Sorting by Year

August 8, 2007 10:28 AM

How do I add custom details to folders in Windows Explorer?

You know how in windows explorer list view you can sort folders by details like Name, Size, Date Modified, etc. Is there any hack or way to add my own custom detail field? For instance i have a bunch of album folder and I want to make a field called "Year" so that I could sort them by year as well as name

posted by petsounds to computers & internet (7 comments total)

To help in your search, those are called Windows Shell Extensions.
posted by mmascolino at 10:37 AM on August 8, 2007

Don't know how to add *custom* fields, but if you right-click where the detail field names are you'll get a context menu which will allow you to display extra fields in the Detail view. One of those happens to be 'Year', which I'm pretty sure is ripped from the ID3 tag, as it's only filled on mp3s for me.

it's quite possible that this is a shell ext. added by winamp, or something else I have installed on my computer and not stock XP behavior.
posted by fishfucker at 10:49 AM on August 8, 2007

This link suggests it is stock XP behavior, so you shouldn't need to install anything.
posted by fishfucker at 10:51 AM on August 8, 2007

Annnnddddd, this won't work on folders, so I guess you can disregard my comments.
posted by fishfucker at 10:52 AM on August 8, 2007

Yeah thats the right idea tho. Im looking here for shell extensions but havent found anything yet. I guess what I really need is a tool to edit the properties of folders like you can for mp3s
posted by petsounds at 10:57 AM on August 8, 2007

This used to really bug me too.

I ended up using musicbrainz to rename all 120gb of my music library in the format:

Artist/Year - Albumname/Tracknumber-Tracktitle

Yes. I am anal about my music collection.
posted by gergtreble at 1:28 PM on August 8, 2007

You should really have a look at directory opus. It will let you do this and more as far as file maniupation.
posted by __ at 1:55 PM on August 8, 2007