Hopefully this is an easy one. I searched for a solution but couldn’t find a single document and it appears to be a design bug since alphabetical sorting of filter bars would make more sense or even table sorting than what is currently happening.
In this simplified example the Products table contains only Products and a Category from a select list.
The Products filter bar displays Categories in Alphabetical order since that option was selected from the Filter Bar options.
The Inventory table Product column is a lookup from the Products table. The Category column has been added as a related column. (It’s getting its data from the Category selected in the Products table.)
The Category Filter Bar dropdown in the Inventory table is not displaying the options alphabetically even though the alphabetical option was selected for this column in the Products table. Alphabetical sort order would be Computer, Phones, Televisions.
At first I thought that the sort order for this related column filter was being displayed in table order but that’s not the case either. Table sort order would be Phones, Computers, Televisions.
The sort order logic it’s using in the filter bar is to show the Categories based on the order of the name from the primary column rather than its own column! This results in a sort order of Phones, Televisions, Computers.
Additionally, there isn’t any option to set the filter bar to sort by table or sort alphabetically.
Am I missing something or is this an oversight? It seems that Coda should simply use the existing filter display option from the table that the related column is coming from.
Otherwise, this seems to be the strangest way to sort and I can’t think of a single user case for doing it this way.
Hi @Sarah_Zwier, thanks for bringing this to our attention. I can give some context on the reason it currently works this way.
The filter bar dropdown only shows values that are used in the current view. So for example, if you had 100 categories but the items in the Inventory table are all from only 5 of those categories, you’d see just those 5 categories instead of all 100.
The way we currently determine which values to show can result in them showing in a different order than the cell dropdown – and usually matches the order they appear in the current table.
I understand how it may be preferable to respect the original order or settings on the column, and will pass this feedback along to our team.
I’m just glad that you took the time to look at it.
I actually do understand the logic of omitting values which makes sense but once those values are omitted they should then show either in the original order or settings, not in a sort that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
In other words, the reason you’ve given in the reply would reduce the items in the list but it doesn’t explain why the list is sorted randomly.
But there used to be an option for Select columns that allowed you to determine their order. The relation columns had that option (at least that’s what I remember) and if you make sure to set the order of that column, then your filter bar would also show up sorted properly. But something changed recently and that no longer seems to be an option.
Maybe my memory is based on the old Select columns and using those to set relations and NOT using the new relation column type. I just know that I used to be able to sort these items in the filter bar and now all my sorts that used to be are no longer working.
Hi @Susan_M_Davis, if you use a canvas control to filter instead of the filter bar, it should sort in the original item order.
I don’t believe we’ve made any changes to the logic for how items in the filter bar are ordered, but am not certain and will pass this on to the team along with the original request.
@nathan I think Coda Support and I figured it out. Seems old select columns that got converted to Relation columns seem to have an issue. I just had to go in and check the “Allow Edits” on the Linked Relation then it allowed me to see the sorting option. And being able to see the sorting options and set that in the column fixed the filter bar not sorting!
Just in case anyone else sees this weird behavior.
