, in Radio Times,
3-9 July 2010

"R.Wieser" on Thu, 3 Oct 2019 10:14:42 +0200
typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
Hello all,

I'm in the need for a filename that will be, in "windows explorer", sorted
/after/ all the ones starting with letter symbols (for non-important, but
still easy-to-reach files).

Simplest method I've found "prepend" ZZZ_ to a file name. e.g.,
ZZZ_lastfilename.txt
Unless there is a file
ZZZZ-Something else
WHich will show up after it.

Messing with special characters just adds more complexity to your
life. Unless that is something you want to learn about.
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?