Hi all,
I agree with Ludwig in that it is "strange" at best.
Additionaly, let's not forget about internationalization! While some
(myself not included) may think spaces, dashes, etc. are neglectable for
the interpretation and sorting of a name, this is IMO a very localized
point of view. What might seem like a resulting more natural order in
Flanders might (and will most likely) seem very strange at best in other
localities. So if and when such a feature would be implemented it would
have to take language into account ... and then how do you handle the
fact that we live in a somewhat multicultural society? Names from
different languages are bound to get mixed in your platform.
If the basic issue is grouping names which "seem" the same (which is
what I conclude from the intention to filter out things like spaces and
dashes), then what about e.g. "Van Den Abbeele", "Van Den Abeele" and
"Van Den Abbeele"? You could consider them "different". But for someone
looking up a user in the system it all sounds the same ... and I don't
think MySQL can order sets of data based on how they sound?
In short I think the problem is much more complex when put in the right
context. Sorting of names which "feels" right is a pretty complex
matter. I'm not in favour of "fixes" that basically don't fix anything
generally, but introduce a whole new set of problems on a different
level. "Mathematical" ordering might not be ideal, but at least it's as
consistent as the DBMS allows it to be.
Best regards,
Hans
On 01/04/2011 08:37, Ludwig Theunis wrote:
Hi Sven,
From our point of view this is not that important, because the users
list from the Platform will become to big any way. So ordering does
not solve that. Mostly teachers will add students to a course as a group.
Within this group the ordering is important. But none of the
suggestions will fit our needs. In our case the ordering in the group
will be alphabetical at first but when a student is added to a group,
the order will not change he will be added at the end of the group. So
for our need a display_order field would be a nice thing in the
group_rel_user table.
Both solutions are a bit strange because in both cases you would click
on a column to sort by that column, and in both cases it is sorting by
an other invisible column. This is ok as long as the invisible column
and the visible column are some what synchronized. If this is not you
will get strange effects, and the difficulty in both solutions is to
keep the SORTNAME field updated, when someon changes his name, or when
the user data is synchronized whit other systems.
So it would be better to have the sortname field visible when on wants
to sort by it.
But as said before in our case the sorting in the in the big user
table is not interesting, the display order in the group_rel_user is
and this can differ for each group...
Greetings,
Ludwig
2011/3/31 Sven Vanpoucke <sven.vanpou...@hogent.be
<mailto:sven.vanpou...@hogent.be>>
Hi
We currently have a problem with the order of users. A last name
of a user is currently ordered mathematically. Though in most
cases this is very confusing for the end user because they don't
want to worry whether there is a space or another special
character into the name when ordering / search for names. In the
old D days we solved this by adding a new column to the user table
with a sort name. This sort name was never visible on the screen
but was used to order the last name of a user table. The sort name
contained the last name of the user but without spaces and special
characters. Thus all the users would be sorted alphabetically
(without taking the special characters into account).
We would like to introduce this in chamilo 2.0 but are not sure
how we could solve this issue. We propose two solutions. One that
will affect the specific user table, or one that will affect the
entire platform:
* We could add a new field to the user table called sortname,
fill it up automatically by parsing all the special
characters and spaces out of the name. Add this sortname to
the userlist in place of where the lastname is now and
change the translation to last name. Change the cellrenderer
to display the contents of the last name in the sort name
column and it will look as it is the last name but will sort
on the sortname.
* We could add an additional parameter to the object column
which introduces the column on which should be sorted.
Default this is the same column / property as the property
for which the column has been defined. When doing this we
can define specific sort columns for better visual order
methods in multiple tables.
I would really appreciate it if i could have some input on this
because this is a very very important feature for us.
--
Met vriendelijke groeten
Sven Vanpoucke
Digitaal Leren
Directie Onderwijs
Hogeschool Gent
http://digitaal-leren.hogent.be/
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Hoofddeskundige ICTO | Lead Developer Chamilo 2.0
Software Coordinator Chamilo Association
Erasmushogeschool Brussel
Nijverheidskaai 170 | B-1070 Brussel
T 02 559 02 54 | i 254
hans.de.bissc...@ehb.be <mailto:hans.de.bissc...@ehb.be> |
www.erasmushogeschool.be <http://www.erasmushogeschool.be/>
Kom eens langs: www.erasmushogeschool.be/infodagen
<http://www.erasmushogeschool.be/infodagen>
of lees onze elektronische nieuwsbrief: ehbrief.ehb.be
<http://ehbrief.ehb.be/>
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