I have run the gamut of open source solutions for having a gallery of my writings which include (in Omeka speak) collections of poems, short stories and manuscripts. I think Omeka could be the best solution out there but I'm having some little problems, I'm sorry if this is a naive question but I just can't get alphabetical sorting to work out. I want to upload my poems as items but then show them under the collections sorted in alphabetical order. I'd like to have it always be sorted that way (meaning adjust the php code) but knowing the URL formatting would help too and I could structure my links correctly. I have read several forum posts about sorting order but I don't know which pages to adjust and then I've also seen the reference to the new File reordering of 1.5 but I don't think that's relevant to my issue. Can anyone give me a hand? Thanks in advance!
So, each poem is a different Item, and you want to display them sorted alphabetically by title where?
On the actual page for a collection, or on the items/browse page (either for all items or just when filtering by collection)?
Both areas (collections & item browse) would be great - I'd honestly like to see any items when in a list always alphabetical - since I am the sole producer of the work, the dates mean little to me. Omeka has immense potential for archiving and demonstrating text and I'd very excited to work with it. Thank you for answering so quickly.
The URL query string for this kind of sorting would be: ?sort_field=Dublin Core,Title at the end of a given URL, like items/browse?sort_field=Dublin Core,Title.
If a particular page already has a query string (like the pages for browsing items within a collection do), then you'd just add &sort_field=Dublin Core,Title to the end of the URL.
Changing the default sorting method will, as you thought, either involve editing the PHP code of Omeka, or possibly creating a plugin. I'll think about what the simplest way to change the default sorting would be.