Files Breakdown Within A Folder?

[Chip Fossa]

As I was ammassing many, many "oldies" files today, I simply just dumped them into a desktop folder called, DOH, "Oldies, But Goodies".

This OBG folder was to be my primary depository for 'oldies'. From this folder, I would create artistically sub-oldies folders. The OBG folder was to be my main collection point.

Well, what I observed during today's operations, was that in the OBG main folder, all these hodge-podge songs with varied titles, were actually being organized alphabetically, but in a more easy breakdown way, than I have yet to have seen with Vista.

I had, at this moment, roughly 60-70 songs.

What I noticed quickly, when I opened up the OBG folder to check on things....

there were like 3-4 distinct alphabetacle divisions:
A-H; I-P; Q-V; W-Z.

It was great. It made it so much easier to track down a song, by dividing up the alphabet into these 'blocks'.

NOW - these blocks have disappeared. Gone. I never knew how to implement them, but while they were there for a while, they were a great aid.

Does anybody know how I can get this back?
Has anyone experienced this alphabet sub-divison?

I'm a lucky Vista user.

Thanks all, in advance.

PS - it sounds like a small thing, but really, it's very, very helpful.

[Andy Sandoval]

I'm runnin' Windows XP but I can right click in any folder and then under "arrange icons by" choose by name, size or type to organize folder contents.

[Mitch Drumm]

Chip:

I have Vista like you.

Look at this screenshot of my "country" mp3 folder:





The gray box that you see is brought to life through the little downward pointing triangle just above the gray box--above and to the right of the words "Al Terry" and immediately to the right of "name".

I can't stand the feature and have never played around with it a lot.

I have about 15,000 mp3s and decided to sort them by genre, so I have an mp3 folder, and within that I have folders for blues, country, pop, rockabilly, and 4 others. Within each of those I have folders for each artist's name. If I have fewer than 4 songs by an artist, he doesn't have a folder and is just dumped into the main folder for his genre.

Everything is sorted purely alphabetically A to Z, by the default--first name of the artist--the Al Terry folder is just before Andy Parker, and in the rock and roll genre folder, The Fireflies are just before The Five Satins.

Suit yourself, but as you get more files it will become more important.

If you right click on the gray bar that extends out to the right of "name" in the above screenshot, you can choose a bunch more things to choose from besides "name". None of the choices appeal to me, but they might to you.

[John Cipriano]

I don't know the exact process, Chip, but it sounds like you had "Show in Groups" on, which I think is somewhere in the context menu when you right click within the folder and hit "Arrange by".

Edit: oops, just took a closer look at what's above. That's probably what you had on, the "stack by name".

[Chip Fossa]

Thanks Mitch and John (and Andy, too),

Mitch - that's what I was looking for. Eventually, I'll get around to making folders within folders, but for now that blocking helps by nbreaking things up a bit.

You just gotta no where to look.

Thanks again, all.