Sort by Groups

[TJ09]

Another "passing thought" that comes with zero level of official endorsement or guarantee of follow-up:

 

As a new option for sorting your entire scroll, order your dragons in the groups you have them in, then in the order they are within that group. The goal is to bypass the problem of "sorting 5,000 things is difficult no matter what UI you use" by breaking down the problem into smaller chunks. It also could (see below) possibly provide the "dividers" people have asked for.

 

So if I have:

 

Group A:

  Dragon 1

  Dragon 7

  Dragon 5

Group B:

  Dragon 2

  Dragon 4

  Dragon 6

 

Then my scroll would be 1,7,5,2,4,6.

 

Dragons would presumably still be broken up into pages, as usual.

 

Open questions

• Ordering groups alphabetically (as they appear on the group page) vs allowing custom-sorting the groups themselves (independently of the groups page or possibly in sync with it instead of the default alphabetical order).
• What happens for dragons in multiple groups? Show them normally (e.g. multiple times, where they would appear in the group) vs de-duplicating (e.g. only in the first group they'd show up in).
• Could headers between groups on the scroll work? It would probably require showing duplicate dragons (above) to not confuse things (e.g. a dragon missing from "CB Ice Dragons" because it's also in your "Trios" group).

[Cinnamin Draconna]

I still prefer TABS, as in something like old windows folders. I don't mind sorting things one at a time, if by doing so I can sort the way I want and not some arbitrary 'group'. I want total and complete control over how I sort my dragons. Other players got the tags/groups they wanted, so let me have my tabs/folders.

[Dragon_Arbock]

Might be useful for some, but for what I do, I'd have to add a lot of currently ungrouped dragons to a group to get the effect I would want. I sort the first page of my scroll by custom, and the rest as a 'breed sort'.

 

I'd sooner see, if this is possible, a way to hide certain dragons from the public, so I can only show my 'best' dragons, or something like that.

[LadyLoki]

So long as this remains as an optional choice to use or not use, I'm cool with whatever is decided if this becomes a thing. I sort my scroll by default, which is "Legacy Breed Name" then have my unfrozen hatchies/eggs on top and I'm pretty happy with this layout of sorting. ^.^

[TJ09]

27 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

Might be useful for some, but for what I do, I'd have to add a lot of currently ungrouped dragons to a group to get the effect I would want. I sort the first page of my scroll by custom, and the rest as a 'breed sort'.

I forgot to address ungrouped dragons in my post, but presumably there'd be an option for how they end up sorting.

 

Which means you could have a custom-sorted group for your first page, and everything else is sorted by breed.

[Dragon_Arbock]

@TJ09 Oh, well if that is true, then it would probably be useful with less work. I could see that being a nice addition.

[Auriene]

I was thinking from some time about re-sorting my entire scroll. 'Sort by groups' option sounds good for me, especially if it includes dividers / headers that could be displayed on the scroll. I'd prefer to be able to custom sort the groups, as I never use any alphabetical sorting methods, though what isn't really useful for me, could be useful for others. I don't know what to do with duplicate dragons though. It would be pretty useful to be able to see every dragon in the group, but sometimes people put many dragons in many different groups. I don't know how it would affect the scroll display or something.

[Dragon_Arbock]

Well actually that is a question. I assume if you use sort by groups, you can turn off groups that you don't want displayed? Some of my groups are for my own convenience (like a group of CBs), that on my scroll are normally just sorted with all other dragons of their breed.

Dragons coming up multiple times because they're in multiple groups would be odd too.

[Auriene]

21 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

Well actually that is a question. I assume if you use sort by groups, you can turn off groups that you don't want displayed? Some of my groups are for my own convenience (like a group of CBs), that on my scroll are normally just sorted with all other dragons of their breed.

 

I also have groups like "CBs", "2nd gen. Hybrids", "2nd gen. Checkers" etc. that were created pretty much only for my own convenience. I suppose that similar categories could be added and used as tags, not as separate groups, and maybe that would eliminate the duplicate problem - you create only main groups that are displayed on your scroll, with dividers and all, and create tags if you need additional diversifiaction. But that's entirely another case.

[DigitalGarden]

So, assuming this goes live, it could mean - if I rename my Bleeding Moon army group so it appears on the very end on the list, it could ease the pain of others browsing my scroll. 700+ SAME images for pages and pages, who wants to see that, really?!

 

The trick is as you said, to have the same dragon in multiple places at once; there has been mentioned a suggestion for tabs - this could solve the problem, and a possible confusion "wait, this dragon was on the previous page, why is it HERE...?". I prefer that.

[Fuzzbucket]

If this goes live, would things stay the same for those of us who are OK with the way things are now ?

 

Just checking... I am happy with my own custom sort, and I have the groups I need - mostly visible only to me. I don't want that grouping showing up on my main scroll. I would like it to stay that way. I have no interest at all in this - though I can see why others would want it.

[LadyLoki]

5 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

If this goes live, would things stay the same for those of us who are OK with the way things are now ?

 

Just checking... I am happy with my own custom sort, and I have the groups I need - mostly visible only to me. I don't want that grouping showing up on my main scroll. I would like it to stay that way. I have no interest at all in this - though I can see why others would want it.

This is my main concern as well, I like how my scroll is sorted and all that jazz. But his statement "As a new option" leads me to believe that if this did happen, it would be entirely optional. Or at least, this is my hope. ^.^

[Ruby Eyes]

5 hours ago, TJ09 said:

What happens for dragons in multiple groups? Show them normally (e.g. multiple times, where they would appear in the group) vs de-duplicating (e.g. only in the first group they'd show up in).

Could it be possible to select a "primary group" for each dragon?

By default, that would be the group to which a given creature was added first, or the first group by sort order for creatures that are already in multiple groups when this feature goes live (assuming you don't yet store the "first group added to" information).

"Primary group" for ungrouped dragons would be the "not-in-a-group group-id", I suppose, which uses the default scroll sort order you've set.

The primary group would then be the sorting argument for all dragons.

 

I don't think I'd like duplicates show up on my scroll. 16 pages à 500 creatures are already quite a pile

 

Edit: Setting "no group" or "not-in-a-group group-id" as primary should probably also be an option, if you want to sort all but a handful by good old scroll order.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Ruby Eyes

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, Fabula said:

This is my main concern as well, I like how my scroll is sorted and all that jazz. But his statement "As a new option" leads me to believe that if this did happen, it would be entirely optional. Or at least, this is my hope. ^.^

 

If it weren't - I'd have to get rid of my groups. Which would ROYALLY piss me off ! But my default sort is what I WANT. I even have my database sorted to match it, so....

[ArielGrint]

What I would actually like to see is being able to set a primary sort and then apply group sort. I personally sort my dragons by color(so the rainbow sort) and most users I have seen scrolls of seem to be using either that or the breed name sort. So I would love to be able to keep that sort, but then be able to specify that dragons that are a part of a group should appear on top of their section, so for example if I have a group with all CBs, then I still have the same rainbow sort, but all of my CBs that are within that group appear on top of that breed's section. I hope I am explaining it in a way that actually makes sense

 

[Fuzzbucket]

It makes sense. But mine is a custom sort which took me AGES. I would not want to lose that. I am fine with going to a group to look at it when I need to.

[ArielGrint]

1 minute ago, Fuzzbucket said:

It makes sense. But mine is a custom sort which took me AGES. I would not want to lose that. I am fine with going to a group to look at it when I need to.

 

Oh but I don't think that if this new sort was introduced it would be forced upon us, would it? I would assume it would just be something that one could opt in or out of, like the "Reverse sort" tick that we have. And then when it is on there could be an additional option on how groups are handled either as a separate sort section or in the group section(by "handling groups" I mean which order the groups would go in and if need be which groups do you NOT want to include in the sort). I don't think that custom sorting would be affected by this

[Fuzzbucket]

That is my hope, but I want to be sure before I support the idea It isn't spelt out in TJs post.

[ArielGrint]

I am with Fabula on this one, to me the words "new option" do mean that it is an extra that will be added, not necessarily a replacement... At the moment our sorting options are fairly independent so I don't think there will be a problem with that. But indeed, perhaps TJ should make it extra clear in his post

[JavaTigress]

I am SORT of inclined to agree with both Fuzz and Fabula on this one.

My bet'd be that it would be an option, just like the other options for sorting, that we could choose to use or not as we pleased. 

 

If it were NOT I'd be with Fuzz on this one. I would NOT be happy if my custom sort were scrambled.

 

So in short... I am willing to be in favor of more OPTIONS for sorting our dragons, providing they are just that. OPTIONS.

[GhostMouse]

Ugh, I wrote out a whole comment and the editor cleared it out somehow when I tried to submit it. I have no idea what happened.  Anyway...

I can't see myself using this but I wouldn't oppose it as an option (like others have said). 

I used numbers and empty "header" groups to get my groups in order. I wouldn't want to re-order them to preserve my scroll sort. I do like the idea of arranging the groups the same way we can sort dragons, instead of having them sort alphabetically. I'd be very happy to be able to get rid of the numbers on my groups.

I think having the same dragon appear multiple times would be messy and confusing.

Headers on the scroll itself could be neat.
 

7 hours ago, Cinnamin Draconna said:

I still prefer TABS, as in something like old windows folders. I don't mind sorting things one at a time, if by doing so I can sort the way I want and not some arbitrary 'group'. I want total and complete control over how I sort my dragons. Other players got the tags/groups they wanted, so let me have my tabs/folders.

Groups do not function as tags. I like the groups but I would also like to see both tags and tabs implemented.

[purplehaze]

I have no objection to having this for the people that want it, as long as it is optional.

 

I have zero interest in sorting my scroll by groups. I have a custom sort that I already have set up for my 8000+ dragons. It does require manually moving dragons as they grow up, but that is fine (as long as the custom sort is not glitching!). Most of my dragons are not in groups and most of the groups I do have are private.

 

I actually reordered my scroll when we got groups -- moved my Thuweds, Dorkfaces, etc. back with their individual breeds instead of having them all together in one place on my scroll -- so this would kind of be a step backward for me.

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by purplehaze

[HeatherMarie]

I really, really, enthusiastically 100% support this. This would be *awesome* for my scroll.

 

Regarding the issue of dragons in multiple groups, I like Ruby Eyes' suggestion of the dragons having a 'primary group', with the default being the first group they were added to (or perhaps the first group they are in alphabetically?) and the ability to manually set a 'primary group' for the dragon. Example: I have Prize dragons that are in my inbred group, my dorkface group, *and* my shinies group, but I would much rather them be sorted with my shinies. 

 

I don't particularly care either way about headers. As for ordering group different ways, I'd be just fine with it being alphabetical, but I can definitely see the benefit in being able to custom-sort them (if I could custom sort them, I'd definitely have my shinies group at the top of my scroll). 

[Ruby Eyes]

The sort-by-group feature could get an option "display group headers on scroll [_]" which you can check or uncheck.

[StormWizard212]

I like this idea, though I'm not sure I'd actually use it myself. If there was an option to make a certain group invisible on your scroll, then I'd certainly do that and remove my inbreds/messies from view. I also like the idea of a 'primary' group which is where dragons show up. Having them show up in multiple places on a scroll is confusing.