Ordering is a bit goofy

[jimkohl]

Hi - your tool was suggested at a DX session @ Github Universe this year, so I downloaded it and am putting it through its paces.

If I want to create say 3 tours - beginner, advanced, expert - after creating them the order I created them in won't be kept in the tool window. doesn't appear to be alphabetical or even order I added it; maybe its the value of the id hash that is ordering.

Either way that's not ideal - and I cannot find a way to reorder these in the plugin UX or by editing the source files for each tour.
Any suggestions?
Jim

[LefterisXris]

Hello @jimkohl, that's a good point!

Currently, tours are loaded either from IntelliJ indexed VFS - Virtual File System so the order depends on it. I am not really sure what is the order that is used there. It seems random, or based on a hash as you said.

Order seems to be important as you mentioned, so yes, I am considering providing a couple of options for this. A quick thought is to have by default alphabetical order and provide options (from settings) for date-added and manual ordering both with ASC/DESC options.
I am going to further design this feature, and proceed to a release shortly. It will be a really useful feature for everyone, especially for cases when someone has to deal with lots of Tours.

Thanks for pointing it out! I'll keep you updated! ✅

[muescha]

With the following idea the alphabetical / and or other sort methods are not needed:

1. Insert point for new steps

• new steps are inserted at the end of a tour as a new step.
• if a user has selected a step at the left, then new steps comes after the selected step. the new step is selected and following steps inserted also after this step.

2. changing order: just drag and drop the steps up and down to get a new order. maybe it should be possible to select more than one step for the reorder.

[LefterisXris]

Hi @muescha!
Good points, thanks for the feedback! However, your suggestions are for Steps, while the initial ordering discussion was for the Tours.

Regarding the order of Steps of a Tour, I agree it could be more enhanced. For now you can change the order using right-click and then move up or move down options, as shown in the screenshot.

It may not be optimal from UX perspective, but it's fully functional.
I will consider multiple selection and drag&drop for changing Steps' order in future releases!

[muescha]

I'd suggest using a similar ordering system for the tours. Alphabetical ordering might work if I label them with prefixes like 1. and 2., but that feels more like a workaround. Ordering by date might not be ideal either, especially when inserting a new tour among older ones becomes complicated.

[LefterisXris]

Ordering of Tours has already been implemented. By default it is alphabetical but user can change it to sort by date.
Check the screenshot here for details: #90

[muescha]

I'm saying that there's no necessity to define an order and uphold a setup screen when users can simply adjust the order through drag-and-drop or by using the context menu. This approach requires less code to maintain (no plugin setup screen).

[jimkohl]

Alpha sorting and a manual mode (using drag/drop) should both be implemented; and the same approach should be provided for any lists (tour and event lists). I think the alpha mode was the easiest to setup which is why it was suggested that to begin with.

Both approaches are useful - alpha ordering works using labelling and it isn't a workaround.
It has a benefit in that the content at rest on the file system is ordered.

there is a nice app I use for managing music setlists for my bands called forscore. can sort by name or manually.
For an existing collection of music in a new set - I'll use manual ordering to get the flow of tunes just right.
But if I'm attempting to find something - using alpha sorting is easiest.

If I'm building a bespoke training (like in this situation) I'd be more inclined to use naming for ordering, although drag/drop would be nice. w naming if order changes, then need to change the prefixes. Not sure which requires less code tho.