Bug 27565 - Dropdowns in Item Search should be sorted alphabetically
Summary: Dropdowns in Item Search should be sorted alphabetically
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 28554
Alias: None
Product: Koha
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Searching (show other bugs)
Version: 20.05
Hardware: All All
: P5 - low normal (vote)
Assignee: Martin Renvoize
QA Contact: Testopia
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on: 18433
Blocks:
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Reported: 2021-01-27 23:34 UTC by Barbara Johnson
Modified: 2021-08-28 12:01 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

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Patch complexity: ---
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Attachments
Bug 27565: Add sorting to search_by_koha_field (1.35 KB, patch)
2021-04-30 12:27 UTC, Martin Renvoize
Details | Diff | Splinter Review

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Description Barbara Johnson 2021-01-27 23:34:54 UTC
The list of values in the dropdowns on item search do not appear in alphabetical order. This can make it difficult to find a value in the list.  It would be more user friendly to display the list alphabetically. I think this applies to all of the dropdowns but can verify that shelving location, item type, collection and status are being are not sorted alphabetically.
Comment 1 Sarah Cornell 2021-04-19 15:59:21 UTC
I'm pretty sure these dropdowns used to be sorted alphabetically by description.  I'm not sure when they switched, but they all appear to be sorted in the order in which they were added to the system. 

They really need to go back to alpha by description.
Comment 2 Christopher Brannon 2021-04-19 16:56:16 UTC
To clarify, the url is /cgi-bin/koha/catalogue/itemsearch.pl, and in some cases it looks like they are organized by when they were added, and in other cases, it looks like they are sorted by code.

This DOES need to be fixed.
Comment 3 David Cook 2021-04-20 03:55:05 UTC
I can confirm, at the very least, that this is happening in master for Shelving Location on the staff interface's /cgi-bin/koha/catalogue/itemsearch.pl page.

It appears to be sorting by the primary key instead of the description. 

Some relevant lines from the itemsearch.tt file:

[% locations = AuthorisedValues.GetDescriptionsByKohaField({ kohafield = 'items.location' }) %]
[% FOREACH loc IN locations %]
    [% loc.value = loc.authorised_value %]
    [% loc.label = loc.lib %]
[% END %]

Koha::Template::Plugin::AuthorisedValues leads to Koha::AuthorisedValues->get_descriptions_by_koha_field

I'm seeing no sorting...

But I also don't see any obvious changes to this code in years...

By contrast, the Shelving Location is sorted on /cgi-bin/koha/cataloguing/additem.pl as it uses a different module. It uses C4::Koha::GetAuthorisedValues.

Looking at other instances of Koha::AuthorisedValues->get_descriptions_by_koha_field, I see the method is typically used to build an unsorted hashmap, and then that is used to build a sorted array. I'm not sure why Matthias did it that way back in 2016, as it seems inefficient for no gain. Also potentially adds some syntactical issues...

So there are 2 solutions:

1. Add sorting to Koha::AuthorisedValues
2. Add sorting to itemsearch.tt and itemsearch.pl (the data is fetched for different dropdowns in different places)

The most efficient option would be to sort at the database level, so Koha::AuthorisedValues, but it's the heaviest touch, and would require the most testing. Changing itemsearch.pl would be easier although 

For what it's worth, I think that this has been an issue for at least 4 years. 

This is a bit too systemic to write a quick patch, so I'll leave this one for someone with more time.
Comment 4 David Cook 2021-04-20 04:05:25 UTC
Hmm looking back at 19.11 and it seems like this wasn't an issue there. 

Ahhh I was misreading the commit history. The patch was from 2017 but it wasn't pushed to a release until 2020. 

Bug 18433 caused this regression.
Comment 5 Martin Renvoize 2021-04-30 12:27:19 UTC
Created attachment 120333 [details] [review]
Bug 27565: Add sorting to search_by_koha_field

This patch adds sorting by 'category', 'lib' and finally 'lib_opac' as
found in other AV search methods.

Test plan
1
Comment 6 Martin Renvoize 2021-04-30 12:46:20 UTC
I'm not entirely sure I'm looking at the right things.. I've implemented an initial sort going on Davids suggestions.. It would be great if someone could varify whether this helps or not and we can come up with a proper test plan from that.
Comment 7 Fridolin Somers 2021-04-30 14:21:44 UTC
We should add tests to t/db_dependent/AuthorisedValues.t no ?

And also impact search_by_marc_field() right ?

I dont see a call on search_by_koha_field() with category param.
Obsolete ?
Comment 8 Fridolin Somers 2021-04-30 14:24:38 UTC
I see some places call get_descriptions_by_koha_field() with :
{ order_by => ['description'] }

https://git.koha-community.org/Koha-community/Koha/src/commit/4a6dd5f82da1f45456b953421e699abc179a6fb9/reports/catalogue_stats.pl#L120

Does this even work ?
Comment 9 Martin Renvoize 2021-04-30 14:39:48 UTC
(In reply to Fridolin Somers from comment #7)
> We should add tests to t/db_dependent/AuthorisedValues.t no ?

Definitely.. I just wanted some feedback initially to see if the end result was what people were looking for.

> And also impact search_by_marc_field() right ?

Yeah, this is pretty low level, its effect could be fairly widespread. (But hopefully in a positive way)

> 
> I dont see a call on search_by_koha_field() with category param.
> Obsolete ?

I also wondered that.. nice to see you noticed that too.. I'll investigate to see where it's hanging around from.
Comment 10 Martin Renvoize 2021-04-30 14:40:41 UTC
(In reply to Fridolin Somers from comment #8)
> I see some places call get_descriptions_by_koha_field() with :
> { order_by => ['description'] }
> 
> https://git.koha-community.org/Koha-community/Koha/src/commit/
> 4a6dd5f82da1f45456b953421e699abc179a6fb9/reports/catalogue_stats.pl#L120
> 
> Does this even work ?

Yeah, I really don't think that works.. Unless I'm missing something.. 'description' is the field name in the UI, not a field name in the database.
Comment 11 Fridolin Somers 2021-04-30 14:52:42 UTC
(In reply to Martin Renvoize from comment #10)
> (In reply to Fridolin Somers from comment #8)
> > I see some places call get_descriptions_by_koha_field() with :
> > { order_by => ['description'] }
> > 
> > https://git.koha-community.org/Koha-community/Koha/src/commit/
> > 4a6dd5f82da1f45456b953421e699abc179a6fb9/reports/catalogue_stats.pl#L120
> > 
> > Does this even work ?
> 
> Yeah, I really don't think that works.. Unless I'm missing something..
> 'description' is the field name in the UI, not a field name in the database.

Also get_descriptions_by_koha_field() only uses the first given hash as $param, I think second hash is ignored.

Maybe caused by replacement of search_by_koha_field() with get_descriptions_by_koha_field() :
https://git.koha-community.org/Koha-community/Koha/commit/a16a75018063477cf13fdbdad60152bbb27a7616
Comment 12 Fridolin Somers 2021-08-27 20:54:21 UTC
Is this a duplicate of Bug 28554  ?
Comment 13 Martin Renvoize 2021-08-27 22:10:05 UTC
(In reply to Fridolin Somers from comment #12)
> Is this a duplicate of Bug 28554  ?

Looks like it could be.. it's been a while since I wrote this patch though so would need to investigate a little deeper.
Comment 14 Katrin Fischer 2021-08-28 12:01:28 UTC
I believe it's a duplicate that goes a quite similar route - as the newer patches appear to be more current, complete and include unit tests, I am marking this one as the duplicate.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 28554 ***