Preserving tree order of template children

[aaronjsolomon]

Hi,

I have a template that represents a complex list of tasks that must be done in a certain order. Each task on the list is a child of the template. I manually order the tasks (children) in the template, e.g.:

Task list (template)
|- Underwear is the first thing I put on
|- Pants are the second thing I put on
|- Shoes are the third thing I put on

However, when I create a new instance of the item from the template, the tree order is not preserved. Instead, sort order defaults to alphabetical, e.g.:

Task list (item created from template)
|- Pants are the second thing I put on
|- Shoes are the third thing I put on
|- Underwear is the first thing I put on

Just wondering if there was any way to keep the template's tree order preserved in the item created from it, rather than revert to alphabetical. I could number the items, but there are actually many children and it's very convenient to re-order them on the fly in the template, as the list gets refined.

As always, thanks!
Aaron

[kinook]

That works as expected in my tests -- see this screen recording. Does this problem also occur in a new database? Please send the info from http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=3038

[aaronjsolomon]

Hi,

Thank you for responding, I appreciate it.

In preparing to respond to you, I figured it out. The issue arises if one of the sorted children in the template is a linked item. (E.g., if in the previous example, there was a fourth list item called "Shirt is the fourth thing I put on", but instead of being a standalone item, it was linked to an item outside the templates folder.)

I see that the "Link Here" option is disabled in the right-click menu, when dragging-and-dropping an item to the templates folder. I work around this by first creating the linked item elsewhere, and then moving it to the templates folder.

Linked items are somewhat useful in templates, because the "to-do list" template I described previously includes UR items elsewhere in my database. E.g., one of the items might be to review a folder (UR item) of documents, so putting a link in the template task list was a convenient way to navigate to it while performing the checklist.

However, now that I know that I can preserve the children sort order by simply refraining from including linked items in the ordered list, that's easy to do (by creating a simple, non-linked item in the sorted list, and giving it a child linked item or item details hyperlink to the target).

If you consider it a bug that linked items in templates "breaks" tree order, then I'd be interested in that functionality. OTOH, the fact that UR disallows linking items to the template folder by design tells me that this isn't really a bug, but rather a consequence of my little "hack" of getting linked items into the templates folder.

Given all this, I've got a good alternative solutions and this behavior is not stopping me, so please consider my request withdrawn. I know your time is valuable and I really appreciate your responsiveness to my recent questions, and this is definitely not worth burning "political capital" on!

Thanks again, and best regards,
Aaron