managing helma collections

hi there

last week i filed a bug report with a suggestion to modify helma's getOrderedView() method when using additonalTables:
http://helma.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=532

i came across this because i am currently trying to find a generic approach towards listing hopobject collections in a flexible way.

ie. i'd like to have all items of a collection in a table-like layout, with two-level grouping (e.g. alphabetical and page number) and sortable header fields.

imho it's nothing exotic, just what we are used from desktop applications like a mail client where such an item is represented by a message and the collection by all e-mails. actually, it's like a mirror of what's going on in the database table itself. 

i consider it a very basic and important way of representing data records which is almost ubiquitous when building applications with helma.

currently, i don't see a really feasible option to realize such a thing with helma, at least when avoiding subnodeRelation settings or directDB queries. (although both could be a solution, nevertheless.)

what do the other worshiped helma users and application developers think: 

 * is there a way to make this happen without defining much too many collections in type.properties?
 * is subnodeRelation / directDB the way to go?
 * could it be done easier and the helma-way simply by adding some nifty helma features?

i am really curious about your suggestions.

ciao,
tobi