To explain the problem as well (and briefly) as I can...
When computers sort things, they use simple rules. Basically, it starts with the first "character" (letter, number, symbol, or space) of each name, and compares their numerical values. If any are the same, it moves to the next character for comparison.
Numerical values? Yeah. If you've ever dealt with an "ASCII chart," you already have a basic idea of what's going on. In short, values run as follows:
- Spaces of various kinds,
- Most keyboard symbols,
- Numbers,
- Capital letters, and
- Lowercase letters.
If you're a UNIX/Linux kind of guy (maybe Mac at the command line), this is the layout you see.
If you're a DOS/Windows person, you know that those systems are "case insensitive," which means that the lowercase letters "pretend" to be uppercase when sorting. This is also what you'll see in most software, just FYI.
In more sophisticated systems (Windows Explorer, for one, and probably the equivalents on other systems), they've added the additional idea that runs of digits are probably large numbers and should sort as such. So "5" comes before "09" and "12," even though "5" comes later than either "0" or "1."
BUT most software isn't that intelligent. The reason, frankly, is that when you program, you get support for an "easy" sort, but need to program the numerical approach yourself. So nobody really does.
That means that you want to make the structure of your names as similar as you can tolerate. It doesn't matter if you start with "001-Title of Comic #001-Page 001.jpeg" or "001.jpg" as long as everything else you put in your archive has the SAME structure.
(And yeah, "jpg" and "jpeg" are interchangeable. JPEG is the name of the standard, but old DOS/Windows machines could only have a three-character extension, so the 'e' often drops. Technically, if the software is written correctly, the extension shouldn't even matter...but the problem is that very little software is written that correctly.)
One last point. If you're on a Mac, the archives generally include the "resource fork," which is the operating system's information about the real file (the "data fork"). You can't see it, but everybody else sees a folder named ".MACOS" that irritates programs like CDisplay. It's harmless, but tends to shock people.
I point this out because there may be an "exclude resource fork" setting somewhere. If there is and we could identify it, I know that would make a lot of people very happy.
I hope that helps and doesn't make things seem more confusing than they already were.
