Photo Gallery images are out of order

We have received reports that the image order of live Photo Galleries do not match what is shown on the page in Author, or the order displayed in the parent Assets folder.

Note: the Photo Gallery uses an entire Assets folder rather than individually selected assets and the order displayed depends on the order of the assets in that folder.

The order of assets in the Photo Gallery depend on the order of assets in the Assets folder.

One reason why Author may not match what is live may be an illusion created by how Author sorts what it displays. Often the Assets console shows a sorted view, not the natural order that will be used for the gallery, which is where the apparent disconnect surfaces.(The Content Tree (file tree) will also show the same sorted order that shows in the file View, and not the natural order.)

Here are two ways to see the natural order in Assets:

1. Switch to Card View  and select Sort by 'None'.  This is the natural order.
2. Switch to List View and make sure none of the column headings has any up or down arrows next to it. If a column is sorted, click the sort arrow a couple of times until the arrow goes away. This is the natural order.

Another reason relates to switching the Assets folder to 'orderable' after it is created and has content. This will cause the discrepancy even if this content is not yet published, but if the content is live, switching the order in Author will only impact Author, while the live version will retain the original folder properties.

The solution in this case is to unpublish the folder and all the assets within as outlined below.  

Best practice - Always create orderable folders in Assets by checking the 'Orderable' checkbox when creating the folder and before publishing its content.

If a folder is not currently set as orderable, or if you suspect it may have been published before being change dto 'orderable', you can change this setting as needed in the folder’s Properties, but then do these steps:

• The folder must then be manually unpublished (including all its contents) and then republished for the orderable setting to transfer to the live server.
• All the assets in the folder must then also be republished, whether you then manually reorder them or not, for the new order to go into effect on the live site.