[Feature request] Sort relation fields by column (BelongsTo, HasMany etc.)

[StoyanPenev]

Hi there!

Currently there is no control over how the related fields are sorted when displayed in the select dropdown lists.
My proposal is to expose a sortBy method on all relation fields and then also update the AssociatableController::index() that prepares the resources listing.
Like so:

BelongsTo::make('Product', null, Product::class)
            ->sortBy('updated_at', 'asc')

So in the AssociatableController::index() method instead of getting resources like

'resources' => $field->buildAssociatableQuery($request, $withTrashed)->get()
                        ->mapInto($field->resourceClass)
                        ->filter->authorizedToAdd($request, $request->model())
                        ->map(function ($resource) use ($request, $field) {
                            return $field->formatAssociatableResource($request, $resource);
                        })->sortBy('display')->values(),

See we have a hardcoded ->sortBy('display')->values() as default ordering, what if we want to display latest updated records first?

A better approach is to perform the ordering based on column and direction (taken from above)
so AssociatableController::index() should perform ordering like:

'resources' => $field->buildAssociatableQuery($request, $withTrashed)->get()
                        ->mapInto($field->resourceClass)
                        ->filter->authorizedToAdd($request, $request->model())
                        ->{$field->sortByMethod}($field->sortByColumn)
                        ->map(function ($resource) use ($request, $field) {
                            return $field->formatAssociatableResource($request, $resource);
                        })->values(),

So all changes that need to be done are in the controller index method and probably a shared Sortable trait for the relation fields.

public function sortBy(string $column, string $sortBy = 'desc')
    {
        $this->sortByColumn = $column;
        $this->sortByMethod = $sortBy != 'desc' ? 'sortBy' : 'sortByDesc';

        return $this;
    }

finally we can have a default sortByColumn taken from the related $resource::title
so all relation fields should have or this can be defaulted in the controller (not very clear though)

public function __construct($name, $attribute = null, $resource = null)
    {
        parent::__construct($name, $attribute);

        $resource = $resource ?? ResourceRelationshipGuesser::guessResource($name);

        $this->resourceClass = $resource;
        $this->sortByColumn = $resource::$title;
        $this->resourceName = $resource::uriKey();
        $this->belongsToRelationship = $this->attribute;
    }

I think this can be a great addition to the otherwise awesome Laravel Nova.

It will also resolve one of the closed issues
#156 (comment)

Greetings,
Stoyan

[didix16]

Hello, have this functionality been implemented yet?

Thanks

[larshanskrause]

@didix16 As far as I can tell this hasn't been implemented as of version 3.0.2. I'd really like this feature, too.

[didix16]

Oh, ok. Thanks @larshanskrause . We will keep waiting then.

[bhavinzwt]

Is there any update on this from Nova?

[github-actions]

This thread has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.

[crynobone]

Implemented: https://nova.laravel.com/docs/3.0/resources/relationships.html#disable-ordering-by-title