1. 

   dharkness, Member

   When I bring up a report and click on a column header, the table is sorted in descending order but the arrow shows UP.

   Clicking an unsorted column header should sort ascending first.
2. 

   myDBR Team, Key Master

   The arrow points to the bigger values.

   The reason for sort order being descending first, is that in many cases the column being sorted is a value where the bigger values are the meaningful one (number value, latest date etc) hence being sorted first to the top. It is true that for character columns the logical first sorting order would be ascending. You can set the initial sorting order yourself though.

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   myDBR Team
3. 

   dharkness, Member

   While you may be correct about the bigger numbers being more important usually (I would guess 75% of the time), you're violating the Principle of Least Surprise. In every application in the world:

   • the first click sorts ascending, and
   • up arrow means ascending.

   
   If you manage to train yourself to click once for descending and translate down arrow to mean ascending, you will start having difficulty using all those other applications.

   This application will be better for users if it does what they expect in this case even if it's slightly less efficient, IMHO.

   At the very minimum, could you add a global "default sort direction" to toggle between ascending and descending? I don't really care about the arrow, though we have had a few non-technical users point it out as a bug.
4. 

   myDBR Team, Key Master

   In every application in the world:

   • the first click sorts ascending, and
   • up arrow means ascending.

   While this may not be entirely true (take example for widely used lists like Windows Explorer / MacOS X Finder column behavior, which both sort by default by the importance of the files), we do agree that the arrow could be changed to triange, which would represent sorting bit better. The arrow takes less space though.

   You can easily reverse the arrow direction as it is a CSS rule that defines which arrow is used. Or, you can change it to be a triangle if you like.

   We can see that default sorting order with different data (like text) is more logical. We do however like to keep the option that the sorting is done based on "importance" of the data, rather than just "up" or "down". In most cases users want to see "newest" and "biggest" things first. Of course, the other sorting direction is always a click away.

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   myDBR Team
5. 

   myDBR Team, Key Master

   FYI,
   the lastest build includes refinements to the sorting. Arrows have been changed to trianges and the default sorting direction can be modified to your liking via defaults.php. By default the sorting is done based on "importance" of the data.

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   myDBR Team
6. 

   dharkness, Member

   
   Take example for widely used lists like Windows Explorer / MacOS X Finder column behavior, which both sort by default by the importance of the files.
   

   Fair enough. I'll take a look at the latest build. Thanks.

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