Hello,
There have been several threads/discussions over the years with regard to up / down sorting, in OF and other apps (mail apps, spreadsheets). Without taking a stand as to which is better or what the default should be, how about the following UX/UI enhancement for both MacOS and iOS OF:
MacOS: to the immediate right of the perspective title in the middle frame (the CMD-ALT-2 frame), have a text sized up arrow button followed by a text sized down arrow button. Somewhat similar to spreadsheets, clicking one or the other simply reverses the current idea of up/down sorting. Each perspective has its own memory (configuration) of what was last selected. Everything stays the same (consistent) with other UX/UI behaviors. (Note - if one ‘must’ use the alternating carrot (^) and ‘v’ UI, whatever - this enhancement request is just about getting the functionality and not about the actual UI implementation.)
And to the right of those two arrow buttons, since there is a lot of horizontal space on the perspective title line in MacOS :-), have an additional ‘top arrow’ button that moves the frame to the top of the sort followed by a ‘bottom arrow’ button that moves the frame to the bottom of the sort.
Since there is enough horizontal space on iOS as well, at least for the default perspectives, also add the four (or three or two) arrow buttons: sort-up, sort-down, goto-top, goto-bottom.
The UX/UI idea is to allow the user to set the direction of the sort to either up or down, a.k.a. up-is-latest or down-is-latest. It does not matter if the sort is manually re-arranged on the fly or what the last ‘Sort Once’ Organize (tab) action was - the up/down sort simply reverses the idea of ‘latest is top/bottom’.
Importantly, it also alters the location of where a new item/task is added, either at the top or at the bottom. And it is also important that this up/down reversing is 100% ‘idempotent’ - alternating the up/down sort twice gives exactly the same sort result.
Regarding the ‘where do new items get inserted when a task is already selected’ UX, new tasks/items are added below a highlighted task when down-sorting and are added above a highlighted task when up-sorting.
In summary, there appears to be enough horizontal blank space in both MacOS and iOS for this additional sorting functionality via a few buttons. And IMHO the convenience and joy of allowing the user to select the idea of ‘latest is up/down’ is worth the added buttons and documentation and UI complexity.
?
Thoughts/comments - looking for feedback before perhaps making an official support enhancement request. Thanks!
