I need a specific alphabetizing program. PLEASE HELP!!!!

[maccccman]

No To the Neo Office

No I do not Eric

 

[eric]

how about any other spreadsheet program?

btw, neooffice is free.

i'm going to test out open office for windows (while i'm at work) to see if i can do the same sort of text file as csv importing i can do in ms excel. if it works, that would be the answer to all your problems.

would you keep your doc in spreadsheet format for easy sorting if that were an option (and the old version could be easily imported)?

 

[eric]

okay, here it goes.

i just did this, step by step in about 5 minutes (minus installing open office which i thought i had installed, writing the post and creating and uploading pictures to flickr).

created text file named test_sort.txt with this content.
(you could simply copy your text from your document to the plain text editor that comes standard with osx)

1. dr strangelove
2. amelie
3. alien
4. ronin
5. life is beautiful
6. princess mononoke
7. the apartment
8. unbreakable
9. the seven samuri
10. north by northwest
11. the pianist
12. its a mad mad mad mad world
13. the shining
14. dogma
15. stripes​

renamed the text file as test_sort.csv
opened that file with open office's "calc"
this opens a text import dialog/window
choose "space" under seperator options.

the result will be a basic spreadsheet.
mine actually even dropped the periods after the numbers. the only thing that looks clumsy is that titles with more than one word are in seperate cells. though you could fix that. or, you could avoid this ahead of time by doing a find replace on the text document.
find ". " (the period and space after all your numbers), and replace with ",".
then instead of space delimited under seperator options, you'd select comma delimited.

your result should look something like this.

you can then select all cells and sort by the column that contains the first word of all the titles.

select the "button" indicated by the arrow or apple+a to select all.
then sort by going to data > sort... and sort by column b (or whatever column it turns out to be for you).

you can then just save this as a .csv file again. and open in either any spreadsheet program or text editor.


i'm guessing there may be a difference or two between open office for windows and neo office for mac, but i'd guess with this instruction you should be able to easily find your way through it.

 

[eric]

oops, just noticed the "the _______" movies were out of order. simple enough, i just didn't account for it.

in the sort dialog, you have multiple columns you can sort by.
sort by b, then by c, then by d (three words should do, i'd think).

 

[xstep]

Is there a "lamens terms" way to put it.

Hmm. Try this.

Open the document in Appleworks.
Select All
Copy
Open TextEdit in the Applications folder.
Paste into the empty document.
From the Format menu select Make Plain Text.
Perform a Save AS.
Name it unsorted.txt
Open Terminal App in the Applications/Utilities folder.
Without hitting the return key, type

sort -b -d -f -k 2​

Hit the space bar once.
Find the unsorted.txt file in the Finder.
Drag the file icon from the finder to the Terminal window.
Click on the Terminal window.
Do not hit return yet.
Hit the space bar and type

> sorted.txt​

Hit the return key.
You should now have a file that I think even Appleworks can open that is sorted how you previously described.

As Eric has suggested, some people use spreadsheets for this kind of thing. For something this simple that is fine, but if it was more complicated I would say a proper database is the thing to use. Since this is my career, I have certain opinions on when that is required or preferred. I've even seen people use the table feature of MS Word as a database. YUCK!

 

[eric]

I've even seen people use the table feature of MS Word as a database. YUCK!

feh! i'm not a proper database type person and even i find that a bit repulsive.


by the way, xstep, how easy would it be for him to then add things and keep resorting? assuming his dvd collection is not complete.

 

[xstep]

xstep, how easy would it be for him to then add things and keep resorting? assuming his dvd collection is not complete.

As far as I know, MS Excel can only sort three columns, although you can cheat a bit by creating & sorting new columns by concatenating others. Using a real database, I've never hit a limit on the number of columns you can sort on. I would suspect that would be vendor dependent.

Spreadsheets have very many, but finite number of rows and columns available, and most laymen likely wouldn't figure a way to use all of the columns. The rows are the limit to how many individual entries one could have, but you could always create another sheet when you hit that limit.

Having just gotten home, I took a quick look at the Appleworks database. It can have multiple columns of varying types (text, numeric, date, etc) and can have multiple sort preferences per database using many columns. It may be a decent tool here if only the movie and some other limited data is being kept on the movie. As soon as you start adding actors, it gets weird and that is when one moves up to a relational database of some type. Maybe even and object-oriented database. But that comes with a lot of complication also.

So, if the data is simple, either a spreadsheet or the Appleworks database should be fine. They are easy to add data too and sort it in varying ways. My only concern with Appleworks is the ability to move away from it at some later data.

 

[maccccman]

Maybe half way there?

OK, XStep, When I open the Terminal App it is just a small box that says last login, Welcome to Darwin, etc. I am blocked at the without hitting the in the return key part. I guess I don't know how to open the document and get attention to it without using some sort of return, or highlight option?


Do you have AIM or Yahoo or something that might be a one on one thing at any point, when we could just log on, and interact that way?

Let me know, and I will still try and figure this out in the meantime.

Thanks very much!

 

[xstep]

I guess I don't know how to open the document and get attention to it without using some sort of return, or highlight option?

OK. I saw the confusion and changed the order of the instructions slightly. Also note that I altered the command slightly too last night when I tried it at home.

I can do Aim if we need to, but probably not until the Jan 1st or 2nd.

 

[maccccman]

New order...

So what is the new order of the instructions then?

 

[xstep]

So what is the new order of the instructions then?

I did an edit on my long instructions a few posts back. So go back to them.

Also note. I have confirmed that Saving As from Appleworks as a Text file is not good enough. So do follow my instructions above.

 

[maccccman]

Still at a loss??????

I am still at a loss as to how these steps work. I tried axaclty as you had written it, with no luck at all. I guess I am a little hazy when you start the terminal part. It isn't giving me many options when I get there, and I don't know how I am to use that program/application. What is the terminal portion, and what would that have to do with this matter?

All greek to me.

Thanks.

 

[eric]

so, the spreadsheet option didn't work for you?

 

[maccccman]

Spreadsheet

Well, I am trying that now, but while installing open office, it asked for where my "XWindow" would open up at, and not knowing what that meant, I just picked from the list of thinfgs it gave me. Now evertime I open that program, it opens applworks (what I picked when I was asked). So now for some reason, it just opens that program. I uninstalled open office, and am installing a new version, and I guess we will see from there?

AIM: dabdpm
yahoo: elbdpm

 

[maccccman]

What a pain!

It Said I needed to install Apple X11 first before I could use the new open office program. Tried installing the X11 program, and it said I already have a "newer version" on my comp? Either way, I can't work in open office if I can't even open the program. Although, I would like to troubleshoot this, is anyone (who has the program's listed and is savy) interested in alphebetizing them for me some how? I definatley DO NOT plan to let this list get out of control again, and everything from here on out will be alphebetized as it is added to the library. I GIVE UP!

 

[eric]

neooffice

as said earlier, this is open office for macs. will work without installing x11.

if you want, you could email me the list, and i can send it back in csv format for you to open in neooffice and or any other spreadsheet pgm.

say the word and i'll pm you my email addy.

 

[xstep]

I am still at a loss...

Clearly your having trouble with my instructions. I can't say I see where the problem is. For instance there are no 'options' to be concerned with. I wrote what you literally have to do. Don't assume there is anything else.

Try this...

1.) Save the file from TextEdit and name it unsorted.txt

2.) Literally type (or cut & paste) the following line into the Terminal window when it opens.

sort -b -d -f -k 2 `find . -name "unsorted.txt"` > sorted.txt​

3.) The new file, sorted.txt will be in your home directory.

Caveat's;

If the unsorted.txt name already exists before executing the command, change it, otherwise it gets overwritten.

If the unsorted.txt file exists more than once (copies) in you personal directories (including your desktop), the result may not end up being what you want.

 

[xstep]

Problem solved for now. I had an iChat with maccccman and got things sorted out.

I've spent a little time in Applescript but am block right now with opening a file via a Unix path.

 

[maccccman]

Thanks

A big thanks again to XStep for helping me out via AIM last night. I also want to thank everyones input (Eric especially) in here as well. Thanks again.