Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

stin · 2021-01-27 15:52:28

Hello,

I would like to order my files by creation time.

I am most likely doing something wrong. However, Thunar doesn't seem to be aware of file creation dates.

1. I press Ctrl+2 to show details;
2. Go to 'View' > 'Configure Columns';
3. Scroll to 'Date Created' to add it, but
4. There is no 'Date Created' in the list;
5. Throw up hands in disbelief.

Many thanks for your help.

Last edited by stin (2021-01-27 15:53:11)

ToZ · 2021-01-27 17:04:42

Hello and welcome.

It just got added to thunar and is available in 4.17.0.
Sorry, I misread. Since you can see the column to add it, you must be running 4.17. Let me have a closer look.

Edit2: Just tested it on 4.17.0 and it works. Perhaps it added to the end of the columns and you need to horizontally scroll to see it?

Last edited by ToZ (2021-01-27 19:01:02)

stin · 2021-01-27 19:05:48

Thank you for your help, but... Forget it. It's going to be yet another OS re-install... again! I am so tired of this.

Apparently, I have 1.8.9 installed! An absolutely archaic version from my [pathetically maintained] package manager.

I presumed that I was running the latest available version.... I am so ignorant as to the utter stupidity of modern software developers and maintainers.

It transpires that my distro of Linux (Mint 19.3) only provides broken and out-of-date software in it's repos - As a result, I can't report bugs for the software I use, get fixes for them when they fail, since they've most likely fixed them in the intervening releases which I can't get.

EOL is an excuse bad software developers use to justify dropping badly maintained program source that has become too hard for them to maintain. It's just lazy and pathetic. There's no reason to do this (provided everybody is working TOGETHER instead of in their own little 'dev' cliques pmsl) nowadays.

With the amount of out-of-date software being deployed on Linux platforms, I am totally surprised and bewildered at this 'better than windows' attitude - This view is less and less justified as time goes on and as devs create yet more 'dev-and-dump' software 'waste'.

I have found that MOST software packages I run are out of date and old and I can't update them due to the restrictions of the distro.

I had to manually install FireFox and Thunderbird because the 'available' packages are months old and have no use.

Maintenance of Linux distros is severely lacking to the point that the latest version of Thunderbird was 10 versions old, Firefox was several versions old - It's just pathetic.

Between this and audio software, Windows is looking like the best option for me in future and MS keep forcing Edge onto everybody's desktop.

I just don't think modern computer OS development is up to the task of producing useful and reliable software any more.

Everybody seems to be stuck in 'the process' without moving forwards.

It's sad to see such a hyped idea fail so completely and entirely.

Humans simply can't develop software reliably or consistently.

I am fed up of hand-holding my OS and having it become defunct after a year or so - It is now so much more worse than Windows ever was.

I'm quitting computers, altogether. They've become so pathetic and unreliable as a result of using convoluted, mismatched software development practices and ancient versioning conventions.

I mean, computers have changed so much since the 80s, yet we still write software using development techniques and management conventions - or derivatives of it - as old and dusty as a PDP11!

Sad, but true and hard to swallow for those who have established a way of live and habits around these old ideas.

To top it off, anyone born in or after the 90s won't even know how a computer was originally supposed to work, so won't ever see how poor modern software actually is. The old adage of "do one thing well" has been replaced by "do everything, no matter how badly it goes." Just look at the leaked Microsoft source code! Hell, look at any open-source project. there are gaping holes in functionality and interoperability. In fact, each dev team has it's own way of doing things - It's such an awful mess - Yet we wonder why computers crash and perform so badly. You cant have a 'good' commodity as commodities are required to be quick and cheap. And thus so is the software most 'coders' produce.

It has finally happened: Computers are now pop-culture toys. It's absolutely disgusting what computers and software development has turned into.

We used to need to have talent and aptitude for software development - Not now lol.

Now, all you need to be a 'coder' ('Coder' - Hollow, buzzwords - That's how deluded and disconnected the industry has become in just 15 short years) nowadays is ignorant desire to be a trendy "coder" and you're off! *facepalm* When will people learn that SKILLS and TALENT are required? O_o

Last edited by stin (2021-01-27 19:40:08)

ToZ · 2021-01-27 19:39:29

stin wrote:

Apparently, I have 1.8.9 installed! An absolutely archaic version from my [pathetically maintained] package manager.

Actually, 1.8.9 isn't that old. Thunar just recently made a jump from 1.8.16 to 4.16 to match the Xfce version.

With the amount of out-of-date software being deployed on Linux platforms,

I have found that MOST software packages I run are out of date and old and I can't update them due to the restrictions of the distro.

I am fed up of hand-holding my OS and having it become defunct after a year or so - It is now so much more worse than Windows ever was.

Not sure of your use-case for Linux, but it sounds like you may be more satisfied with a rolling distro - these tend to have closer to, if not the most recent versions of upstream packages (at the potential cost of less stability/more bugs - though I must say, in my experience, depending on the distro, it isn't really that bad).

MrEen · 2021-01-27 19:52:49

If you want the latest software, don't use a LTS distro. Especially when you're not even using the latest version of that distro.

In all likelihood, Mint 20.2 will have the newest stable version of Xfce and all its components when it comes out this summer. The release of 20.1 was too close to the 4.16 release of Xfce to have it included. However, that almost certainly won't include any 4.17 components, so there still won't be a Date Created column in Thunar.

stin · 2021-01-27 20:21:22

ToZ wrote:

Thunar just recently made a jump from 1.8.16 to 4.16 to match the Xfce version.

And that doesn't make any logical sense O_o A purely aesthetic change which confuses things for others. IMHO it is typically short-sighted and a good example of poor project management.

ToZ wrote:

Not sure of your use-case for Linux, but it sounds like you may be more satisfied with a rolling distro - these tend to have closer to, if not the most recent versions of upstream packages (at the potential cost of less stability/more bugs - though I must say, in my experience, depending on the distro, it isn't really that bad).

My 'use-case' is not specific in the slightest, I have no extra requirement than what a standard PC offers. It just a happens that the distro I chose was unfinished, but this is normal for most OSS - They're works-in-progress, unfinished and unsuitable for general use - I am surprised Linux and PCs work as well as they do with all the failures in design and production, all the cost-savings passed onto the device's integrity.

It would be good to see a completely synergistic OS where everything works as expected (i.e. no broken features released), with some thought on HOW the software might be used, likely on a rolling release so I don't have to keep reinstalling stuff, I can spend days reconfiguring the 5000 settings I changed but couldn't easily backup into a file and migrate. Versioned, extensible configuration files stored in a single location would at least be a start!

It's more complex than just having the right distro - Some of the established rules were just plain wrong and it leads to poor/unfinished/unstable/incompatible software. I thought it was bad enough just having weird, awkward chipsets for OSs to deal with.... It's a systemic and behavioural issue and it isn't going to go away unless the over use of capitalism in technology goes away. Financial economy and poor management will always break technically sound ideas, creating MORE e-waste, without exceptions.

Apart from simple features being unavailable or just missing. Something I thought would have been in the beta version of a file manager would have been to manage using available file metadata - I suppose some people like attacking problems at great speed with their eyes closed lol

I obviously don't see things the same way as many other existing developers and hate dogmatic conventions which stifle and hinder progress, no matter how safe and predictable they feel. This means that most software fails to meet my minimum. They require complete documentation and stable operation - information and documentation should be 80% of the project. But this is seldom adhered to in practice.

As Apple knows too well (and anyone who has had to use an Apple device outside of the 'Apple ecosystem'), when you think differently, you just cause issues for others.

It would be nice to see developers working together for once (so many issues with WINE and GVFS - GVFS team use special characters in their paths, yet WINE can't read these paths, but "GVFS conforms to POSIX standards"... They KNOW WINE software doesn't have to conform to POSIX standards since it's Windows Software - It's just pedants making things hard for others for no objectively good reason) instead of for personal/team prestige and notoriety. Basic humanity can't seem to cope with not being the centre of other's attention.

Truly good software doesn't need a fan club, a fancy badge or it's author's/company names emblazoned on it. It doesn't need justification or excuses. The quality is in the efficient employment of the incumbent machine in it's specified task.

As far as I know, there is no independent body which assesses the quality of open source projects, code, performance and documentation. If OSS is to go anywhere, it needs assurances of quality, operation and support.

Now, it's not just software development which has taken a nose dive, but also hardware development. Classical computing has stagnated and companies are desperately trying to squeeze another drop of performance out of the CPUs - usually breaking the architecture to do it (Spectre. etc.)

It's just pathetic - We can do so much better than these ad-hoc piles of code.

So any issues to tackle, but there is so little time to list and explain them all. Best just wait for it all to come crashing down first lol

Computers today are around 20 times more powerful than they were in the 90s - Do we get 20x the FPS in games? nope. Do we get 20x the work done in a spreadsheet than we used to? Nope. Marketing wants big numbers and efficiency wants small numbers - efficiency doesn't sell, so make other number bigger...

Sad.

Last edited by stin (2021-01-27 20:42:27)

stin · 2021-01-27 20:26:44

In my experience:

I started using Zorin OS, but the newer versions didn't work properly on my PC, so I asked [the "community"] about it, got incredulity and excuses, so I dropped it like a hot potato and moved over to Linux Mint (I heard good things from a friend about it a few years ago.)

Linux Mint is a distro where you can change one thing and it breaks something somewhere else in your config, or you change an option and another changes in sympathy. The underlying system is a hotch-potch of programs forced to interoperate to project this illusion of a cohesive operating system.

I tried v20 of Mint and it just crashed on my system and performed like a snail. Broken.

Oh... LightLocker vs XFCE vs PolKit - I have to enter my password to suspend my system? Broken. I also have to enter my password to get access to my password keyring?? Broken. My xfce4 panel can't keep track of my windows? Broken.

Puppy Linux is fast and seems more cohesive overall, but the window manager needs finishing.

There's always something lacking somewhere and so many people have cobbled things together in an attempt to pick good bits and put them together, but development is so unpredictable that 4 months later, it's broken again, so someone comes up with a new convolution of forced interdependency of software, yet the cycle repeats ad nauseam.

Most seems to be incorrect communication - Like when Apple says 'Synchronise' they actually mean 'Mirror' - You shouldn't lose any data when you synchronise two locations, but you do!

From what I've seen, the whole Linux arena seems to be a giant ad-hoc reactive mess and are just as bad as Apple and M$ are, now.

In my experience of support forums, it is a case of the blind leading the blind - There's so much hassle in finding out what a specific version CAN do, finding your version, doing an inxi, installing the dependencies, reporting bugs and waiting for a fix.... It's just a shitstorm of precariously-balanced interdependencies, yet nobody seems to mind lol

All our technology is, is a random pile of interdependencies. When one thing breaks, it all breaks. That's not advanced. I am convinced we've got this concept all wrong.

Apple Macs were better when they made everything in-house - Now they're just as flaky as a standard PC.

IMHO, something went wrong in computer manufacturing years ago (methinks pop culture?) and nobody noticed, cared enough or had the money/time/inclination to correct it.

Last edited by stin (2021-01-27 20:45:04)

MrEen · 2021-01-27 21:01:44

ToZ wrote:

Edit2: Just tested it on 4.17.0 and it works. Perhaps it added to the end of the columns and you need to horizontally scroll to see it?

Are you using ext4? I'm finding some reports that btime or birth isn't supported with ext4, and indeed if I "stat filename" I get no field for such. Although this could be due to the older glib and coreutil packages I have.

stin · 2021-01-27 21:47:13

Thanks for your input, MrEen.

MrEen wrote:

If you want the latest software, don't use a LTS distro

Wha...? So I DON'T want to use a long-term supported version if I want up-to-date packages? O_o tongue I... How does that even make sense?

I must be going mad. So I have to choose between support OR up-to-date software?

This whole situation just sounds like a bad joke. hmm

MrEen wrote:

ToZ wrote:
Edit2: Just tested it on 4.17.0 and it works. Perhaps it added to the end of the columns and you need to horizontally scroll to see it?
Are you using ext4? I'm finding some reports that btime or birth isn't supported with ext4, and indeed if I "stat filename" I get no field for such. Although this could be due to the older glib and coreutil packages I have.

I had, momentarily, considered the likelihood of the FS not supporting 'birth' or 'ctime', but I dismissed it as highly unlikely.

Think my FS is EXT3 - I chose the default for Mint so as not to break it by choosing an option that wouldn't work.

*Checks*

This is exactly what I didn't want...

mount -l
[...]
/dev/sda2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
[...]

****@********:~$ stat /
  File: /
  Size: 4096      	Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   directory
Device: 802h/2050d	Inode: 2           Links: 24
Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2021-01-27 01:21:10.772026475 +0000
Modify: 2021-01-27 01:21:05.359599633 +0000
Change: 2021-01-27 01:21:05.359599633 +0000
 Birth: -

I presumed forethought where there was none. roll

Explains why Thunar doesn't show btime/ctime in File Properties, either! *facepalm*

[...There was an attempt... At writing an OS.]

I can't order my files by their respective creation times... Because the filesystem itself doesn't support it! mad mad mad tongue mad mad tongue mad mad mad tongue

I'm just going to crawl back into bed for a few years. Hopefully the stupid will have gone away by then?? O_o

Just goes to show: When you use someone else's distro, you're a guest living in someone else's house, under someone else's weird rules.

Last edited by stin (2021-01-27 21:49:19)

MrEen · 2021-01-27 22:02:47

Supported doesn't mean keep all packages up-to-date. It means everything you get when the OS was released should work, and will get security fixes for the life of the release.

If a security issue were discovered in your Thunar version, you'd get an update similar to this:
From 1.8.9-1~18.04.0
To 1.8.9-2~18.04.0

I suspect ext4 is okay, but our coreutils version is still too old for the same addition to Thunar 4.17 to work for us (I'm also using Mint Xfce 19.3) which is why I asked what FS ToZ was using. That answer may confirm it is indeed fine. I simply don't know, and there was no mention of it on the bug report that lead to this being added.

stin · 2021-01-27 23:15:03

MrEen wrote:

Supported doesn't mean keep all packages up-to-date. It means everything you get when the OS was released should work, and will get security fixes for the life of the release.

Thanks again for the clarification. I really appreciate your input. I suppose when you're one of subjects in the development process, day after day, it has to start to make some kind of sense, whether it does or not. I was a programmer when I was a bairn, but I haven't really written a damn thing in over 12 years, now. Mainly because when I moved over to PCs, they needed you to install and configure development and build environments, whereas coding on RISCOS you just had to press F12 and start the interpreter lol

Ah, another misapprehension. IMHO, 'LTS' should probably be re-defined as 'Long-Term Security', in that case.

The idea that software updates are made available to supported OSes makes a lot of sense. I suppose this is a very specific definition of 'support' lol

MrEen wrote:

If a security issue were discovered in your Thunar version, you'd get an update similar to this:
From 1.8.9-1~18.04.0
To 1.8.9-2~18.04.0

Indeed, but I would not have any new features, just a patched old version.

I have spent time logging bugs about various software, only to find out I was running an older, now patched version and the new codebase has superseded the version I am reporting bugs with. I can't get the support/advice for the software I use because it's old. And this happens relatively soon after installing the actual OS.

I have had to go back to downloading files from web sites again, just like in Windows, to get recent versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, eDEX-UI, GIMP, etc running on my system again. And they work fine, but not having a proper, supported package to update my system with is poor, IMHO.

Well-written source code could be automatically compiled into a package for any given distro. It just takes a bit of planning, communication and effort... And a desire to do it, I suppose.

MrEen wrote:

I suspect ext4 is okay, but our coreutils version is still too old for the same addition to Thunar 4.17 to work for us (I'm also using Mint Xfce 19.3) which is why I asked what FS ToZ was using. That answer may confirm it is indeed fine. I simply don't know, and there was no mention of it on the bug report that lead to this being added.

Sorry. I'm not sure I understand you fully... Do you think that EXT4 does store the btime/ctime, but coreutils doesn't have a call to query it? Also, what 'this' was added from the Thunar bug report?

I also presume the changes between v1.8.9 and Thunar 'v4.17' make them incompatible?? (ie , it's not just added code, but now refers to dependencies I can't install under Mint 19.3?)

I am assuming that upgrading 'coreutils' would be too disruptive a task? Otherwise, I fail to see why Thunar can't fetch the btime/ctime from the FS metadata(?). Has software development really gotten this fraught?

It's likely time to look for another distro, again. Hopefully I will find a completed one that fully works and for a while.

I understand that Linux distros are mainly free, but aren't we supposed to take pride in our work? If anything, defaulting to EXT4 has effectively broken my system. Something I have grown accustomed to, I am now unable to do without recourse, only a reinstall and setting it all back up again from scratch... It seems retrograde, IMHO.

Mind you, one of the bastions of modern high-quality open source licensing, the GPL, says that the software is not warrantied for ANY purpose of any kind, so I suppose most modern software does conform to this license lol I actually heard one dev exult this get-out clause because he didn't seem to have to produce code of a standard, just play. hmm

Is there any established measure of quality for open-source software projects?

stin · 2021-01-27 23:20:08

I wish I could post screenshots without giving my e-mail to a hosting site lol - It would make explaining issues so much more straightforward - Are you listening, Admin? It is 2021! wink

MrEen · 2021-01-27 23:59:43

The "this" is whatever code they added to implement the new column, though I didn't look at the changes. Here's one of the them: https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/-/c … e6fd1d506d

And the header of the bug reports says this:

Since coreutils 8.51 and later, the stat command can show the btime for file/folder if the file system stores it.

But we only have 8.28, so I'm left to assume this will never help us. I could be wrong.

One of the main things about LTS is the dependencies. Upgrading coreutils for example, might require upgrades to other things, but that could then break functionality elsewhere. The rolling releases like Arch and others run into this issue, and as I don't use one of them, I can't speak to how they fix those.

One way around these dependency issues is the use of Flatpaks, Snaps and AppImages. Many pieces of software are now going this route (at least one of them and in some cases all of them) which greatly eases the burden on deveolpers of said software. I've not used any of them, as I don't need the new features of anything, but many people now do use one or more of those methods of have the latest version of their software. If I were to use one, I'd hope an AppImage were available, as that's not even something to install. Just download, mark as executable, and run. No idea if DE core components will ever go down this path.

Regarding an established measure of quality, I cannot answer that. I'm a 'try it til you find something that works for you' user. I tried Cinnamon when I first started using Mint, but found Xfce ran much better on my machine. I've had no major issues since sticking with Xfce. There have been a few niggling little issues, but there is with anything really. On the Mint forum, I've seen a lot more issues posted for Nemo (Cinnamon's file manager) than I have for Thunar for example. Including the exact same topic as this one (granted, this isn't from the forum): https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/1377

My "programming" days ended with VB6 after .NET changed a lot of what I had learned. It was only ever a hobby, but was something I had enjoyed from earlier including Fortran4 and a little C/C++. At this point, I've forgotten much more than I remember about any of those, but I can look at source code and often understand what it's trying to do. Not very good at catching errors though.

And I think that about exhausts anything I can add to this discussion. smile

MrEen · 2021-01-28 00:01:27

stin wrote:

I wish I could post screenshots without giving my e-mail to a hosting site lol - It would make explaining issues so much more straightforward - Are you listening, Admin? It is 2021!

You could upload to imgur.com, then just paste the link. Not sure if this forum has the rimg tags.

xfceforumorg1220 · 2021-02-07 20:07:57

stin wrote:

...
It transpires that my distro of Linux (Mint 19.3)
...

Maybe you would find a rolling release like Manjaro more to your suiting.

You can search by Linux Distribution "Release model" at DistroWatch.

Xfce Forum

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#1 2021-01-27 15:52:28

Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#2 2021-01-27 17:04:42

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#3 2021-01-27 19:05:48

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#4 2021-01-27 19:39:29

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#5 2021-01-27 19:52:49

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#6 2021-01-27 20:21:22

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#7 2021-01-27 20:26:44

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#8 2021-01-27 21:01:44

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#9 2021-01-27 21:47:13

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#10 2021-01-27 22:02:47

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#11 2021-01-27 23:15:03

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#12 2021-01-27 23:20:08

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#13 2021-01-27 23:59:43

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#14 2021-01-28 00:01:27

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

#15 2021-02-07 20:07:57

Re: Thunar: Is a sort by 'Date Created' possible?

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