More Awesome Than You!

How exactly does the game decide how it's going to sort items in the buy/build catalog?  Right now i'm trying to get sets of wallpaper to appear either at the beginning or end of the catalog and nothing I do seems to work.  I've tried renaming the files, i've tried changing the wallpaper name that appears in the catalog and i've changed the prices.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Well, back in the day when I did no sub folders at all it looked like things were sorted by the names alphabetically but it seems that things have changed and I cant figure it out, maybe alphabetically and/or the date created/modified.

I've looked at the date created and modified and it's not sorting that way either LOL  it's really got me stumped how it's sorting. I'm going to try changing the catalog description and see if that has any effect.

In mine it looks like walls and floors are sorted by the date they were added. This means that as sets are usually added at the same time they will be grouped together. Custom walls/floors seem to appear either at the beginning or end of the section depending on the type (carpet, tiles, wallpaper, paint etc), though some are in the middle with stuff pack content tagged on the end.

My walls and floors don't seem to be sorted in any intelligible manner. And it changes every time I install an EP or Stuff pack, so by the time I've gotten used to one non-order the game invents a new one. I think it hates me.  :-\

I forgot to mention that I have regenerated my groups.cache file which may well have re-ordered things sensibly by date added.

I would really like to sort my stuff by creator but can never figure it out.  Yes, I forgot soemtimes it does look like its sorted by when something is added but then something throws a wrench into that too.

...strange, it always seemed to me to be by price. The first few screens of anything are always clogged with items whose creators thought it was a good idea to make all their items cost "$1", and it increases as I click through...

Mine are definitely NOT sorted by price... that's how it was in Sims 1, but I've never had that in Sims 2. I wish they were, though. It'd be handy so I didn't pick out $15 walls for my poor sims...

For me, objects are, floors and walls no.  Floors and walls are usually custom first then Maxis or Maxis first then custom and its just random order it seems.

After spending more hours then a normal person probably would/should have LOL.  I've managed to figure out a couple things.  I still can't seem to see any definite way wall coverings are sorted.   Changing the filename of the wallpaper does make changes to where it appears in the catalog.  If you have sets like mult part wall murals or any other sets you would like to have grouped i've been finding that if you change the filenames to go in sequence (wall 01- wall 05 etc), and put them in a subfolder of their own, they will usually be grouped together and in order in the catalog.

Have you tried naming the subfolders in numeral sequence too? 

I have.  And that will also change were wallpaper appears in the catalog.  I have all the Life Stories walls in a subfolder of their own.  If the folder is named LSWalls,  I seem to get other sets appearing in the middle of the life stories group, but if I change the name to zLSWalls this doesn't seem to happen.  And this is were my main confusion is at the moment.  Changing the folder name/filename does change the order in the catalog, and at first it looks like the game is sorting by filename, alphabetically.  But then a wallpaper that should be appearing in a certain spot will be off somewhere else in the catalog.  Looking at the filename and catalog name of that wall gives no clue as to why that one will sort somewhere else.

Yes, I'm necromancing, but I'd like to know if anyone has figured out anything else about this. I just made a huge batch of walls and floors and they seem sort-of sorted, but not really. It is annoying, and I'd like to know if there's a way to get them to actually sort intelligibly.

I use the wall/terrain/floor editor from dj's to batch rename the files to what they are ingame. For the most part, all of my sets show up together that way.

Mine are named alphabetically and by set (i.e. floor_neri_carpet_habana_blue), and I compressorized them all at once so they'd have the same "last modified" date, but they still aren't actually organized. They're sort-of organized, but then random crap shows up in the sets, and though the sets tend to stick together, they aren't alphabetical. They do seem to be vaguely organized by price -- but again, not really. I wish someone with the capability to look at this would tell us how the game decides what order they go in. Right now it looks like a 5-year old putting something in order and getting bored 2/3 of the way through.