Organizing Memories by Default (date of post/date added)

[archangelbeth]

Title:
Organizing Memories by Default (date of post/date added)

Area:
Memories

Summary:
An option to organize how you and others view your Memories by default.

Description:
Sometimes I forget to put a chapter of my Work In Progress into my Memories immediately. When I do put it in, it appears, by default, at the bottom, no matter how many chapters past it I may have gotten. (And we will not discuss having to re-add all the chapters I imported from LJ...) The work-around, to re-add things in the order you want them, is just way too painful for anything but at most a dozen entries. (Been there, done that.)

I'd like to have a preference for Memories that organizes it in one of four ways: Most Recently Dated First, Most Recently Dated Last, Most Recently Added First, Most Recently Added Last.

If only two options would be more feasible, then Most Recently Dated and Most Recently Added.

(Well, actually, *I'd* prefer it if the default were to sort by date (up or down, don't care), but I can understand that some people might want to look in their Memories according to when *they* found-and-Memoried-a-page, and not when that page was actually posted.)

This does cause a little more work on the customizing end, potentially, and thus more complexity. However, it allows creators to give people their archives and be assured that it will be in an understandable order -- or even one optimized to their audience, with new material appearing at the top (easier for beta-readers) or bottom (someone who posts mostly completed stories and wants Chapter 1 to be at the top). In the meantime, allowing sorting by Date Added allows people to dig up, "oh, that post, I know I saw it last month, so it should be near the top/bottom..."

But if you can only use one as default, with no customization, I beg you to change it to Date Posted instead of Date Added. It's driving me seriously nuts here.

Poll #850

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
11 (55.0%)

Should be implemented with changes.
6 (30.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (10.0%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (5.0%)

Comments

[denise]

Just FYI, we have it on tap to completely reorganize memories (and by 'reorganize' i mean 'completely rewrite'), but I approved this out of the queue because I wanted to see what kind of discussion comes up!

[softestbullet]

I'm so glad! The LJ memory system is TERRIBLE.

[ciaan]

Yay for slash and burn! Make a new memory system of awesome!

[archangelbeth]

Interestingly enough... I am actually very content with how Memories are except for the default sorting. It does what I want it to do almost perfectly. If it becomes much different, I think I may cry. O:(

[kyrielle]

I like this but, being not a fiction writer but someone who just reads stuff, vastly prefer the current default.

I'll go a bit further: the ability to choose a default sort order by a) category and b) posted-by-me vs posted-by-other might be useful too. And to change it after the fact. So as you're writing the online series, it appears last-at-top, so readers following as you write can find the newest. When you finish it and wait a while after (however long you feel appropriate), you re-sort to first-at-top for its category so that new readers can go from beginning to end....

Just a thought.

[cleverthylacine]

Why would you prefer the current default? Wouldn't it mean you'd be reading out of order?

[kyrielle]

I don't use memories for that stuff personally. I use them to collect recipes, amusing posts, etc. To the extent that any time factor has meaning to me, it's the time I add. I want to be able to find what I just added, or "that beef recipe I found last month" - whether originally posted in 2007 or not.

[turlough]

I would LOVE to have something like this. I memorise a lot of stuff and I would vastly prefer to have it listed in the order it was posted and not when I found it. (Yeah, I might be a bit obsessed with chronology ;-)

[triadruid]

Doesn't the existing memories system allow you to order them by 'title' or by date added? Putting the date at the beginning of your memory title allows you to sort them by date; I know I did this with an ongoing conversation on LJ, where we made a new entry each time the comments would start to autocollapse.

[archangelbeth]

You can select "sort by title" (which can incorporate the date) -- but you can't currently make it the default. It also can't distinguish between two things posted the same day; the one in alphabetical precedence shows up above the one that was posted first. (Further, it only runs in one direction.)

[azurelunatic]

Arbitrary ordering, with all of those as easy-sort options, please!