Random sorting possible?

[nbramley]

I want to display my images in a random order, is this possible? There isn't an option for this right now, but is it possible with some customizations?

Thanks,
Neil

[ranjan]

I too was looking for this function, what I have noted is that the thumbnails which show in each galleries are displayed randomly.
To see this happening open any EE gallery & refresh after 30 sec & you will see the thumbnails get random displayed.

Ranjan

[Pekka]

Only random sorting happens on index page thumbs if set up so. Random sorting on listing page is not logical, because pagination and advance to next photo in photo page would be not usable. Only way to make this work is to randomize author's order, or to write some code to store current random selection to database for each user so that navigation is possible.

[nbramley]

I was hoping to randomize the display order for each IP address visited or the easier way would probably be to randomize authors order. How hard would it be to have the script automatically randomize the authors order?

[EricKonieczny]

You will have to code this to keep track of each session of a single user, ( IP address) because of the normal navigation of using the Next and Back menus.

[Pekka]

I'll add "sort to X" selection to author's order editor, you'll most likely get the code with next EE :)

About doing random order with sessions: it will need to maintain currect photo order and build a new one according to dozen other settings in EE. To do this for each visitor is simply not something I would like to code.

The reason for random order is to get more hits for photos, right? Why not add a "random pick" to each page using snippets?

[ranjan]

Thats right Pekka random order is required when the site grows & you have lot many galleries & in those galleries you have 1000 above photos then the user may never go upto the last few which are being added, so randomly displaying the photos will do the job, but I see the other problem too which you mention hence I suggest that it should be advanced in no every day atleast.

Day one 1st gallery display 1-5 thumbs
day two it displays 6-10 thumbs

Or we should have one gallery set as "Latest images" from various galleries displaying the last 3-7 (customizable)days of images added.

How much to advance these numbers can be customized so the admin can set that number.

Is that doable & practical to implement?

Ranjan