Version 6.5

This is a bit worrying, I've never been able to get stickies to work, clearly in the forum here they do. It doesn't appear to be a skin issue as I've tried quite a few, including forum styles.

So if someone would like to walk me through how to order posts that would be great.

I like to have the recent posts widget order by what has been modified lately but I want the front page to either have stickies in the order I put them or all posts in the order I define.

A bit in shock that I can't sort this, no pun intended.

UPDATE: I have the order working by numbers after the umpteenth time?? I feel like I'm loosing the plot

OK Order by Number

First Features > Front Page has to be set to Recent Posts

Second Features > Posts >
Order by [Order (as explicitly defined) and
Direction [Ascending]

I can't believe how long it took me to work this out

Third each post >Properties > Order:
Positive numbers are to be expected and there is a note to say that decimals may be used which allows for insertion rather than renumbering.

However I have discovered zero and negative numbers are accepted and (-1, 0, 1, 2) etc seems to be fine.
but what about post with no Order number under this setup?

I haven't discovered how un-numbered posts are ordered when [Order by [Order (as explicitly defined)]] is used
They are not by Created or Last Modified