By ArthurC on

I set up a table with sortable columns. When you click on a column header to sort it in ascending or descending order, a little arrow icon is displayed to indicate which column the table is sorted on, and in which direction the column is sorted. And now I think the arrows are pointing the wrong way, or the files containing the images are named incorrectly, or both.

The arrow that should indicate an ascending sort, is pointing up, and the file is named arrow-desc.png.

And the arrow that should indicate a descending sort is pointing down, and the file is arrow-asc.png.

Here's the table and the two arrows:

http://hotspots.dreamhosters.com/HotspotsList

http://hotspots.dreamhosters.com/misc/arrow-asc.png

http://hotspots.dreamhosters.com/misc/arrow-desc.png

Am I right? Am I confused about this?

What should I do (if anything)?
- find a patch that corrects this?
- rename the files?
- change the code?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

decibel.places’s picture

decibel.places commented

just kidding ;-)

I understand your confusion, but I do believe this is the convention

In otherwords, the point of the arrow is pointing in the direction of the top of the list.

arrow-desc.png shows that the list starts at the top and "descends" and vice-versa

the same icons are displayed in Filezilla, as well as Windows Explorer

~are you netsperienced?
♥ follow me @decibelplaces ∞

ArthurC’s picture

ArthurC commented

if you're left-handed! That's just silly.

I'm colourblind. I think that's the real explanation.

I lay awake last night thinking about this.

We're talking about a list of textual items which is sorted in numerical, alphabetical, or character-representation order. The ordinal sets are typically "1,2,3 ..." or "A,B,C ...".

In common usage, the first element in each list is the "lowest" and the last element in a list is the "highest".

An "ascending" list is one in which the elements are sorted from lowest to highest. A "descending" list runs from highest to lowest.

So far so good?

Where I run into semantical confusion is that "descending" something (a list, in our case, but it could also be a mountain) generally means going from the physically higher to lower, top to bottom. But descending an ascending list means going from the lower to higher. Let's put that aside for the moment - it just confuses me too much.

Let's turn to the images we use in the convention, to represent an ascending list or a descending list.

We use a triangle, or pyramid shape. The image used for the ascending list has its point on top. The image for the descending list has its point on the bottom.

These are the images displayed by Drupal, Filezilla, and Explorer. That's the established convention, as you point out.

If you go to the list I linked to in at the beginning, and hover over the arrow that is there (it's an ascending arrow, right?) the text that pops up says, "sort descending". Check the properties of the image, and the file for the ascending arrow is named "arrow-desc.png"

Now do you understand the problem? The file name may be irrelevant to the normal user who doesn't even know about these things, let alone obsess about them and lie awake at night, but the helpful pop-up text, I contend, is flat out wrong.

Okay, I better get back to work.

decibel.places’s picture

decibel.places commented

The original post was about the icons - and we have shown that the icons follow normal conventions

but you are correct that the hover titles (and perhaps the filenames) appear to be switched

further adding to the confusion, a Google image search for arrow-desc.png provides a variety of images and pointers in all directions

You should continue this on the issues queue for the module in use - first search the issues to make sure it is not duplicated - is it Views?

From Views maintainer:

If you only read one of these submission guidelines, read this one. (Then please read the rest) If your problem deals exclusively with fields or filters provided by another module (CCK, Image, VotingAPI are common) please post the issue under the queue for that module first; all modules are responsible for telling Views about their own fields. It's possible Views IS at fault, but the module maintainers are the best people to make that determination, and they can kick the issue into the Views queue with an explanation of what's wrong if that is the case.

~are you netsperienced?
♥ follow me @decibelplaces ∞

ArthurC’s picture

ArthurC commented

http://drupal.org/node/552752

Thanks for the enlightening and enjoyable discussion