Reverse ordering

[rdeutz]

Executive summary

This adds a additional ordering option to the category ordering.

Background information

A while ago we changed the default for the ordering field, before that change a new article got „0“ as ordering so that article was the first one in a blog view when ordered by ordering. The change was that a new article now gets max(ordering) as default value and that will show an article as the last when ordered by ordering. The change was good because we had some performance problems when the ordering value was updated on a site with many articles. So no complaining about the change itself. The problem now is that you have to reorder articles because your article is now the last one in the category. If you do not have this manual step then you need to switch the ordering and use reverse ordering.

Backwards compatibility

Because it is a new option nothing should change

Translation impact

Two new language tags added.

Core changes

Addition to ContentHelperQuery::orderbySecondary

Testing instruction

• Apply patch
• You need a category view with articles
• Set the the secondary ordering in Articles options to „Ordering Reverse“
• Set the the secondary ordering for the menu to „Use Global“
• check the view and compare with the backend list of articles, use in both occasions the same ordering.

Should be the same ordering in front and backend

• you can also change the menu item ordering and play around with the combinations

[brianteeman]

Corrected typo in the title ;)

[rdeutz]

@brianteeman starting to hate a word :-)

[ggppdk]

Have you seen this PR ?
#11139

• it fixes B/C break
• it maintains the objective of avoiding JTable::reorder() from being triggered and running on all records

[ggppdk]

but arguably this PR is independent of #11139

[rdeutz]

@ggppdk yeah you are right this here has nothing to do with #11139, further more I have my problems to see the what #11139 is trying to achieve

[ggppdk]

what #11139 is trying to achieve

2 objectives

• fix B/C break and create new articles and featured ordering on top (with smallest ordering)
• avoid JTable::reorder() from running on new article creation

the JTable::reorder() running on new article creation and executing hundrends or thousands or queries and this was the reason to create new article with highest ordering

but the slow new article saving is only 1 of the problems JTable::reorder causes:
see here 1 more here: #4303

[rdeutz]

@ggppdk thanks for the summery, but I don't think it makes sense to fix a B/C break after a lot of versions. Someone could argue to change it back now is also a B/C break. I will look into the issue at hand

[ggppdk]

but I don't think it makes sense to fix a B/C break after a lot of versions. Someone could argue to change it back now is also a B/C break

Please forgive me for annoying you, but you are wrong

The B/C break is here and it effects 100% of the records in all web-sites that want to use order by ordering number for listing articles at frontend

• it would have been true if people were slowing trying to change the order of the items (i say slowly because in some cases you have thousands of records) !

but they do not try to make them reverse (instead some try to use creation date, some other suffer dragging from the bottom up through many records)

Why they have not tried to make them reverse ?
Because the B/C break has made the ordering number of new articles be last cannot be used (yet)
because revese ordering in the listing queries does not exist,

• you are trying to add it now

so noone is yet trying to use reverse ordering, they will start after you merge this and after it is released
and then you argument will start to have an effect with time

and lets say that we merge this , and people want to use it, they will have to manually re-order hundrends or thousands of articles and then use it

[ggppdk]

and lets say that we merge this , and people want to use it, they will have to manually re-order hundrends or thousands of articles and then use it

continuing the above

Lets say that i have 200 records, now order normally,

• now for every new record i (the user) drag it up 200 positions to place it in correct place

Now lets say i want to avoid the above
and take advantage of

• new article having biggest / last order number
• and of the new reverse ordering that you want to add

how am i going to reverse these records ?
i am gone drag and drop 200 records over 200/2 = 100 positions on average ?

what if i have 2000 records ?

[ggppdk]

and then if you use ordering numbers in more than 1 place,

• you need to do the same for every category that uses it

at minimum we would need a button to make the "Revese all records" task automatic

then we can keep the B/C break

• and we can demand that all users that now make use of ordering numbers ...

to update their site configuration to use the new reverse ordering and reverse all their existing records via the new button

[rdeutz]

But this affects only new items, if I got it right then the change was that new item got max(ordering) as value and not 0 as it was before, correct me if I am wrong

[ggppdk]

But this affects only new items, if I got it right then the change was that new item got max(ordering) as value and not 0 as it was before, correct me if I am wrong

correct,

so now sites that continue to use ordering numbers

• will make backend manager pagination e.g. 200 records
• and then drag up the record to the top

[ggppdk]

and then drag up the record to the top

it is not too much of a problem for sites with e.g. 200 items in featured view, and if you do not create articles often,

so people have adjusted to doing this extra work, it takes less than a minute to do if you have a few hundrend records

this PR is a solution,
but it should also be with a new button to reverse all existing records at once

[rdeutz]

Let me test the other issue, we are having a discussion at the wrong spot, this PR here is a simple add of an option to the sorting. Tester will run away when they see all the back and force discussion :-)

[csthomas]

Joomla 3.6.0 broke B/C for article/featured ordering column.

@rdeutz I also created a similar PR #11134 to yours but without enthusiasm from others then I closed it. To understand #11139 please read the comment from #11103 (comment)

[ggppdk]

@rdeutz

about benefits of PR #11139
see my comment :
#11139 (comment)

[alikon]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on

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_{This comment was created with the J!Tracker Application at issues.joomla.org/joomla-cms/11475.}

[ghost]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 2cd6afb

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but: String like JGLOBAL_VOTES, JGLOBAL_FIELD_GROUPS or show like Global Option (Hide) isn't shown.
_{This comment was created with the J!Tracker Application at issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/11475.}

[jeckodevelopment]

@rdeutz can you look at the conflicts please?

[mbabker]

What's the status here?

[rdeutz]

I still think this makes sense, will fix the conflicts later

[Quy]

Alphabetize/reorder string.

[rdeutz]

@Quy thanks, fixed