Resequence Sort Keys

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where sorting on the "sort key" field does not produce the desired result. Maybe the clips have been re-arranged to the point where the sort keys are too close together, and need to be "spread out". Or maybe you imported them from another database and they are in the reverse order. Or maybe you now want to sort in descending order so that new clips are on top, but your existing clips would be listed in the reverse order.

Whatever the reason, this function can help. It's powerful, but you have to give some thought to the desired result in order to have results that are desirable.

The re-order function operates on a selection of clips. You must first select them with the mouse (hold down the SHIFT and CTRL keys to select multiple clips) or else use the Edit | Select All function. Then use File | Re sequence menu to invoke the function.

You will be prompted for the starting value, and an incremental value. The increment can be either positive, or negative. For example, values of 1000 and 10 will re sequence with keys of 1000, 1010, 1020, etc.. If you use 100000 and -10, then you'll have 100000, 99990, 99980, etc..

The sequencing is always done in the order of the selection. If you use the Edit | Select All, then the selection is from the top-down. If you pick the clips with the mouse (usually by holding down the SHIFT key), then it pays attention to your last two clicks to determine top-down or bottom-up.

Scenario 1 - User prefers sorting by MySort key, with new items on TOP (sort order is descending), but there are lots of clips here that imported incorrectly.

Recommendation - temporarily sort by date, such that they appear in the correct order. Find the largest existing sort key - use that as the starting point, and increment by -10

Scenario 2 - Clips have been re-arranged so much that they are "bunched", and won't move any more.

Recommendation - Sort on the SortKey column to sort them the best that you can. If the "bunch" is localized to just a few clips, then select the first one, hold down SHIFT, and then the last one. Otherwise use Edit | Select All. Now find the largest sort key in the selection (probably at the top) and use it as the starting point. Use a negative increment of at least 10, maybe 100 if you can do so without running past zero or running into other clips.

•	Arrange - If you can, arrange the items in the ClipList by sorting on some column that gives the intended result. If they're merely upside-down, then sort by the existing Sort Key or Date/Time, and click again to invert.

•	Select - use Edit \| Select All, if you can. That will ensure a top-down processing order.

•	Pick a big starting number, and a small, negative increment. But don't pick so big that new clips will get "lost". A good strategy is to start with the largest existing sort key in the collection. That way, new clips coming in, will have a higher sort value, and will therefore be placed at the top.