"Ken Fine" <kenfine@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:bsv4m8$hea$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> (originally posted to one of macromedia's groups; no help, so hopefully
> someone here can help me out. I'm using VBScript ASP.)
>
> When designing administrative interfaces to websites, we often need to
> provide users with a mechanism to change the order of items that are
listed
> on the page.For example, the _New York Times_ website
> (http://www.nytimes.com) lists a bunch of top news articles, and normally
> these are ordered by purely mechanical criteria (e.g. datetime published.)
> However, we sometimes want to allow our users a way to influence the list
> order themselves, say, to allow a particularly newsworthy item to persist
at
> the top of the list.
>
> I have not come up with a graceful and elegant way to offer an interactive
> ordering capability on administration forms, as you see in many desktop
> apps. You can design various hacks -- say, allowing the user to designate
> items "high priority" to trump mechanized ordering solutions, or allow the
> user to assign an order integer or letter to each items. However, all of
> these methods have a hacky, sucky quality to them.
>
> What I would like is a means of allowing users an easy-to-use and
> interactive way to adjust the order of listed records. Ideally I would
like
> some way that the user could select an item and/or make a single item go
up
> and down in the list on the admin page, and have that list order reflected
> on the final page. Perhaps you print an imagemap "up" and "down" arrow
> adjacent each listing, and pressing the "up" or down" button moves it up
or
> down. Or perhaps you have some client-side javascript widget that allows
> selection and then movement via a single set of up/down controls.
>
> There's three components to this: how you handle the ordering on the
> database side, how you handle the UI issues on the web application, and
how
> you update the database information appropriately based on the user's
input.
>
> The hardest part of this problem is figuring out what needs to happen on
the
> database side: you have a collection of "ordering" values, with one each
> presumably associated with each database record, and presumably you need
ALL
> the items updated for the collection of items you're administering.
> Otherwise, you end up with messed-up situations where there are two
> identically ordered items and the application doesn't know the right thing
> to do.
>
> Or maybe you somehow store the list order of items for a "publication" in
a
> single field on tblPubs, split the itemIDs out into an array, and update
as
> necessary. Somehow this approach feels like it may invite the wrath of the
> database purity zealots, and it may not work well for open-ended
> publications (e.g. an online newspaper that is continually updated.)
>
> There may be a widget in ASP that's a cousin to concept like "queues" or
> "stacks" that could help us.
>
> Answering a small piece of my own question: this article has some tidbits
> that may help:
> http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/102799-1.shtml
>
> Some smart person out there has solved this, and maybe you even have a
link
> to an article or tutorial. Can anyone suggest a solution and/or a starting
> point?
>
> Thanks,
> KF
>
>
>
>
>

"Ken Fine" <kenfine@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:bsv4m8$hea$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> (originally posted to one of macromedia's groups; no help, so hopefully
> someone here can help me out. I'm using VBScript ASP.)
>
> When designing administrative interfaces to websites, we often need to
> provide users with a mechanism to change the order of items that are
listed
> on the page.For example, the _New York Times_ website
> (http://www.nytimes.com) lists a bunch of top news articles, and normally
> these are ordered by purely mechanical criteria (e.g. datetime published.)
> However, we sometimes want to allow our users a way to influence the list
> order themselves, say, to allow a particularly newsworthy item to persist
at
> the top of the list.
>
> I have not come up with a graceful and elegant way to offer an interactive
> ordering capability on administration forms, as you see in many desktop
> apps. You can design various hacks -- say, allowing the user to designate
> items "high priority" to trump mechanized ordering solutions, or allow the
> user to assign an order integer or letter to each items. However, all of
> these methods have a hacky, sucky quality to them.
>
> What I would like is a means of allowing users an easy-to-use and
> interactive way to adjust the order of listed records. Ideally I would
like
> some way that the user could select an item and/or make a single item go
up
> and down in the list on the admin page, and have that list order reflected
> on the final page. Perhaps you print an imagemap "up" and "down" arrow
> adjacent each listing, and pressing the "up" or down" button moves it up
or
> down. Or perhaps you have some client-side javascript widget that allows
> selection and then movement via a single set of up/down controls.
>
> There's three components to this: how you handle the ordering on the
> database side, how you handle the UI issues on the web application, and
how
> you update the database information appropriately based on the user's
input.
>
> The hardest part of this problem is figuring out what needs to happen on
the
> database side: you have a collection of "ordering" values, with one each
> presumably associated with each database record, and presumably you need
ALL
> the items updated for the collection of items you're administering.
> Otherwise, you end up with messed-up situations where there are two
> identically ordered items and the application doesn't know the right thing
> to do.
>
> Or maybe you somehow store the list order of items for a "publication" in
a
> single field on tblPubs, split the itemIDs out into an array, and update
as
> necessary. Somehow this approach feels like it may invite the wrath of the
> database purity zealots, and it may not work well for open-ended
> publications (e.g. an online newspaper that is continually updated.)
>
> There may be a widget in ASP that's a cousin to concept like "queues" or
> "stacks" that could help us.
>
> Answering a small piece of my own question: this article has some tidbits
> that may help:
> http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/102799-1.shtml
>
> Some smart person out there has solved this, and maybe you even have a
link
> to an article or tutorial. Can anyone suggest a solution and/or a starting
> point?
>
> Thanks,
> KF
>
>
>
>
>