Sort by multiple criteria

[fullstackcharlie]

Thanks for creating and sharing this plug-in.

I'd like to sort a folder by two dates - modified then created - both in new-to-old order.

To illustrate, here's what I've tried:

target-folder: Notes
  > modified, created

target-folder: Notes
  > modified
  > created

Is it possible?

[SebastianMC]

Hi @fullstackcharlie

you were close with the syntax and the fully correct version is:

---
sorting-spec: |
  target-folder: Notes
    > modified, > created
---

however, I'm afraid this won't work as you expect because the file dates (creation date, modification date) are full date-and-time-stamps, up to miliseconds granularity, if I recall correctly. In turn, this means that in the real life it is unlikely that two files will share exactly the same 'modified' timestamp to give a chance the created-timestamp sorting to come into the play.

I could recommend the approach 'dates in note title suffix' approach, yet it works only when the main sorting is on creation timestamp - you can put the date suffix in the note once, when the note is created. By definition this won't work for 'modified' timestamp - updating note title each time it is edited is unrealistic. You can try to use some plugin, which will automatically update a frontmatter metadata (e.g. named 'modified' storing only the date part) and then sort by that metadata, but IMO this would be too risky - how a plugin can guarantee that no content of the note is overwritten or lost?