User control over folder sort-order

Wednesday 22 October 2008 8:53:05 pm

Hi folks,

Has anyone managed to integrate a user-controlled sort function for their folder-like content-objects?

I would like to add a "sort listing" drop-down menu to the website-toolbar for each folder content object. The options would comprise the standard eZ sort types ("Published", "Name", "Priority" etc) which, when selected by a logged-in user to the <b>website interface</b>, re-sorted the listed items of that folder and saved this selection/preference to the DB, to "remember" the sort order for all subsequent visitors to that folder.

I know how to add new datatypes to a content class and use their data in a template when the data comes from someone using the admin interface - and to add a user-input datatype of type "Selection", but how would I do the following for the regular, website interface?

1). Add a javascript onchange() event to the "Selection" datatype for example, to submit the selection? There don't seem to be any 3rd party datatypes that do this, and am not sure how to write one - can anyone recommend an up-to-date tutorial for 4.0.1?

2). Once submitted, I guess it's just a case of taking the data from the menu and using it to do the sort in the fetch for an override for that template and submitting to the DB right? Or might there be more to it than that? What might the template-code look like to submit --> receive -> insert the data?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you for your time :-)
Russ

Russell Michell, Wellington, New Zealand.
We're building! http://www.theruss.com/blog/
I'm on Twitter: http://twitter.com/therussdotcom

Believe nothing, consider everything.

Thursday 23 October 2008 6:32:36 pm

Hi Gaetano and thanks.

I have created an override for website_toolbar.tpl and added the code from admin edit.tpl and my menu shows up in the website UI just fine. If I need to add a JS onchange() event, that would be easy enough to do now.

But I am confused on 2 things:

1). In which kernel script do I add a new if/else block to deal with the POSTed data?

* content/edit.php
* content/module.php
* content/action.php

...each of which seem to take HTTP POST vars from website_toolbar.tpl.

2). The other thing is the default selection in my menu is taken from code in the admin templates and is therefore set by the folder <b>class</b> not an <b>instance</b> of that class (My folder content-object). So how could I submit and save folder sort-order data for the object, such that it overrides the sort order for the folder class?

I hope I'm being clear enough. I would have thought eZ would be able to do something like this out of the box. Heck, even Plone does (..and what a dog <b>that is</b>...!)

Any other guidance on this would be very gratefully received :-)

Thank you very much,
Russ

Russell Michell, Wellington, New Zealand.
We're building! http://www.theruss.com/blog/
I'm on Twitter: http://twitter.com/therussdotcom

Believe nothing, consider everything.

Friday 24 October 2008 1:55:45 am

@Yannick - you are completely right: the solution I proposed is to change the sort order on a folder in a way that all visitors will see the same sort order.

The original post said:
<i>to "remember" the sort order for all subsequent visitors to that folder</i>
but possibly the intent was " for all subsequent visits to that folder"?

In that case, I think using the "ezpreference" feature would be a good option.

Principal Consultant International Business
Member of the Community Project Board

Wednesday 29 October 2008 7:29:36 pm

@Gaetano: Thanks for your help, it works great. All I had to do differently was to ensure a sort direction was passed to content/action too.

For anyone that comes across this thread, here's the template code in an override for: website_toolbar.tpl:

<!-- Custom sort-field -->
{def $content_containers = array('folder','smart_folder')}
{if $content_containers|contains( $content_object.content_class.identifier )}
<form method="post" action={"content/action"|ezurl} class="left">
  <input type="hidden" name="HasMainAssignment" value="1" />
  <input type="hidden" name="ContentObjectID" value="{$content_object.id}" />
  <input type="hidden" name="NodeID" value="{$current_node.node_id}" />
  <input type="hidden" name="ContentNodeID" value="{$current_node.node_id}" />
  <input type="hidden" name="SortingOrder" value="" />
    {def $sort_fields=fetch( content, available_sort_fields )
    $title='Use this to set the default sorting method for the sub items of this content-object.'|i18n( 'design/admin/class/edit' )|wash }

    <select name="SortingField" title="{$title}">
        <option value="" selected="selected">Order by</option>
    {foreach $sort_fields as $sf_key => $sf_item}
        <option value="{$sf_key}" {if eq( $sf_key, $current_node.sort_field )}selected="selected"{/if}>{$sf_item}</option>
    {/foreach}
      <select name="SortingOrder">
      <option value="">Sort Direction</option>
      <option value="1" {if eq(1,$current_node.sort_order)}selected="selected"{/if}>Ascending</option>
      <option value="0" {if eq(0,$current_node.sort_order)}selected="selected"{/if}>Descending</option>
      </select>
    </select>

  <input type="image" src={"websitetoolbar/ezwt-icon-sorting.gif"|ezimage} name="SetSorting" title="{'Sort Folder View'|i18n( 'design/ezwebin/parts/website_toolbar' )}" />
{undef}
{undef}
</form>
{/if}

Thanks again :-)
Russ

Russell Michell, Wellington, New Zealand.
We're building! http://www.theruss.com/blog/
I'm on Twitter: http://twitter.com/therussdotcom

Believe nothing, consider everything.

Thursday 30 October 2008 1:59:57 am

Hi, this is a nice enhancement for the website toolbar, but you can't edit the priority. Maybe we could list the children under the toolbar or in a popup to change and save priority settings.

I put a link in the toolbar "priority" and then inluded the admin template in the frontend to the set pritority of the children, but this template has too much possibilities.

Maybe I find some time to enhance this.

greetz Andi

---------------------------------------
Styleflasher New Media OG
Websites. Games/Multimedia.

Friday 31 October 2008 6:07:16 am

@Gaetano :
Sorry i had not understood his concern, your answer is excellent! very great! I kept well in my pad.

{undef} without the variable(s) you want to undef, will undefined all variables within the scope(~the current template)
 

I have also noted

<|- Software Engineer @ eZ Publish developpers -|>
@ http://twitter.com/yannixk