Customizing the order in which icons appear on the userpics page

[ceesoo]

Title:
Customizing the order in which icons appear on the userpics page

Area:
icon management

Summary:
For users who have a lot of icons, or accumulate a lot of icons over time, it would be nice to be able to move our icons up or down the list freely, so that we don't have to worry about what order to upload icons in if we want certain icons next to each other.

Description:
====SUGGESTION====
A way for us to be able to change the order our icons are displayed in after we've already uploaded them.

What I'm envisioning is having two arrows (up and down) next to the icons on the Manage Icons page (to the right of each icon?). When you click the arrows, the icon (and keywords and etc) will move up or down the list, switching places with the icon before or after it. This will help people using 100 and 250 icons to organize their userpics page to their liking without the hassle of deleting icons and reuploading them in the desired order if they have icons they're uploading later that they wish were showing at the top, or after this specific icon, etc...

Currently there's a "Upload Order" display and "Keyword Order" display on the userpics page. It seems like there could be room for a "Custom Order" link? Ideally the custom order would be the default, so if a user decides to use a custom order it would be what shows up to other users when they click the userpics page (in which case you probably don't need "upload order"...).

====WHY IT'S THE BEST SOLUTION?====
Well, mostly it's just that there's no way to do this but the hard way, currently. The description above is just what I imagine would be easiest to deal with from the user end, but honestly I (and I know some other RPers) would probably be pleased with having ANY way to be able to customize icon order right now that doesn't involve deleting/reuploading.

====PROBLEMS/DRAWBACKS====
I'm not sure how easy it'd be to implement a change in UI like that? Especially if we want things moving around when a button is clicked. Would icons have to be renamed where they're stored to change their place on the list? Would it be more strain on the servers to have this as an option? Possibly the arrow method would take too many clicks to move a new icon to the top of the list?

====OTHER WAYS TO IMPLEMENT SUGGESTION====
A) Have a separate Manage Icons page dedicated specifically to changing the order of your icons. So you leave uploading new icons the way it is, and add a new page for moving them around.

OR

B) On the current Manage Icons page, a new text box could be added next to the icons, where you enter in the number for the order you want it to show up, the same way the order of sidebar modules is handled on some of the journal styles. You could change the numbers around to your liking and then when you hit "save" the icons are moved to their new positions.

====LAST WORDS====
So those are the three ideas I've got and I'm sure there are other ways or a combination of the above ways to accomplish the task, but the most important thing to me is having the option to customize what order my icons show up in. Thanks for considering!

Poll #8858 Customizing the order in which icons appear on the userpics page

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 98

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
42 (42.9%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
27 (27.6%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (5.1%)

(I have no opinion)
24 (24.5%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

I didn't realize how much I wanted this until I read your suggestion.

[ceesoo]

...And now that I'm looking at my own post I guess it'd be cool if the custom order also showed up in your icon browser (if you're a paid user). Right now on DW it shows the upload order in the icon broswer (which is lovely!), so if customizing the order of our icons just basically.... um... artificially changed the "upload order," I assume it'd display that way in the icon browser too, and not just the userpics page?

That would be super sweet.

[ceesoo]

CAN I VOTE IN MY OWN POLL?? I'm voting in my own poll.

[ticking]

If I understand this right, this would essentially require you to follow an icon up a row, clicking 'up' or 'down' every time, possibly 249 times if you wanted to get something from the top to the bottom.

I suggest at minimum having a box between the up and down arrows where you can set the icon number, and arrange them that way. Netflix has a similar manner of ordering your queue.

The true ideal would be something like the icon viewer but made so you can grab and drop them in the proper order, but I imagine that would be difficult to implement.

[moonvoice]

I voted I wanted it implemented, but upon reading your comment, I agree - a grab / drop makes more sense, and that may be harder to code in.

Though that's what I'd vote for, given the choice. :)

[kyrielle]

I voted "no opinion" as I don't care about my icon order, so wouldn't use it, but a few thoughts on if it's implemented anyway....

I like the idea of an icon number from a usability standpoint. I'd suggest that if a drag-and-drop viewer is done it should not be the only mechanism, because that's essentially a mouse-only approach that would be an accessibility issue for some people.

Presumably once the back-end can handle having them reordered, the front-end could offer multiple ways to do so - if the drag and drop could be worked out, it'd be a great option as long as it wasn't the only one.

[ariestess]

This makes sense...

[chagrined]

Drag and drop would be amaaaaaazing but I'd also like maybe number boxes (as are used for S2 customize style link list order). I feel like single up/down arrows would be kind of annoying. Maybe less so if there were also double arrows to move an icon to very top/bottom? Idk. Like the OP I'm unsure about specific implementation form, but love the basic concept.

[meridian_rose]

Agreed; any of your suggestions would work here :D I don't have enough icons at the moment that it's a huge concern, but if I do later get a hundred or so, it would be really useful feature to have, while single up/down arrows could be irritating.

[moonvoice]

I think a drag and drop (like what we see when editing the new beta post-entry page) would be a lot more intuitive and user-friendly, but either way, the choice to categorise icons would be wonderful.

[falena]

No idea about the implementation (basically whatever is easiest for DW coders is fine by me) but this is a great idea. Drag and drop would probably be the easiest for users, but again, I'll be happy with whatever our brilliant DW people can dish out.

[azurelunatic]

Even with drag-and-drop, there would need to be a fallback for people using browsers that don't drag or drop readily -- screen readers, text browsers, mobile stuff, and so forth.

[ceesoo]

Thinking on it, I'd definitely want the default to be the more accessible option and then drag and drop could be option two for people who're more visual and whose computers can handle it.

[aesopian]

Just agreeing with ticking mostly. Though I do think an [up arrow]-[number]-[down arrow] would be useful. The number moving definitely makes the most sense for anyone who has over a dozen icons.

[the_shoshanna]

Drag-n-drop where feasible; it's how such things work on the iPad, and it's great. One of the other options where drag-n-drop isn't feasible. Yes, please!

[montuos]

Drag-n-drop is very nice in many circumstances, but circle management in Google+ has shown me that it gets ridiculous after a certain number of items, especially when more than half of them do not fit on the screen.

Or in other words, yes, I would like to see this as an option, but I would infinitely prefer to set a numbering scheme as my default.

[corinthian]

I clicked 'with changes' but to be honest I really just wanted a "yes I like this idea in almost any form" option :|b Though I do think there are valid points made in the comments too.

[darnedsocks]

I like this idea, in whatever form is easiest for staff/servers.

Drag and Drop would be easiest for users, and a re-number option for people with screenreaders, I think. People with physical disabilities would have trouble with lots and lots of arrow-clicking.

One more suggestion: if this did get implemented, an option to display more icons on the page at once would be useful, maybe in a grid layout with fewer details? Although that might need a bigger re-design, so might be too tricky...

[ticking]

I do think if they went strictly with arrows a grid layout would work best. So instead of going 'up' 80 times, you just go up 4 times and to the left 2 times or something like that. Though I think this would still be difficult for people with visual disabilities? (IDK never had to use a screen reader myself).

[susanreads]

Any of the alternatives mentioned. I think numbers is the most accessible. If arrows, have a double arrow for top & bottom, please.

[existence]

I like the renumbering idea and the "send to top" and "send to bottom" ideas. That's my "with changes."

[montuos]

Yes, this.

[turlough]

I always look at my icon page in alphabetical order so I don't think I would use this much. It's a neat idea though so that's why I'm voting for it.

[zellieh]

I ticked "Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)"

I like the idea, but have no idea how best to implement it, so that's the "with changes" part for me.

[ceesoo]

Since I was thinking about it (though I don't know if this is where to address it):

http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/210297.html
That's a link to an old suggestion by denise about archiving/retiring/unlisting icons that people don't use anymore but want to keep for sentimental reasons.

If a number-box was used for icon ordering, could it also be used to indicate icons you want to retire? OR (the thing I'm more interested in) denise mentions there was a bug open for users to choose which icons stay active if their account goes from paid to free--could the number field also be used for that? For example, any icons where you add an asterisk after the number will stay active when paid time expires.

I couldn't find the active/inactive icon bug in bugzilla, so idk if that's still being considered for implementation or what, but I was just wondering about more uses for custom icon ordering...

[ceesoo]

:U found the bug! bug 1380. I guess it's related to the importer so maybe doesn't apply/tie in here?

[transcendancing]

I love this idea, but rather than arrows, I'd suggest some kind of drag and drop mechanism if it were possible :)

[cesy]

Given the ease of icon renaming, couldn't you just give all of your icons keywords with numbers at the front and use keyword order for this?

[ceesoo]

Haha, I did actually try that out XD. But honestly, they take up character space, and figuring out how to number them between 1 and 250 so that they group the way I want is less intuitive than having a way for them to physically switch to where I want them on the screen. It also hinders searching a keyword in the text-only dropdown menu, because a bunch of keywords would start with similar numbers, while if it's just normal keywords, typing the first few letters will usually pull up the right one. Added to that, the icon browse feature shows icons in the upload order whatever you do, so it's no good there either. I really did try a bunch of things, but in the end I feel like being able to change the icon order without effecting the keyword order is more useful to me.

[daweaver]

I interpret the proposal as "implement a display order index for the display icon page", and order items according to this index, rather than internal icon ID. Add an extra field to the icon-storage database, and a SORT line to the code.

How this index is updated (by directly typing in numbers, by arrows, by drag-and-drop) is something I have no strong opinion on.

[exor674]

With changes is a field that can take a floating point value to rearrange the icons for people who do not want to click an arrow 100 times ( just change the number to "99.5" )