It applies to all themes. You probably failed to read the important sentence: if a particular section (variable definition) doesn't exist in your custom theme, copy that section (and only that section) from themes/sample/theme.php to your custom theme (into a new line before ?>) and then edit as suggested.
There are loads of threads that explain how to remove the user sort options. The method is always the same. I checked the hardwired theme - it doesn't come with the varibale definition for$template_thumb_view_title_row
, so you have to copy // HTML template for title row of the thumbnail view (album title + sort options)
$template_thumb_view_title_row = <<<EOT
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td width="100%" class="statlink"><h2>{ALBUM_NAME}</h2></td>
<td><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" alt="" /></td>
<td class="sortorder_cell">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td class="sortorder_options">{TITLE}</td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=ta" title="{SORT_TA}"> + </a></span></td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=td" title="{SORT_TD}"> - </a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="sortorder_options">{NAME}</td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=na" title="{SORT_NA}"> + </a></span></td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=nd" title="{SORT_ND}"> - </a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="sortorder_options">{DATE}</td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=da" title="{SORT_DA}"> + </a></span></td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=dd" title="{SORT_DD}"> - </a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="sortorder_options">{POSITION}</td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=pa" title="{SORT_PA}"> + </a></span></td>
<td class="sortorder_options"><span class="statlink"><a href="thumbnails.php?album={AID}&page={PAGE}&sort=pd" title="{SORT_PD}"> - </a></span></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
EOT;
from themes/sample/theme.php into themes/yourtheme/theme.php
Then edit out as suggested in the thread you discovered. Basically, you set the variable to nothing/i], so you could replace the whole stuff you pasted in with$template_thumb_view_title_row = '';
Dead easy. Definitely works.