feature request: SORT

Feature requests, and in-depth discussions of features and the way Mellel works

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Would you like to see Mellel do SORTING?

as soon as possible - if in the next update, the better
2
7%
would be good for a next release
7
23%
not a priority - it comes as it pleases
18
60%
I don't want it
3
10%
I have no idea
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 30

verma
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feature request: SORT

Post by verma »

From time to time I have to deal with text that doesn't have to look good, but simply needs a bit of organization.

Sorting (in its various mood swings) is a practical way of organizing some of the raw data, and there are times when it really comes in handy.

Mellel, for the moment, doesn't have a "SORT" command, so I guess most of us who need it, temporarily export to RTF and continue from there.

It seems to me that it would be a good thing to make sorting available in Mellel, allowing the flexibility we come to expect of it:

a) allow the regular SORT mood swings (ascending/descending) on letter or number, date or nested list (1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3; 2, 2.1, 2.2; 3, ..)
b) allow the user to select how these elements are sorted by (paragraph, space, semicolon etc.)
c) allow the user to define how to present the sorted list (separation by paragraph, space ... other)
jannuss
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Post by jannuss »

I'm not really clear what "sort" in a word processor would mean.

Usually sorts are performed on well-defined entities [lines, records, objects, etc.] based on well-defined keys [leading character of, value of, nth element of, etc.]

How would you expect Mellel to deine sort elements/keys?

Janet
verma
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Post by verma »

jannuss wrote:I'm not really clear what "sort" in a word processor would mean.

Usually sorts are performed on well-defined entities [lines, records, objects, etc.] based on well-defined keys [leading character of, value of, nth element of, etc.]

How would you expect Mellel to deine sort elements/keys?

Janet
I'd like Mellel to be that flexible that it allows me to tick a box for the required element that I'd like to get "sorted". Mainly: "words", but also dates (date format), numbers and outline numbers (2.1 follows 2 and not 1.9, e.g.).

I'm mainly interested in sorting words in alphabetic orders (ascending & descending), but also in terms of number of characters the word is composed of (and nested sorting/ordering).
jannuss
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Post by jannuss »

verma wrote:I'd like Mellel to be that flexible that it allows me to tick a box for the required element that I'd like to get "sorted". Mainly: "words", but also dates (date format), numbers and outline numbers (2.1 follows 2 and not 1.9, e.g.).
You're giving me the how -- not the what.

What is it you need to sort? Lists of things? Lines?, Table entries? Paragraphs? Chapters?

I can see several solutions to sorting lists [exporting them and importing them back sorted], but for the rest . . .

In any case, I'd say that sorting is not the task of a word processor. Do you know any word processors that perform sorts?

Janet
rpcameron
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Post by rpcameron »

verma wrote:
jannuss wrote:I'm not really clear what "sort" in a word processor would mean.

Usually sorts are performed on well-defined entities [lines, records, objects, etc.] based on well-defined keys [leading character of, value of, nth element of, etc.]

How would you expect Mellel to deine sort elements/keys?

Janet
I'd like Mellel to be that flexible that it allows me to tick a box for the required element that I'd like to get "sorted". Mainly: "words", but also dates (date format), numbers and outline numbers (2.1 follows 2 and not 1.9, e.g.).

I'm mainly interested in sorting words in alphabetic orders (ascending & descending), but also in terms of number of characters the word is composed of (and nested sorting/ordering).
I must agree with Janet here. If you want numbers and outline numbers sorted, this is already achieved with list style and Auto-Titles. As far as sorting other forms of data, that would be better suited to an application that handles entries of data, such as a spreadsheet or database.

There are also third-party extensions that perform sorts on selected groups of text, and will replace the text in the current application. If that is what you are looking for, I recommend you try to WordService service menu entry (I believe offered by Devon Technologies).
— Robert Cameron
verma
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Post by verma »

jannuss wrote:
verma wrote:I'd like Mellel to be that flexible that it allows me to tick a box for the required element that I'd like to get "sorted". Mainly: "words", but also dates (date format), numbers and outline numbers (2.1 follows 2 and not 1.9, e.g.).
You're giving me the how -- not the what.

What is it you need to sort? Lists of things? Lines?, Table entries? Paragraphs? Chapters?

I can see several solutions to sorting lists [exporting them and importing them back sorted], but for the rest . . .

In any case, I'd say that sorting is not the task of a word processor. Do you know any word processors that perform sorts?

Janet
Word (the programme) sorts words, dates, numbers. I export to Word right now (one could also use Excel, and lose formatting) - it's flexible but can be improved. Outline pane could be used, on the condition that outline items are marked as such - "outline sorting" would be nice for people who make outlined lists but who do not really "outline" the list (just use the numbering). Sorting larger chunks (paragraphs, lines or chapters) seems useless to me.
joewiz
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Post by joewiz »

rpcameron wrote:There are also third-party extensions that perform sorts on selected groups of text, and will replace the text in the current application. If that is what you are looking for, I recommend you try to WordService service menu entry (I believe offered by Devon Technologies).
Great suggestion. However, the major shortcoming is that relying on 3rd party extensions (and services and grammar checkers, etc.) means that you lose your Mellel styles. This is a major hindrance. Before resorting to WordService, I always think: Would it just be faster for me to sort (or change from Sentence Case to Title Case) by hand rather than having to re-do styles by hand?

When simple transformations were all that was possible, making the choice between hand-sorting and hand-styling was reasonable. But now that we have such powerful FindExpressions, the possibilities for using sort as a FindAction are immense. (Vote for this at http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php?t=678 .) Find all occurrences of hebrew text and sort aleph-bet-ically into a list (and the next step: create an index). So, if Mellel can implement basic alphanumeric line sorting the benefits are huge.

[By basic line sorting, I mean sorting lines according to 123abc. For the possibilities of advanced sorting, see TextWrangler manual p. 95: "Sort lines". This is all possible by combining Mellel's FindExpressions and basic Sort Lines functionality.]

But, if sorting within Mellel isn't possible, we'll have to improve Mellel's ability to styles 'roundtrip' -- when handing text to 3rd party tools and getting it back. Mellel has somehow managed to eliminate the problem of styles when getting text from Bookends. Check out the Mellel Preferences > Bibliography pane. You can specify how to map each RTF-type style of text (i.e. bold, italic, bold-italic) onto your Mellel styles. Surely this required some work on Bookends' part to get working, but it's only a one way trip: Bookends to Mellel. Roundtrip style preservation is a different beast. My best guess for this strategy is that Mellel's text style engine would have to be incorporated into LinkBack, and even then WordService would have to be redone to support LinkBack.

Getting other apps and services to handle Mellel's style engine is such a huge task and challenge that, in comparison, implementing basic sorting in Mellel seems much more manageable and productive in the short-term.

All this said, I voted for 'eventually.' In other words, for me this isn't urgent, but it would solve many issues, bring out the full promise of Mellel's FindExpressions, and enable people to do amazing things with their text in Mellel.
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