Is it possible to "sort" the buy mode alphabetically?

[Paeonia]

i tried to search this forum to see if someone had asked this question before. It didn't seem anyone had...

so.. Maybe its not a problem for most people, but... is it possible to sort the "buy mode" catalogue alphabetically?

Sometimes i know /just/ the item i want to use by name, but it takes forever to find "Purple Bed of Neatness"* when i can't just put all the items in alphabetical order and then quickly and easily scroll to the Ps.

Instead i'm left squinting at little tiny catalogue images and hovering my cursor over any bed that looks remotely like the one i'm trying to find, which usually means having to hover over 20 or 30 items, each time i'm just trying to find one particular item. Which stinks, as 'decorating' houses in sims is one of my favourite things to do, but it takes sooo long because i can't sort out how to sort "buy mode" alphabetically.

i'm new to playing the sims, so maybe this is very simple, but it sure doesn't /feel/ simple. i've looked all over for it. i even tried to ask google how to alphabetize my inventory or sims 3 buy mode... either its impossible, or google doesn't know, or i am failing to type in the right key words to figure out the answer.

does anyone know?

i know how to do mods! i've tried some already!.. so i don't need to be talked through that. i just wonder if anyone knows of a mod, or a way EA provided to alphabetize buy mode?


*i made up that name Purple Bed of Neatness - just as an example!

[tizerist]

Its sorted by price in buy mode, so you would have to go into the fullbuild.packages (for base and pack items) or the CC packages (for CC) and edit the prices so that A is cheapest and Z is most expensive.

I have repriced 99% of my base and EP buy mode stuff personally.
But in my mod it is done on a like-for-like basis, instead of alphabetically.

[lewisb40]

I have created a cheat chart on a writing pad for my favorite items in the Buy/Build mode. It's all by cost, that's how I find stuff. I would be in sim heaven for a collection feature in the game, right now I tend not to download much because it's hard to find.

[Srikandi]

Apparenlty TS Medieval has a collection feature, so I am optimistic this may wind up in TS3 in an upcoming expack :)

[lewisb40]

I would take back every bad thing I said about EA for that feature alone. I am crossing fingers and toes for that, Srikandi!

[GiuCee]

I am one who would die to be able to find stuff by name.
So... If there is a way, cheat or software that allows us to visualize and price the items by hand, please do link us.
Hell, how I miss the good old TRANSMOGRIFIER....

[BenC0722]

Welcome to the forum!

As of this very moment, there's no easy way to do what you want. Writing a mod to change the prices of things would take a long time. Also, you wouldn't be able to price any lots accurately, if you wanted to upload or share any, which is another downside.

However, from what I've heard, there will soon be a feature that should be able to filter by EP/SP/CC, which would be better than nothing.

What do I mean by soon? Another EP, titled Generations is going to be released soon. Along with it, another patch level will be released. That filtering feature is supposed to be an additional base game feature, added by that patch.

< somewhat off topic >
Of all the various little features and so on that EA did include, I still can't believe they haven't implemented a sorting feature. It just seems like such a good idea, given the very wide variety of objects available (even without CC) and the potentially very large number of lots that a player may have in their library. They really dropped the ball on this one. Let's hope this new filtering feature will be at least somewhat a step in the right direction.
</off topic>

[Srikandi]

The new filters will help some... but... it will treat all Store stuff as one category, and all CC as one catetgory, which for many players pretty much negates its usefulness. And for me, anyway, I really want "themes"... so I kind find the stuff I need for different kinds of environments. Stuff like "sports-related", for decorating a sporty sim's house, or "nature-related", or "music-related". Laundry clutter, bathroom clutter, kitchen clutter, study clutter. And so on. Those would be really useful.

Yes, you can sort by repricing everything in S3PE, as suggested above. It's not difficult, but incredibly tedious, and also has the drawback of removing the ability to relate an object's price to its stats, which is important IMO even for misc deco if there's an environment score.

What we really need is a keyword search, with player-assignable keywords.

There is a semi-solution in development. Granthes, who wrote the CC manager/launcher you can get here, is working on a more advanced version, which I've been beta-testing lately. This app has the ability to assign descriptions/keywords to CC, filter by keyword, and assign CC to sets. The sets can be individually enabled/disabled. Of course, only currently enabled sets are visible in game.

So you can put all your sci-fi stuff in a set, or all your retro stuff, or all your expensive stuff, or all your country stuff, or whatever you want. However, only enabled sets will be available in a current game, so it doesn't work for searching or filtering on the fly within a game. Still, it is another approach that can be helpful in some scenarios.