Auto stack -- raw files on top?

[jdk]

Auto-stacking raw and jpeg files (using EXIF timestamp) is a very useful feature. I'm not sure what the default criteria are for the order in which files are stacked (alphabetically by suffix maybe?), but I've used various cameras over the years and therefore have used a number of raw file formats. At the moment, when using auto stack, in some cases the raw file appears on top, and in other cases the jpegs are the top files.

Is it possible to set up auto-stacking so that the raw file always appears on top? I realise I can do this manually for each stack (Context menu -> Set Top), but I would like to automate the process when auto-stacking.

[Mario]

Auto-stacking sorts files by the 'value' used for stacking, e.g. the EXIF date and time or the result of the variable expression.
On the second level, it uses the 'Default' sort profile - which sorts files by their file name by default.

There was a glitch in the auto-stacking code and the sort was not always applied correctly.

For variables this may have resulted in wrong missed stacks, depending from which scope the auto-stacking was ran. For the other modes (e.g. Exif date and time) the sort order way determined by the stacking attribute, and on the second level by the unique object id of the file (which depends on the order in which files were added to the database).

It works correct again in the next build (5.0.134).
There is no feature to control the sort order used for auto-stacking individually.

[jdk]

Thank you for the prompt reply.

After reading your reply, I checked the EXIF timestamps produced by my cameras -- they were identical for both raw and jpegs of the same image, so judging from your reply IMatch is sorting files with identical names (excluding extensions) by the default sort order.

So I edited the default sort profile, replacing File Name (Smart) with File Name (without extension) and adding File Size (reversed) at the end of the sort order. This worked as expected in the Media & Folders view without stacks, the (larger) raw files always appeared first, -- e.g. File1.raw, File1.jpg, File2.raw, File2.jpg etc -- but when I stacked files, jpegs still appeared on top.

As you suggest, I'll wait until the next version before making any more effort on this.

[Mario]

As I said, Auto-stack in the current version does not sort the files. To control which file is put on top of the stack, either use the rating option or select the stack top manually. Sorting the files within created stacks based on the Default sort profile will be functional again in 5.0.134.