Ordering of the Fields

Elisa Foltyn

Hi Peter,
I have an Issue with the latest version of the articles Field. I select an Article. Afterwards I select another one.
After saving this, the fields order gets shuffled.

Can you have a look?
Thank you 🙂

Peter van Westen ADMIN

7 months 6 hours ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

7 months 6 hours ago

Is this also the case with the latest dev version?
regularlabs.com/development-releases

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Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

Hi Peter, now they are displayed in the right order (without the need to resave) but the order needs still to be set to descending to have the right order in the output.
Thanks,
Elisa

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

I am not sure what you mean.

The ordering of the articles - both in the select field and the frontend - are determined by the sort ordering setting in the Articles Field settings.
The 'Primary Sort Order: Ordering' option means the articles will be ordered in the way you order them in the articles list.

There is currently no option to display them in the order of selecting. And - as far as I know - there was no option for that either.

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Andrea Malalana

6 months 4 weeks ago

Andrea Malalana

6 months 4 weeks ago

There is currently no option to display them in the order of selecting. And - as far as I know - there was no option for that either.

I'm also curious about this: it would be nice if there was an option to display articles in the order in which you select them from the dropdown list.
And in such case, upon saving the input, the order of the selected values should remain as selected, without getting re-defaulted back to the order by ID.

This would allow to give a custom order based on "importance" or any other custom preference.

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

The issue with this is this:

Let's say you select: B, D, A

When saving the values, they are saved in order of selecting.
And it would be no issue to show them in that order on the frontend (output of the field).

However, when showing the select field, this happens:
All the options are displayed in the select field in the order determined by the setting in the Articles Field.
The selected options get the attribute selected.

<select>
    <option value="A" selected="selected">A</option>
    <option value="B" selected="selected">B</option>
    <option value="C">C</option>
    <option value="D" selected="selected">D</option>
</select>

The selected options will just show in the order they are in the the select list.
And upon saving, that order is taken over.

This is true for all select lists, not just Articles Field.

I do not see a way to get around that.

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Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

I don't understand. Can you explain it different?

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

It comes down to this:

When the select field is shown again, the order of the selected items is reset to the order of the items in the select field.

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Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

But why? Same does not happen to alphabetical order or reversed order? I am not sure we speak of the same thing.

My issue is following:
I select related Articles and want to show them in Frontend in the same order I selected the related Articles. Not in the Article Order because:

Example:
In an Event I want to show the speakers.
Speakers are a woman and a man.

In one event its: Ladies first. First the woman is mentioned then the man.
In the other events its two male speakers. Here I want to order the Chairman first before the other speaker.

Its not possible to do this with article ordering. It must be the ordering of the selection. I use multiselect dropdown. Not the checkboxes.

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

The issue preventing this to be possible is that the select field itself (so the form field you see in the article edit form) will reset the ordering when you open the article again and save.

I can make the articles show in the frontend in the order you select them in.
But when you re-open and save the article, the order will get reset.

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Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

I see it only in the multiselect field, checkbox does not make sense. Can#t the multiselect field retrieve the saved values instead of rearaging itself?

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

But in what order do you want ALL the items in the select list to show up in? So the items in the dropdown.
And where should the selected options show up in the dropdown when you unselect it (so it goes back into the dropdown)?

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Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 4 weeks ago

The Dropdown can always be alphabetical. I can search in the dropdown, so this order does not matter.

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 4 weeks ago

Well, there is the issue. To many the ordering in the dropdown does matter. Especially when using multiple categories and grouping.

The only way I see how this could work, is if I force the selected items to be the first items in the <select> list output, and then list the rest (the Choices field will hide the selected items).
But when you then deselect an already selected item, it will go back into the dropdown at the top. Which is unexpected behavior. Again, especially if you are grouping items by category.

So I could kinda get this to work, but it is not going to be pretty when selecting > saving > deselecting items.

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Andrea Malalana

6 months 4 weeks ago

Andrea Malalana

6 months 4 weeks ago

The only way I see how this could work, is if I force the selected items to be the first items in the <select> list output, and then list the rest

Yes, this is probably the only solution, albeit with the side effects you described.

I guess you could make this happen only if in the Articles Field settings you set the "Sort Order" to "In Order of Selection", so this side effect only happens if the user specifically wants this type of ordering for the field.

In case of the Sort Order being by Title or anything else, then this behavior is not needed.

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 3 weeks ago

Elisa Foltyn

6 months 3 weeks ago

I dont mind if you group the selected fields at the top. I really only use the search box anyway. The function in the frontend is what matters...

Thank you 🙂

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 3 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 3 weeks ago

Please try the latest development version from:
regularlabs.com/development-releases

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Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 3 weeks ago

Peter van Westen ADMIN

6 months 3 weeks ago

In the Articles Field settings: