I have recently started using Linux instead of WinXP, but unfortunately I have not yet been able to find a file manager which does something which I took for granted in Windows Explorer and regard as essential.

The feature that Windows Explorer does as standard but which no Linux file manager does, to my knowledge, is to show images in the sort order. So if you have a directory of photos, put them in list view, sort them by date order, then click on one of them, then click "next", then in Windows Explorer (with whatever image viewer it uses) the next image you see will be the photo with the next date. Frustratingly, I have tried several Linux file managers and all of them will only show the next photo which is the next in alphabetical order, regardless of how you have them sorted in the file manager.

I think there was one Linux image viewer for which you could display images in date order if you went into Preferences, but it was impossible to get it to display the files in list view.

Two other essential things are firstly being able to "see" easily the second hard-drive in my computer. For some Linux file managers or image viewers it seems to be invisible. And secondly, being able to easily switch between list view and thumbnails and back.

So is there any Linux file manager which can do the above please? I am willing to switch distros if necessary. If I cannot find one then I will have to move back to Windows.

I was disappointed and rather shocked to find that Linux cannot do something I regard as fundamental and essential.

If there is no Linux file manager that can do the above, is it because of some fundamental technical reason or what please?

Thanks.

The problem is that once you are displaying an image, the file manager is out of the picture (so to speak), and the program displaying the image has its own notion of what image is "next." Switching to a different file manager is never going to affect that.

Thanks, I take you point, but somehow Windows Explorer and its image viewer never had a problem with that. No matter how you sorted the files in list view - by date, size, name, type, etc - then the "next" button in the image viewer would always take you to the nest image as you had sorted it in the order it appeared in list view. I do not recall any other Windows file manager doing anything different either.

You could learn a little bit of coding, find a image viewer you like then mod it to suit your needs. It is not only educational and pain staking job. But you will have something you did to be proud of. then give it back. submit your changes enhancements to the original people that way you'll get credit for all of your hard work too.

Linux programs tend to be less interconnected than the various parts of Windows. Plus, there's the issue of having a choice of file managers. That flexibility comes at a price. An application would first have to figure out which file manager was being used and have means to communicate with the alternatives.

Gwenview has a "Sort By" if that works?

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geeqie is handles images well.

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Thanks, I've just installed Gwenview and it is better than anything else I've tried in Linux. Is it impossible to get it to show things in detailed list view?

It seems it would not need much extra to turn it into a good file manager, mostly just adding a detailed list view preferably with sortable columns.

Like BW-userx put BASH, HTML, &c, for e.g: could help. When I was newer I would install 20 or more apps that do the same thing just to check them all out but it often resulted in an unstable system.

?? what ??

show a thumbnail image in a
list by alphabetical order ?
list by size in MiB ?
list in order of last edit ?

this is all standard on EVERY Desktop manager i have used
like this image
alpha-numerical order
http://imgbox.com/iyAUfjiH

In my working windows XP it's actually "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer" program that is called when you open an image file from Explorer. Explorer therefore must pass a sorted list of image file paths to the picture viewer, so it can support Previous and Next. the actual navigation from image to image is done by the viewer program, not from windows Explorer itself.

You can change default viewer program associations so some other image program is used.

In Fedora 23/XFCE/Image Viewer you're right, the image viewer previous and next don't follow a sorted Thunar file list. It looks like windows Explorer passes the sorted file list to the viewer where Thunar doesn't.

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Have you tried Dolphin?
You can go into "control," pick "view properties" and then "show preview" and how you want them sorted.

KDE's browser, Konqueror, is also used by many as a file manager and you can set it up, similar to what I described above, but start with "View" from the main toolbar. Konqueror was the default KDE file manager before Dolphin came along.

Dolphin passes the information to Gwenview and you can then go up and down the list. You can also setup Konqueror to do the same thing. It takes an extra step or two, but once done, it remembers the setting.

You can also setup Thunar to do the same thing with gThumb, if you want to stay away from KDE, or it will also call Gwenview (or whatever other program you want to use).
I found both gThumb and Gwenview will allow you to move up and down the list, but Geeqie will not. I didn't spend much time playing with it, so maybe Geegie can be tweaked?

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grumpysceptic, you never even told us what distro you're using, and what desktop environment?
that is essential info to be able to assess and answer your question.

everything you request in your op is available and easily configured on most linux systems.
don't be disappointed; taste the difference instead! meaning: changing from windows to linux requires you to understand that things can be done differently. a system that does not provide you with all familiar features ootb (=outofthebox) is not necessarily a bad system.

fwiw, i used to use geeqie for advanced image viewing.
if you use ubuntu, i believe gthumb is pretty feature-rich.
but again, it will take some time to understand & configure it to your desires.

maybe the biggest difference between windows and linux is this:
windows is always the same, linux is always different.

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Thanks for all the help. I am using Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64bit. The computer I am using is a Dell Dimension 5150. It currently only has 4GB of memory, but I anticipate probably increasing the memory so that is why I installed a 64bit OS.

I have recently tried a Ubuntu live dvd, as I think it may be better to use Ubuntu rather than its derivative Mint, but as described in another thread here I get problems with the display.