Issue 17776 - sort order in OOo 'file open' dialog wrong
Summary: sort order in OOo 'file open' dialog wrong
Status: CLOSED WONT_FIX
Alias: None
Product: General
Classification: Code
Component: ui (show other issues)
Version: OOo 1.1 RC
Hardware: PC Windows 98
: P5 (lowest) Trivial with 2 votes (vote)
Target Milestone: AOO Later
Assignee: frank.loehmann
QA Contact: issues@ui
URL:
Keywords: oooqa
Depends on:
Blocks: 12522
  Show dependency tree
 
Reported: 2003-08-01 19:04 UTC by Rainer Bielefeld
Modified: 2010-03-28 01:10 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---


Attachments
screenshot with wrong sort order (7.09 KB, image/png)
2003-08-01 19:04 UTC, Rainer Bielefeld
no flags Details
screenshot MOZLLA (10.77 KB, image/png)
2003-08-13 17:28 UTC, Rainer Bielefeld
no flags Details

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Description Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-01 19:04:05 UTC
Please have a look to the attached image "opendialog.png".

You will see that the little arrow in the "size-button" shows upwards, and the
smallest file is at the top of the list. 
All other programs I use with such function handle this sort function in an
other way: the little arrow shows to the direction where I find the biggest
file, the last modified, the name starting with the latest  alphabetic character.

In the example (see image) IMHO the sort order of the files in accordance to the
arrow should be (from top to bottom):
  rtl_note.doc      (biggest)
  11rc.png
  11beta2.png       (smallest)


Rainer
Comment 1 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-01 19:04:58 UTC
Created attachment 8216 [details]
screenshot with wrong sort order
Comment 2 stefan.baltzer 2003-08-08 16:53:05 UTC
SBA: Component changed to Framework. Reassigned to Thorsten.
Comment 3 thorsten.martens 2003-08-13 13:52:04 UTC
The OpenOffice/StarOffice file-open dialog acts the same way, the
windows-system dialog does (eg. Notepad -> file/open). The arrow
points from the largest to the smallest file.
Comment 4 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-13 15:58:10 UTC
Hi Thorsten,

which WIN do you use? On my WIN98 System the WIN98 standard dialogues
do not have any arrow to show the file order, and so all programs
which use the WIN standard dialogues do not show any arrow.

First something general:

The normal use of those "short arrows" is

from start  >   to end
Example: scroll- slider


The normal way I would use an arrows to show a sort order is:

"My Way"
A ..........   Z
First ......   Last
From .......   To

   -->



"OOo-File-Open-Dialog-Way"
A ......   Z
    <--


I made some further tests concerning "arrow for sort order handling".


"My Way":
----------
- NERO
- Mozilla
- Sort order buttons in OOo CALC


"OOo-File-Open-Dialog-Way":
---------------------------
- FileZilla
- OE drafts folder
- WIN Address Book




No arrows:
----------
- WIN98
- IZArc


To do it in the same way as WIN is _one_ argument, but there also is a
lot of nonsense in WINDOWS, IMHO one nonsense is the use of the arrows
in the WIN-Dialogues. Please also see the arguments in issue 18190.

So I think we should have some more discussion concerning this affair
before we do a final decision.

CU

Rainer
Comment 5 andreschnabel 2003-08-13 16:20:47 UTC
Rainer: 
OOo behaves exactly as Windows (2k) does. (The wider End of the
triangle represents the higher numbers or filesizes).
Although this may not be perfect for all users, I think there would be
at least the same number of users, who are ok with this (and would no
see the sense in "your way").

BTW .. I never put any attention to this triangle and was quite
surprised, that it is there.
Comment 6 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-13 17:28:36 UTC
Created attachment 8432 [details]
screenshot MOZLLA
Comment 7 thorsten.martens 2003-08-14 11:02:22 UTC
When using Win2000 or WinXP the pointer points from the youngest to
the oldest file, from the smallest to the largest file,... both the
same in the windows-system dialog and in the OpenOffice-dialog. So
this one is not a bug. 
Comment 8 number5 2003-08-14 11:19:34 UTC
Ok, it's not a bug; let's call it a feature request... As far as I am
concerned, WinXX doesn't set the guiding principle to all things. I'm
using, alas, Windows all the time, and still the Windows way looks
wrong to me.

Is there a way to change this behaviour e.g by switching filenames?
Comment 9 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-14 12:27:18 UTC
I am not so glad that all along status of this issue is set to WONTFIX
- I think that it is not very polite to do that if a QA member saw 
  reasons to reopen a bug.

If anyone but me will change  status ot this issue, I will get a
little angry! 

Andre, please see:
First we must decide: is that what we see an arrow, or is it a
"swelling arrow" (I am not sure concerning the english word, we find
it on the hot water tap). And for this decision it is absolutely not
interesting, how it's handled in WIN.

If it is a "swelling arrow", correct would be

 ^    A
/  \  Z

A in the first line, Z in the last line.

If it is an arrow:

\ / A
 .  Z

A in the first line, Z in the last line.

_My_ decision is, that the little thing in the "file open dialog" is
an arrow, because in my software there are used very very many arrows,
more or less no swallow arrows, but may be that other ones see that in
another way.

If we decide that it is a swallow arrow, no more discussion is
required, every thing can stay how it is.

If we decide, that it is an arrow, we must decide a second time:
Then we see, that WIN is doing it _wrong_, and we have 2 opportunities:
1. We know, it is wrong, but WIN is so popular, that we can not do 
   something aviant from WIN without worrying users.
2. We are doing things right and not like WIN and cange our standard.

But actually, we have to decide: arrow or not?
It does not make any sense to make further steps before we have not
clarified this point?

I request for arguments, and I think comment From Number5 2003-08-14
03:19 PDT guides into a good direction.


Rainer
Comment 10 thorsten.martens 2003-08-14 13:02:00 UTC
Sorry for making you a little bit angry, but this is NOT a bug. This
behaviour is used in lists for descending and ascending entries and
has therefore implemented this way. 
Comment 11 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-14 13:15:34 UTC
:-(

Hi Thorsten, 

what is the guideline which defines this use?

Rainer
Comment 12 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-15 06:10:58 UTC
Might be interesting to have a look on
<http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93772>


Rainer
Comment 13 Frank Schönheit 2003-08-19 13:44:55 UTC
Sorry to say, but I would vote for DONTFIX :). I guess if we go out
there and ask 3000 users, then 2998 of them will not even know that
there's such an icon, and 2990 of them will not even be able to name
any other program which has such icons.
Additionally, I strongly assume that 1501 of them will find the one
direction more intuitive than the other, no matter which is "one" and
which "another".
Somewhat overstated, admittedly, but you get the idea.

I could set this one to WONTFIX, again (which wouldn't be too
imapplicable, since I am the responsible developer for the file open
dialog). But I assume you, Rainer, would simply re-open it again?

In any way, I assign it to the user experience team for evaluation (it
doesn't make sense that TM owns it), but I repeat my recommendation
for WONTFIX.
Comment 14 number5 2003-08-19 16:34:56 UTC
If the symbols were something like

 o
 °

(a big bullet above a small one, and vice versa; 2nd version difficult
in ASCII) instead of triangles, everyone would know what they mean.

What about creating such icons? Wouldn't that be a solution?
Comment 15 Frank Schönheit 2003-08-20 07:22:59 UTC
Hmm. Sorry, I don't really see how such icons are better comprehensible?
Comment 16 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-20 07:34:14 UTC
Hi,

I think Number5's Idea is to show al little listing:
O   big Nummber  1234120
o   small Number       1

Sort order: starting with big number in first line.

Another idea, let's collect those ideas here.

Rainer
Comment 17 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-20 07:45:16 UTC
Hi,

let me summarize the intermediate result of the discussions here, in
several newsgroups, bugzilla, with friends:

- Most people completely ignore those sort order arrows (50%?)
- some people like the WINDOWS way:
   ^    A
  /  \  Z
  Arrow means: ascending sort order (30%?)
- some other people like me think, that the WINDOWS way is not so 
  intuitive and would prefer the MOZILLA - way:
  \ / A
   .  Z
  Arrow means: start with "A" in the first line and end with "Z" in 
  the last one(20%?)

I think this shows us that there is absolutely no reason for quick
action on something which is ignored by most people and so seems to be
not so very important.

It also shows that actually there is no optimum, if that sort order
indicator would really be helpful, it would not be ignored by most
people and discussed by the resting ;-)

Let us take time (we have it) to collect ideas, and might be we will
find something completely new and better than all we saw until now.

I would be interested in information concerning usage in other OS than
WIN and MAC.

Rainer
Comment 18 number5 2003-08-20 10:12:50 UTC
Despite Bielefeld doesn't exist, Rainer got me right ;-)
(international audience, don't worry when you don't understand this...)

The problem is: those triangles are mistakable;  they can be taken for
arrows as well as for increase/decrease indicators. My idea is to
replace them by versions which symbolise one or the other meaning in a
intuitive and non-ambiguous way.

1. better symbols for the "Windows way"

  a) Big bullets symbolise 'big', small bullets 'small':

     o  (biggest, newest... file)
     °  (smallest, oldest... file)

  b) oriented to e.g. volume controls
     ___
     \  |  (biggest, newest... file)
      \ |
       \|
        '  (smallest, oldest... file)

2. better Symbols for the "Mozilla way"

   Use real arrows (something like ->)

Maybe our solution will be known one day as the "OpenOffice way"? ;-)
Comment 19 Frank Schönheit 2003-08-20 11:57:44 UTC
(perhaps Rainer is just one of THEIR tricks ....)

the problem I have with 1a is that there is no (intuitive) correlation
between "big circle" and "newest file". It could perhaps work for
attributes such as size, but not for name, date, etc.
Comment 20 number5 2003-08-20 12:58:44 UTC
> (perhaps Rainer is just one of THEIR tricks ...)

Caution -- THEY are reading everything you write ;-)

> the problem I have with 1a is that there is
> no (intuitive) correlation
> between "big circle" and "newest file".

This is a general problem: what is a 'bigger' date? I reckon most
people (including me) klick on the date sorting head at least twice to
be sure they got it right.
Comment 21 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-20 13:55:04 UTC
In issue 12522 some other sort order issues are discussed. 

Rainer
Comment 22 rblackeagle 2003-08-21 06:34:48 UTC
If you want it automatically understood (with no need for
interpretation), you could simply use A -> Z and Z -> A, or put the
arrow under A Z (one way for ascending and the other for descending).
 I don't think many people could misunderstand this simple solution.
Comment 23 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-21 07:28:21 UTC
I also think that "A -> Z" is a good synonym for all sort order
indications.

A        Z
 \        \
  >Z       >A

as used in the spreadsheet toolbar buttons, pls see
<http://www.openoffice.org/issues/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=8428&file=sortbuttons.png>
should be able to show the sort direction without any doubt, and a
consideration

1. April 1932  is more or less "A"
13 Oct.  2003  is more or less "Z"

should not cause problems.

Another advantage of this solution is that this indicator can also be
used for horizontal sort orders (where ever this might be used):
"ascending sort order", is that from the right to the left or inverse?

I am not so happy with the vertical arrows in example under
"Serienbrief", I had to think about what those images want to tell me
quite a while ;-)
To use different arrow directions is no god Idea. A coordinate plane
always looks like

S ^
y !
s !
t !
e !
m !
   ----->
    Temperature

even when I want to show what happens in a system with descending
temperature, no one would have to draw a coordinate plane like

S ^
y !
s !
t !
e !
m !
   -----<
    Temperature

for such use.



Rainer
Comment 24 Frank Schönheit 2003-08-21 08:03:27 UTC
> as used in the spreadsheet toolbar buttons, pls see

Arghh! Sorry, but this is *NOT* the spreadsheet component, this is the
database access component!, which can be used in spreadsheets, texts,
drawings, and presentations.


The problem with the A-Z images is that they're quite large (they
wouldn't fit into the header of the file open dialog). If they're not
large, they would probably not be recognizable ...
In addition, A/Z needs to be localized - there are a lot of languages
where A and Z do not denote the first/last letter of the alphabet. But
this doesn't necessarily has to hinder us ..
Comment 25 Rainer Bielefeld 2003-08-21 08:35:12 UTC
> In addition, A/Z needs to be localized

That's an important argument what leads back to  Number5's idea, but I
am a little afraid that some peole will think that
     
               .oO

wants to tell us something about "points" and "O"s and not concerning
direction from small to big :-\

Rainer
                                        
Comment 26 number5 2003-08-21 09:31:34 UTC
I don't think so.  Let them be points instead of circles; there is
just no appropriate ASCII character.

Everyone who has clicked at least twice on a sort header will have got
it forever. Those who don't have no idea of a thing like sorting anyway...
Comment 27 Frank Schönheit 2003-10-28 06:50:09 UTC
Huh? Why should this block issue 21783 (which is the tracking
bug for ms interop)?
Comment 28 bettina.haberer 2004-01-30 16:29:44 UTC
I also agree with wontfix. But lets ask finally our user human computer
interface expert.
Hello Matthias, please decide about this issue. Thank you.
Comment 29 ace_dent 2008-05-16 02:39:08 UTC
OpenOffice.org Issue Tracker - Feedback Request.

The Issue you raised has the status 'New' pending further action, but has not
been updated within the last 4 years. Please consider re-testing with one of the
latest versions of OOo, as the problem(s) may have already been addressed.
Either use the recent stable version: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html
or consider trying the new OOo 3 BETA (still in testing):
http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/
 
Please report back the outcome so this Issue may be Closed or Progressed as
necessary - otherwise it may be Resolved as Invalid in the future. You may also
wish to search for (and note) any duplicates of this Issue that may have
advanced further by checking the Issue Tracker:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/query.cgi
 
Many thanks,
Andrew
 
Cleaning-up and Closing old Issues as part of:
~ The Grand Bug Squash, pre v3 ~
http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html
Comment 30 matthias.mueller-prove 2009-09-06 11:15:20 UTC
I am no longer officially active on OOo. Please take over.
Comment 31 lohmaier 2010-03-28 01:10:10 UTC
wontfix.

the "big part of arrow" (i.e. the wide part) is where the big parts (the bigger 
filesize is).

This is consistent with GTK, Windows,.... whatever.

If you don't like OOo's way, don't use OOo's dialogs.

If you don't like your operating system's dialogs either, compile your very own 
version of OOo.
Comment 32 lohmaier 2010-03-28 01:10:55 UTC
closing.