I’m not a native english speaker, but my impression is that whenever names are sorted in such a way that the definite article “the” in the beginning of a name is ignored, then the indefinite articles “a” and “an” in the beginning of a name are also ignored. This is how iTunes works for example.
However, they way this seems to work with movie names in Infuse 6.1.5 is that the sorting algorithm ignores the prefix definite article “the” but not the indefinite articles. I’m requesting you to change the algorithm to be in line with how article insensitive sorting typically works and ignore prefixes “a” and “an” also.
UPDATE:
I did some further (minimal) research into how movies are typically sorted by title, and it seems it’s not as clear cut as I had assumed:
trakt.tv
Ignores “the” but doesn’t ignore “a” or “an” (the same as Infuse currently)
imdb.com
Ignores none of the articles
letterboxd.com
metacritic.com
iTunes
Plex
All of these ignore all articles: “a”, “an”, “the”. Additionally, in iTunes and Plex the sorting behaviour is configurable (but by default all articles are ignored).
Based on this small sample, I would still lean toward changing the sorting algorithm in Infuse to match Plex and iTunes both because it appears to be the most common way to sort and because to me it seems the most sensible thing to do.
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bump
It does bother me that (in the attached screenshot) those two movies that begin with an indefinite article are both listed at “A” instead of “G” (for girl) and “S” (for streetcar).
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I believe it was done that way to be consistent with Apple’s apps on ATV. Is that not the case? There are much fewer movies that start with “a” or “an” compared to “the” and I think in English it is easier to just drop “the” but not as much “a”/“an”.
Okay, it makes sense to be consistent with the platform you’re on. That was something I couldn’t test because I haven’t bought any movies beginning with “A” or “An” from Apple.
Another vote for ignoring “a” and “an” like “the” is ignored currently when sorted by title.
A lot of movies starting with an articel and for now by sorting by Titel, the articel will be ignored.
So, for example “The Boy” will be found at letter B.
Why not let the User decide, if they want to have that or not.
Sorting by Foldername is not a good workaround. The most of other Player support that function as well. It would be great to have that option in infuse as well
Infuse does the right thing by ignoring an initial “The” in titles, but not with “A” or “An”. I have about 40 movie titles that begin with the indefinite article that are all grouped under the letter A. Am I missing a setting?
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We all are missing this setting because Firecore decided long ago that the only leading article prominent enough to warrant ignoring when Sorting by Title is “The”.
Those of us who want all leading articles treated equally (meaning all three in English — “A”, “An”, and “The” — and their equivalents in other languages — Das, Die, El, Ja, La, Les, Los, etc.) were determined not a loud enough minority to be given a menu option which would enable fully correct title sorting.
I HATE this behavior of Infuse.
This is all the more frustrating because Sort by Filename … Doesn’t Sort by Filename (for either TV Series and Collections) so I can’t even bypass the issue by having Infuse simply follow my lead.
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I’d like this to be a thing, too, even if only as an option. It really seems weird to me that “the” is the only article that gets special treatment here.
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