Attachment order

dstillman · February 27, 2021

This discussion was created from comments split from: Attachment order (and reordering).

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 27, 2021

This is an old thread, but I started having an issue with the attachment order on Zotero 5.0.94

Is it just me or a common bug?

dstillman · February 27, 2021

This sounds like some sort of misunderstanding, but you'd have to explain what the problem is you're experiencing for us to say more.

There are no known bugs related to ordering. Attachments are ordered by the attachment title by default. There's an 'sortAttachmentsChronologically' preference that you can toggle on in the Config Editor in the Advanced pane of the preferences.

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 27, 2021

Hi, dstillman, thanks for your reply!

Yes, since I started using Zotero in 2011 that has been the default behaviour, but now for some reason it's changed, as you can see here: https://i.ibb.co/vBH3JNW/Attachment-Order-2.png

The option "extensions.zotero.sortAttachmentsChronologically" is set to "false".

dstillman · February 27, 2021

I'm not sure what that screenshot is meant to show. That shows them sorting correctly by title.

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 27, 2021

OK, maybe it I'm getting this wrong.

Before I could sort attachments by adding a number at the beginning (0, 1, 2, and so on). Is that not considered part of the "title" now?

I've just updated the screenshot to show that the order is not alphabetical in either way: "0, 3, 8, 7" or "F, (The) D, S, C".

dstillman · February 27, 2021

Well, your first screenshot showed 0, 3, 8, so that was sorted correctly. (It also happened to be sorting alphabetically after that, though that was irrelevant. "The" is ignored for sorting in the items list.)

0, 3, 8, 7 is wrong, though. Does that persist after restarting Zotero?

To be clear, this is about child attachments to an item? If so, can you show that in the screenshot?

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 27, 2021

Updated as requested!

Yes, child attachments to an item.

dstillman · February 27, 2021

Does this persist after restarting Zotero?

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 27, 2021

Yes, and on two different laptops. Both running on Linux (Ubuntu 20.04). I could try to see what happens on Windows 10 if that helps.

dstillman · February 27, 2021

Can you select the parent item, paste this into Tools → Developer → Run JavaScript, and tell me the result?

var rows = ZoteroPane.getSelectedItems()[0].getAttachments().map(x => Zotero.Items.get(x)); var collation = Zotero.getLocaleCollation(); rows.sort((a, b) => collation.compareString(1, a.getField('title'), b.getField('title'))); Zotero.Prefs.get('sortAttachmentsChronologically') + "\n" + JSON.stringify(rows.map(x => x.getField('title')))

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 27, 2021

I get the alphabetical order there:

 false
["0 - Front Matter.pdf","3 - The Decay of Lying.pdf","7 - The Critic as Artist.pdf","8 - The Soul of Man Under Socialism.pdf"]

dstillman · February 27, 2021

Does it make a difference what column you're sorting the items list by?

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 28, 2021

Not at all.

dstillman · February 28, 2021

If you click the attachment title in the right-hand pane and rename something to use a different number (without renaming the associated file), does the order change?

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 28, 2021

It doesn't.

dstillman · February 28, 2021

Can you reproduce this if you create a new empty item and add some linked-URL attachments below it with different names?

pablo.sanmartin.varela · February 28, 2021

I can reproduce this with link attachments in a new parent item. They are displayed chronologically.

Notes however work normally (i.e. are displayed alphabetically, regardless of when they were added or edited).

dwoodruff · June 27, 2021

I'm having this same issue. The only difference I have is that when I run the javascript dstillman suggested on Feb 27 I get imperfect alphabetisation. Notes do indeed alphabetise. I toggled the sort attachments chronologically on, then restarted, set it to off, restarted, but it didn't help. Using 5.0.96.2 on a Mac

johnmy · June 29, 2021

I have the same issue, when I attached aaa.pdf, 111.pdf, bbb.pdf, 000.pdf, it showed the order I added, extensions.zotero.sortAttachmentsChronologically was set as false.

johnmy · June 29, 2021

The zotero and Win 10 has been restarted, but the order did not change.

https://sm.ms/image/cy3a6eWG1CloXrp

verazorita · June 29, 2021

Same issue here. Windows 10 64 bits running latest Zotero version.
Plugins: Zotfile, DOI, BibTex, Mdnotes, Zutilo.

nschneid · September 20, 2025

I am having this issue in Zotero 7.0.26: the attachment order in the right-hand pane does not respect the modified title, and this controls which PDF is opened when I double-click the article item. I want "Main PDF" to be the one that opens.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3899/487r44904i5flw110cra.png

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3899/5wmy6tmpitdyqdg6oj20.png

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3899/cd3d12kjacfb8txhi2yx.png

Perhaps the right-hand pane sort order is by Accessed date (oldest first)?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3899/em75vn3tcyjakhwcw895.png

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3899/lc5qiusklc06fuxyfc8b.png