Define order of CollectionObjects in CE form

[grantfitzsimmons]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Collection Objects in Specify 7 are ordered by timestamp created while in 6 they are ordered from the Collection Reg. No. name. Can the order of these objects be be defined in the configuration so that both 6 and 7 order these the same?

Reported By
Corinna at CSIRO

[maxpatiiuk]

Do you know if sp6 stores the field it is sorting by somewhere?
It is in the form definition? If so, I can just make sp7 read that field from the definition and sort by it

[grantfitzsimmons]

I don't think that Sp6 stores the field it is sorting anywhere in the forms. The behavior is controlled by something internally. See below:

Collecting Event row:

                <row>
                    <cell type="subview" viewname="CollectionObjectSub" id="11" colspan="9" rows="3" name="collectionObjects" initialize="addsearch=true"/>
                </row>

CollectionObjectSub def:

        <viewdef
              type="form"
              name="CollectionObjectSub"
              class="edu.ku.brc.specify.datamodel.CollectionObject"
              gettable="edu.ku.brc.af.ui.forms.DataGetterForObj"
              settable="edu.ku.brc.af.ui.forms.DataSetterForObj">
              <desc><![CDATA[The Collection Object Subform for appraisal and project forms.]]></desc>
              <enableRules/>
              
              <columnDef>100px,2px,120px,5px,100px,2px,98px,5px,95px,2px,98px,5px,95px,2px,98px,p:g</columnDef>
              <columnDef os="lnx">115px,2px,152px,5px,107px,2px,100px,5px,110px,2px,100px,5px,110px,2px,100px,p:g</columnDef>
              <columnDef os="mac">130px,2px,150px,5px,127px,2px,121px,5px,120px,2px,121px,5px,119px,2px,121px,p:g</columnDef>
              <columnDef os="exp">p,2px,min(p;150px),5px:g,p,2px,p:g(2),5px:g,p,2px,p:g(2),5px:g,p,2px,p:g(2)</columnDef>
              <rowDef auto="true" cell="p" sep="2px"/>
		  
              <rows>
                <row>
                    <cell type="label" labelfor="1"/>
                    <cell type="field" id="1" name="catalogNumber" uitype="formattedtext"/>
                    <cell type="label" labelfor="2"/>
                    <cell type="field" id="2" name="altCatalogNumber" uitype="text"/>
                    <cell type="label" labelfor="3"/>
                    <cell type="field" id="3" name="collection.collectionName" uitype="dsptextfield"/>
                    <cell type="label" labelfor="4"/>
                    <cell type="field" id="4" name="projectNumber" uitype="text"/>
                </row>
             </rows>
        </viewdef>

[maxpatiiuk]

Fixed in 063ac17
Replace

<cell
  type="subview"
  viewname="CollectionObjectSub"
  id="11"
  colspan="9"
  rows="3"
  name="collectionObjects"
  initialize="addsearch=true"
/>

with

<cell
  type="subview"
  viewname="CollectionObjectSub"
  id="11"
  colspan="9"
  rows="3"
  name="collectionObjects"
  initialize="addsearch=true;sortfield=someField"
/>

where "someField" is the field you want to sort by.
This would sort in the Ascending direction. To do Descending sort, prepend field name with a dash (e.i "-timestampcreated")

This also works for forms in grid view (i.e. formtable)