757459 - 'Group by' in bold below group - alphabetical and date order not logical

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Anje]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0
Build ID: 20120420145725

Steps to reproduce:

I wanted to order my Inbox as follows:
View > Sort by > From , Ascending , Group by sort
This works fine, but I need the Dates in Descending order not ascending.



Actual results:

So I did this:
then click on 
View > Sort by  and change to 'descending'
this placed all 'Group by' sort bold headers below the group
then click on 
View > Sort by  and change back to 'ascending'

This forced the Dates into the correct order, but the 'Group by' bold header still displays  below the group.




Expected results:

When I select to sort by:
From, ascending (to get alphabetical) and group by sort, I also need to be able to set the Date order as descending (newest at top).
I cannot see how to set this option.
The ability to set the Date sort order should be available regardless of whether I sort alphabetically.
The crazy workaround to get the dates descending is not logical and it messes up the group by header.
Someone asked me via GetSatisfaction on how to setup the Date order as described above, but they seemed unable to replicate what I had achieved.

https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/agrupar_e_ordenar?utm_content=topic_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reply_notification

Comment 1

[Anje]

Using Vista OS and Thunderbird 12.0.1

Comment 2

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to Anje from comment #0)
Agreed. When you sort by ascending/descending it seems to be applied on the threads, not the messages within them. The newest message stays always below the list (within a thread).

Comment 3

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #2)
I am also seeing another issue: after I apply your steps, then change the sort order, the message list view is not updated. When I hover the mouse pointer over the threads, then they are updated. I think this is another bug, can you see this?

Comment 4

[Anje]

(In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #3)
> (In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #2)
> I am also seeing another issue: after I apply your steps, then change the
> sort order, the message list view is not updated. When I hover the mouse
> pointer over the threads, then they are updated. I think this is another
> bug, can you see this?

I agree, hovering the mouse does update threads exactly as you describe.
I'm of the opinion that the 'sort by' needs a rethink.
If you only click on the column headers then there is no issue, but if a more complex sort is required then several issues are arising.
The date sort currently is either/or eg:,From sort or Date sort but difficult to setup if you require From as ascending and Date order descending and is further complicated if the Group by Sort is also required. 
Applying my workaround is not exactly intuitive and throws up some irregular behaviour.

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #3)
> I am also seeing another issue...the message list view is not updated.

That's Bug 497643.

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Anje, is this the sort order that you want?

1st sort: Grouped by: From (Ascending: a-z)
2nd sort: Date (Descending: newest.first-oldest.last)

[-] *A-From*
  2012...
  2011...
[-] *B-From*
  2012...
  2011...

I tried many ways, but I cannot achieve a correct view of that sort order. Did you find a workaround to get a correct view of that including group headers?
At one stage, similar to what Anje said, messages were sorted in descending date order (and perhaps grouped by From?), but bolded "Grouped by: From" headers were entirely missing, and deselecting and re-selecting that folder would entirely change that view with correct From: group headers but dates back to ascending.

Comment 7

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

The interaction of primary grouped by sort with secondary column sort, if possible at all, is extremely counterintuitive. That's something along bug 263571.
This bug is also related to (or duplicate of) Bug 57898.

We need more explanation of "some irregular behaviour" mentioned in comment 0 before possible marking this dupe.

Comment 8

[Anje]

The process I described sorted:
'From' alphabetically 'ascending' so A is at the top
'Grouped by Sort' grouped the above maintaining the ascending order, but displayed the Date in ascending order as well - so dates displayed oldest at top.
By selecting 'descending' the 'group by sort' changed so that the bold group by sort header was placed below the group, the From order is descending eg:Z at top and the dates were now displaying new at top - descending. If you hover over the list it forces the sorts - this gets the date order sorted.
Then selecting the 'ascending' again, placed all From ascending, group by sort is still at the bottom of the sort list and dates are kept as 'descending'.If you hover over the list it forces the sorts - this keeps the date order as descending and forces the from order ascending, but the group by sort bold header is still at the bottom of the list instead of at the top.
This does at least achieve the sort required:
View > sort by:
From, Ascending, Group by Sort with Dates descending.
So now they are displaying correctly with the exception that the Group by sort header is below the group instead of above the group.

Comment 9

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Here's a rough search for related bugs
Quicksearch for
:thun,mail summary:"group by","grouped by"
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=%3Athun%2Cmail%20summary%3A%22group%20by%22%2C%22grouped%20by%22;list_id=3183549

Comment 10

[Anje]

Attachment: Image showing 'Group Sort By' irregular heading

To support the irregular behaviour - image showing some Group by Sort' headers appearing above, below and within a group sort.