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Add Option to Sort Titles by Leading Articles

LaunchBox for Windows

📋 Summary

Add a setting that lets users choose whether titles beginning with articles like “The,” “A,” or “An” are sorted by the article or by the main title.

❗ Problem

LaunchBox commonly sorts titles while ignoring leading articles. For example, The Legend of Zelda may appear under L instead of T.

Many users prefer this behavior, but others expect strict alphabetical sorting based on the full displayed title.

Users can manually adjust Sort Title for individual games, but doing this across a large library can be tedious.

💡 Proposal

Add a global sorting preference for leading articles.

Possible options:

  • Ignore leading articles when sorting

  • Sort by full title, including leading articles

This should affect title-based sorting and alphabet navigation where appropriate.

🧩 Use Cases

  • Sort The Legend of Zelda under T

  • Keep all games beginning with The grouped together

  • Avoid manually editing Sort Title for many games

  • Match users’ preferred library organization style

📦 Benefits

  • Gives users more control over alphabetical sorting

  • Reduces manual Sort Title cleanup

  • Supports different cataloging preferences

  • Makes sorting behavior easier to understand

⚠️ Considerations

The existing behavior should remain the default, since many users expect articles like “The,” “A,” and “An” to be ignored when sorting. The setting should also avoid overriding games where the user has manually entered a custom Sort Title.

Posted by Millisar ·
Status: Open To Community2 comments

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Comments2

  • AstroBob

    Team•

    Aug 10

    Thanks for the suggestion. This makes sense as an optional sorting preference, since different users prefer different alphabetical ordering rules.

    As a current workaround, you can edit a game’s Sort Title field to control exactly where it appears when sorting. For example, if you want The Legend of Zelda to sort under T, set its Sort Title to The Legend of Zelda. This can also be changed in bulk for multiple games if needed.

    That said, we understand that manually editing Sort Titles across a large library can be tedious, so we’ll keep this request focused on adding a global option to include or ignore leading articles like “The,” “A,” and “An” during title sorting.

    I’ve fleshed out the request above and opened it to the community for voting

  • Millisar

    •

    Aug 10

    Option to toggle "The" when sorting game titles alphabetically

    By default, the system ignores "The" at the beginning of game titles when alphabetizing (e.g., The Legend of Zelda is sorted under L instead of T).

    While some like it, some might find it annoying.

    It would be great to have a setting/toggle to disable this behavior so games starting with "The" can be sorted strictly by their full title under T.