Manual Sort Order in Piwigo

[NortonMike]

It would be great if the sort order from LrC could be reflected as a manual sort order in Piwigo.

From what I can work out, LrC SDK doesn't expose the Collection sort order, why would it? ;-) , but I could be wrong. However, if I manually re-order photos in LrC collection and then mark to republish, the republish sends them in the new order - but this is not reflected in Piwigo.

There is a Manual sort order option in the iOS app, but not it would appear on the web views, but maybe that is just the Modus theme. If there is a Manual sort order then this must be stored somewhere, hopefully it's accessible, but I can't spot it, and hopefully it can be set based on the LrC publish order.

Mike

[fjb2020]

Thanks for the request - I had looked at sorting and it's something I'll probably go back to once the current work in progress is complete.

It looks like pwg.images.setRank method of the API may enable this
From the documentation:
Sets the rank of a photo for a given album.
If you provide a list for image_id:
rank becomes useless, only the order of the image_id list matters
you are supposed to provide the list of all image_ids belonging to the album.

So it looks like it may be possible to send a list of image ids in the same order as in LrC which will re-order them in Piwigo - probably as a separete 're-order images on Piwigo' option.

[NortonMike]

As I say, there is a Manual Sort option in the iOS app and buried away in the web interface (see attached image), so surely it's buried in the API somewhere.... I found a sort-of API, is this the one that everyone uses: Piwigo web API (web-services) explorer

Cheers, Mike

[Gotcha26]

Sorting will always be the sole responsibility of Piwigo in the end. It is in your gallery that you can refine how you present the photos for each album.
There are many different ways to sort, including manual sorting!

However, it should be possible to ‘impose’ a sorting order by photo ID if Lightroom sends your photos in the ‘correct order’ (the one you decide when you first publish them).

If Lightroom cannot send photos in a user-defined order, you will have to dig deeper using manual sorting, but this is a bit of a hack.

To be continued.

[Gotcha26]

Clearly, the publication of photos does not respect the display order in Lightroom :/
So we'll have to be clever to implement something that takes into account the Lightroom rank/sort and put it in Piwigo.

[Gotcha26]

Feature: Sync Photo Sort Order to Piwigo

Summary

New feature that synchronises the photo display order from Lightroom to Piwigo after each publish. When enabled, the order in which photos appear in a Lightroom published collection is pushed to the corresponding Piwigo album via pwg.images.setRank.

This works for all publish scenarios: initial publish, re-publish after reordering, and metadata-only republish.

How it works

Lightroom SDK provides a callback imposeSortOrderOnPublishedCollection that is called after every publish operation. When supportsCustomSortOrder = true, Lightroom passes remoteIdSequence — an array of Piwigo image IDs in the user's display order. We pass this directly to pwg.images.setRank (Mode B: full reorder), which assigns rank 1, 2, 3... based on the array order.

Flow

User publishes (normal or metadata-only)
  → Lightroom processes renditions (processRenderedPhotos)
  → Lightroom calls imposeSortOrderOnPublishedCollection(publishSettings, info, remoteIdSequence)
    → Check if sync is enabled (per-album override > global setting)
    → If yes: POST pwg.images.setRank with ordered image IDs + category_id
    → Return sequence to Lightroom (filtered for smart collections, nil otherwise)

Settings hierarchy

The feature is opt-in with a two-level setting:

Level	Setting	Values
Global	syncPhotoSortOrder	true / false (default: false)
Per-album	syncSortOrderOverride	"default" / "always" / "never"

Resolution: per-album "always" or "never" overrides the global setting. "default" follows the global setting.

Files changed

PiwigoAPI.lua

New function: PiwigoAPI.pwImagesSetRank(publishSettings, categoryId, imageIdSequence)

• Calls pwg.images.setRank using Mode B (full reorder)
• Converts the Lua array of image IDs to a comma-separated string
• Follows the standard pattern: connection check → admin role check → httpPostMultiPart
• Requires webmaster role (same as all album management operations)

PublishServiceProvider.lua

• supportsCustomSortOrder changed from false to true — enables Lightroom's custom sort order tracking and the imposeSortOrderOnPublishedCollection callback
• Added { key = "syncPhotoSortOrder", default = false } to exportPresetFields

PublishDialogSections.lua

• Added checkbox "Synchronise Photo Sort Order" in the "Other Settings" group, following the same pattern as "Synchronise Album Descriptions"

PublishTask.lua

imposeSortOrderOnPublishedCollection — rewritten (was lines 685-741)

Previous behaviour: only handled smart collection filtering (removing photos no longer matching criteria), returned nil for regular collections.

New behaviour:

1. Part 1 (unchanged): Smart collection filtering — builds validSequence excluding photos that no longer match criteria
2. Part 2 (new): Reads per-album override (syncSortOrderOverride) and global setting (syncPhotoSortOrder), then calls PiwigoAPI.pwImagesSetRank if sync is enabled
3. Errors from setRank are logged but non-fatal — the publish flow is never interrupted
4. Returns: finalSequence for smart collections (preserving filter behaviour), nil for regular collections (Lightroom default)

viewForCollectionSettings — two additions

1. Initialisation of collectionSettings.syncSortOrderOverride (default: "default")
2. New sortOrderUI group box with a popup menu offering three choices: "Use global setting" / "Always sync" / "Never sync", inserted between the album settings and keyword filter UI

Piwigo API reference

pwg.images.setRank (POST, admin-only):

• Mode B (used here): pass image_id as comma-separated list of ALL image IDs in desired order + category_id. Piwigo assigns rank 1, 2, 3... automatically. The rank parameter is ignored in this mode.

Testing

1. Initial publish: create album, add photos in specific order, publish with sync enabled → verify order on Piwigo matches
2. Reorder: drag-and-drop photos in Lightroom, republish → verify Piwigo order updated
3. Metadata-only republish: change a photo title, republish → verify sort order is also synced (callback fires after renditions)
4. Smart collection: verify filtering still works AND sort order is synced
5. Per-album override: global OFF + album "Always" → sync happens. Global ON + album "Never" → no sync
6. Non-webmaster user: verify error logged, no crash

[fjb2020]

Yes, the API Explorer documents the API - you can get to the same pages on most Piwigo hosts by visiting https://yourPiwigoHostName/tools/ws.htm

I'm pretty sure that pwg.images.setRank is the API call that would force a default sort order on an album, but it's not clear that the iOS app changes the sort order back on the host, it just changes the order within the app - but please correct me if this is wrong.

Rather that trying to handle this as part of the publish process I think a separte menu option "Send sort order to Piwigo" or similar to replicate the current order in LrC on the Piwigo album should work.

As I say, there is a Manual Sort option in the iOS app and buried away in the web interface (see attached image), so surely it's buried in the API somewhere.... I found a sort-of API, is this the one that everyone uses: Piwigo web API (web-services) explorer

Cheers, Mike