Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

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You gotta re-run the query or you're limited to sorting just the visible results.

I guess I could let it spot when there are less than the page-size of results, but then I'd need to be confident that the JavaScript sorting algorithm exactly matches the underlying SQLite sorting algorithm - taking into account character sets and custom collations and suchlike.

I've been deliberately avoiding adding any JavaScript to core Datasette almost to make a point: you don't need it. HTML pages load faster than so-called "modern" SPA monstrosities. They work really well. They don't require a bunch of extra steps to avoid breaking the back button etc.

But... Datasette provides a JSON API for everything, and supports plugins. There's nothing to stop someone who really wants no-page-reload query execution from implementing it as a plugin.

I myself have built JavaScript plugins for things like bar charts and line charts ( https://github.com/simonw/datasette-vega ) and map visualizations ( https://github.com/simonw/datasette-cluster-map )

So yeah, my personal bias here is that building websites like we did in 1997 is deeply undervalued.

The UI needs to be such so as to make the users understand that by clicking a column header they would be sorting the results of a previous query rather than re-running it with a different sort column and that the two are not generally interchangeable, likewise with instant in-results search.

At least with the server being on the internet and the example setup I disagree that the current way is faster or even near a modern webui

Can you think of a way I could make that clear in the UI ("this will sort all of the data including the rows you can't see" v.s. "this will sort the rows that are visible to you right now")?

I think this is the natural expectation of anyone familiar with spreadsheets, reporting tools or data grids with sortable column headers, but a message along the lines of

"Sorting results of the previous query, click 'Run SQL' button again to query with ${column_name} as the ORDER BY column"

and a "got it" hyperlink to be stored in your session state store of choice upon first click on a column header would probably make it clear.

I tend to disagree.

I find that data/UI tools that only sort the visible results, and not re-populate the paged view of the data, extremely counter-intuitive.

Even old libraries like ExtJS supported easy re-querying the server upon the column sorting event - though it has to be said, many lazy implementers didn't use this feature.

I'd like to add, you're doing a great job of listening to this feedback, despite it's tone. I'm not sure I'd do the same, so well done. Of course, I love Datasette, so thank you for your work on it.

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