Interesting UI problem!

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   Consider this application. You have a report control with a number of (groupable) fields. The data is fetched from a database. 

Now, when the user clicks Column A, he expects the fetched data to be sorted by A. That's easy. You simply perform an "ORDER BY" at the selected column. However, sometimes you really want to sort the data presented in the GUI. Hence, it makes sense to sort the visible rows - by clicking the column header. That becomes a problem!

How do you combine the best of two worlds? How do you allow the user to sort both the fetched data and the data visible in the GUI? And more importantly, how do you accomplish this with the CJ report control?

I'm thinking of sorting the database data when certain columns are clicked. E.g. "Date". However, that yields unintuitive UI 

Any ideas?

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znakeeye Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 26 July 2006 Status: Offline Points: 1672	Post Options Post Reply Quote znakeeye Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Interesting UI problem! Posted: 15 May 2010 at 1:42pm
	Consider this application. You have a report control with a number of (groupable) fields. The data is fetched from a database. Now, when the user clicks Column A, he expects the fetched data to be sorted by A. That's easy. You simply perform an "ORDER BY" at the selected column. However, sometimes you really want to sort the data presented in the GUI. Hence, it makes sense to sort the visible rows - by clicking the column header. That becomes a problem! How do you combine the best of two worlds? How do you allow the user to sort both the fetched data and the data visible in the GUI? And more importantly, how do you accomplish this with the CJ report control? I'm thinking of sorting the database data when certain columns are clicked. E.g. "Date". However, that yields unintuitive UI Any ideas?
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ReyesRP Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 30 January 2008 Status: Offline Points: 14	Post Options Post Reply Quote ReyesRP Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2010 at 3:20pm
	ReportControl will sort for you but you can also control the sort programmatically. So, I would say load the RC in your DBMS order, set the sort column when a column header is clicked but add a third setting to clear the sort column which will restore the sort order (basically record load order) that the RC was loaded with. So it would be something like click on the column header once for ascending, again for descending, and again for none. I don't use the column header as my sort UI but it seems like that would work... Maybe you are talking about something more complex like also having a "reload the RC" UI that clears the RC sort column and reloads the RC with the records in a different order so that the default order is different...