Containers, agents and smart adornments may be sorted on an attribute's value, i.e. other than in default order, and additionally apply a transform before sorting string attributes. In a normal container the default order will be static and the order in which its children were created (or subsequently manually re-ordered). For agents and smart adornments, the default is less obvious as it depends on the complexity of the query; for trivial examples it usually equates to outline order.
The sort attribute and transform type are selected from pop-up menus on the Sort sub-tab of the Action Inspector. Be aware that that the transform effect is only applied if a sort target attribute is set. Only setting a transform has no effect.
Containers (which include argents and smart adornments) also re-sort after:
- changing a Displayed Attribute's value
- changing an attribute value in Quickstamp
- changing an attribute value in the attributes pane of the Get Info popover
- editing a column value will update sorting
- changing the sort criteria in the Action Inspector
- expanding (or collapsing/re-expanding) a container in Outline or Chart view
- agents and smart adornments: the query is changed
This re-sort trigger matters most when automatic agent updates are disabled. Agents (and smart adornments) may have additional triggers related to their query functioning.