Today I had to change Magento default products list sorting to sort by product’s date. In fact we don’t need to sort by date, just by entity_id which is product ID in Magento world. To accomplish this, we need to edit /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List.php

You have to find _beforeToHtml() function and change some things inside. First we need to define all available sorting options:

$orders = array('entity_id' => $this->__('Newest'), 'name' => $this->__('Name'), 'price' => $this->__('Price') );

 

then remove all getters of default sorting and order, and put those:

$toolbar->setAvailableOrders($orders);
$toolbar->setDefaultOrder('entity_id');
$toolbar->setDefaultDirection('desc');

 

so finally your _beforeToHtml() should looks like this one:

protected function _beforeToHtml()
    {
        $toolbar = $this->getToolbarBlock();
		
        // called prepare sortable parameters
        $collection = $this->_getProductCollection();

        // use sortable parameters
        /*
        if ($orders = $this->getAvailableOrders()) {
            $toolbar->setAvailableOrders($orders);
        }
        if ($sort = $this->getSortBy()) {
            $toolbar->setDefaultOrder($sort);
        }
        if ($dir = $this->getDefaultDirection()) {
            $toolbar->setDefaultDirection($dir);
        }
        if ($modes = $this->getModes()) {
            $toolbar->setModes($modes);
        }
		*/
		
		$orders = array('entity_id' => $this->__('Newest'), 'name' => $this->__('Name'), 'price' => $this->__('Price') );
		$toolbar->setAvailableOrders($orders);
		$toolbar->setDefaultOrder('entity_id');
		$toolbar->setDefaultDirection('desc');

        // set collection to toolbar and apply sort
        $toolbar->setCollection($collection);

        $this->setChild('toolbar', $toolbar);
        Mage::dispatchEvent('catalog_block_product_list_collection', array(
            'collection' => $this->_getProductCollection()
        ));

        $this->_getProductCollection()->load();

        return parent::_beforeToHtml();
    }