Sorting of the Product List Layout by "Newest First" on a Category Level?

[delcorsets]

On the CTGY page, it seems that if the Category Product List Layout sorting method is changed from Default to anything else (specifically Newest) then you lose the ability to manually sort your product display order within your Categories.

Is there a way to sort products by newest first on a category level?

Specifically I'm looking to sort the Product List Layout by Newest First on certain categories and sort by a manually assigned order on other categories?

[Brennan]

The only way to do it differently on different categories would be to use an alternate display page for those categories which would be a copy of CTGY but with the sorting set to default so you can control the order in the admin.

You are correct, once the sorting has been changed to anything other than default, the manual sort order is ignored.