[Freeciv-Dev] Re: suggestions (PR#2783)

["rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx via RT" <rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is not too difficult to maintain a sort order for cities, and choose
this in Next/Prev operations. It could be the default list order for an
ordered list, or a separate list order element that does the same 
regardless of the current list order or order properties.

The problem is choosing the list order. Everyone will have their own
selection criteria, and choosing any single one will irritate the 
majority of the users. Conversely, a small selection of ordering 
operations to preset the list order will probably resulting in a 
majority of users finding at least one that is acceptable. Once 
chosen default list order should not change arbitrarily.

The easiest way to do this is to take a display like the cities panel
and provide sortable columns, i.e. by (alphabetic) name, size, food
surplus, position (linear, in x, in y) or whatever is displayed. A
manual select/up/down is also a possibility. The final element is a 
"Save Default Order" button which establishes the default order used 
above in any ordered list operation.

A final rule like "new elements should go to the end" completes the
process. Just make sure the full process is defined and documented
and try to avoid arbitrary single choices.

Cheers,
RossW
=====

At 10:40 AM 03/01/09 -0800, Reinier Post via RT wrote:
>On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 08:54:35AM -0800, ChrisK@xxxxxxxx via RT wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 10:48:53AM -0200, Silvio Santana wrote:
>> > 
>> > Christian Knoke wrote:
>> > >I agree fully. The current order for previous/next gives nothing. You
>> > >suggest a kind of ad-hoc order, depending of the current/latest sort 
>> > >order in in the city report (F1) or the message window (F10),
respectively?
>> > 
>> > YES.
>> > Note that when the user selects a city by clicking it on the map,
>> > there is no context, once there is no city report or message window,
>> > so the order should be something else, perhaps foundation order like
>> > it is by now.
>> 
>> When there is no other context, we can use the geographical context:
>> "Next" is the nearest city to the east, "Previous" the nearest city to the
>> west.[1]
>> 
>> Christian
>> 
>> [1] Or any other algorithm you prefer to determine what is "nearest".
>
>The problem I see is that 1D and 2D are simply not the same dimension.
>It is impossible to define a Prev/Next relation between cities such that
>
>  + the relation cycles through all cities, visiting each city exactly once
>  + the relation expresses a distance function between cities that is
>    independent of where the other cities are
>
>The easiest way out of this may be to have four buttons:
>
>            ^
>            |
>            Up
>  <-Left next city  Right ->
>           Down
>            |
>            v
>
>> -- 
>> Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
>> * * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.
>
>-- 
>Reinier
>
>
>