Date/Time Attribute

[Richard]

I would like a special "Created" attribute of the date/time variety. If this attribute contains a date, that date would be take priority over all other dates for sorting files. If "Created" is left blank it would have no effect and normal dates would be used for sorting.

[Mario]

If you create a sort profile which sorts first by your Created Attribute and then by another data (e.g. the standard date) this should work automatically.

This is what happens

File A	File B	Result
Empty	Empty	A = B, other sort profile fields are evaluated
Empty	Value	A < B
Value	Empty	A > B

[Photon]

The OP proposal is valid and good. The date/time issue is not only about sorting, it is about ALL display, sorting, timeline, thumbnail, ... of ALL file formats. I know the lengthy discussions in this forum about different date & time values. I tried a lot and still did not succeed to realize ONE date/time for all my taken, scanned media files. But I understand, that it might be impossible for IMatch to solve the discrepancies between embedded metadata (standards) and various file formats and dates/times.

[Mario]

There are no common date & time fields which work across all file formats. There are not even date&time fields which are supported by all image formats. And don't get me started about the multitude of metadata formats used in video files.

Your best bet is to use XMP date and time fields, because they work in principle across all formats. And XMP date and time fields van be used to override the default date and time fields IMatch imports and uses for the standard "File Date & Time" attribute. Works also for video files.

Or use Attributes. These work for all file formats, you can use them everywhere you can use variables, you can use them for sorting etc. You can even fill them from existing metadata in your files via the cool import module.