Bill,

Not exactly what you are looking for… but do you know that you can just drag your photos to any order that you want… and then change the “sort by”  from whatever default you use (name, date, etc) to “Manual”.    That manual order will persist and you can select it any time that you want.

In fact… the moment that you drag the first photo into a different location, the sort field will automatically change to manual for that project.

/Jim

In Grid View, or List View? In Grid View there are 18 possibilities + Manual; in List View you can use those 19, or select a(ny?) column and then arrow for Ascending/Descending.

As Jim said, maybe you did not realize how to begin the Manual sort. That does retain a personal arbitrary order. Although we do not actually see the field with the integer, it must be there in the database. Try that, or go to List View for access to more fields to sort on.

Bill,

I figured it out.  ;)

1. switch the inspector to “Info”
2. Use the gear to select “manage custom fields”
3. Use “+” to  create a new custom field called “sort order”
4. In whichever view option you want to use (ex General)… check “sort order”
5. Click the “Browser Metadata Overlay” icon in the lower right of your screen, and select “Edit”
6. Select “View > List - Expanded” in the upper right of the popup window
7. Check “Metadata Fields > Custom Fields > Sort Order”
8. By default, Sort order will be last column… but you can drag it to wherever you want
9. Enjoy ;)

Hope this helps.   Answering questions for things I’ve never done before, helps me become more proficient at using Aperture.  ;)

/Jim