Re: ordering in folder_contents and folder_listing: opinions wanted

Hi!

(I've cross-posted this to the devel list, because it's really more of
an enhancement request for how plone works, than an issue for CSS/visual
design)

Plone 2 introduced ordered folders, and gave us a new folder_contents  
> with the up/down triangles to manage the order. Very nice to group 
> related folders in the menu. However, we lost the ordering links 
> available in plone 1.x.
> 
> If have implemented about 5 sites with plone 2, and a universal 
> complaint from the content editors is that as soon as a folder gets more 
> than 20 entries it becomes a pain. The item is added add the bottom of 
> the folder causing many 'next 20 items' clicks to come to it.
> 
> In addition often the most recent item is more relevant for the end 
> users than older items. Therefore in most cases it should appear on the 
> top of the list instead of the bottom. If an editor wants to achieve 
> that now in a folder with 50 items he/she has to press 50 times on the 
> up triangle. He/she will not be happy..

I agree this is a problem, though I do like having the ordered folder
contents. I've actually got designs which depend on this, with auto-
generated navigation links based on the order of items in a folder.

However, it should be possible to auto-order the folder. There is some
JavaScript support (which is turned off by default IIRC) for ordering by
clicking on the column titles), but I'm not sure if it works for batched
pages (i.e. it only sorts the current batch, which is not much use).

I vote we leave the ordering as it is, but make links on the column
titles to sort by that column (e.g. one click = ascending, two clicks =
descending). This preference would then be stored in the folder and the
folder sorted by this when loaded (at a performance penalty, of course)
using listFolderContents(); perhaps we could have a wrapper method
listSortedFolderContents() which does the sorting, thereby bypassing the
sorting when it's not needed, or at least an optional parameter for
turning on/off the sorting.

I would also like that a third click on the column turns off sorting, so
that we return to the manually-ordered listing - often this is carefully
chosen, so clicking the title by accident would be a pain.

In fact, the folder ordering, whilst not to be relied on too heavily, I
agree, could use some improvement. I'd like to see an action next to
cut, paste, delete, etc. called "order". This would go to a new page
with a simple listbox of the folder titles and some JavaScript buttons
for moving items up or down. A Save button would then save this order to
the folder. This would be an awful lot quicker than having to reload the
entire page each time you want to move an item around. Some "move to
top" and "move to bottom" buttons would also help a lot. I may be anal,
but often there are certain things I'd like near the top (usually
general documents) and certain things I'd like in chronological order of
addition.

Of course, this template wouldn't be very difficult to add. If the need
becomes more acute, I'll probably write it myself, but I've got a few
projects on now, so I can't promise I'll find time.

> Would it be a good idea to change the default for new content to be 
> inserted at the top of a container instead of added at the bottom? I 
> think that would suit general usage case better than the current setup.

I would like the option not to do this. For instance, I use Plone to
manage my lecture notes. I'd like more recent lectures to come last, so
that I can browse the course in chronological order.

Reversing the ordering should be very simple though - either iterate the
list forwards or backwards when displaying it.

> Related to this would be re-introducing the ordering links in 
> folder_contents. However should these change the order of the items in 
> the container or just give a different view allowing the editor to reach 
> a certain piece of content quicker?

Again, +1 for having them just be views, though I'd say a view may be
persistent (per user? per folder?) until the ordering is explicitly
turned off, since certain folders may be better to sort by name, and
others by date, say.

-- 
Martin Aspeli <[email protected]>




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