Change default sort order of "Your Observations" to date observed instead of date added

Feature Requests
1

A click on the button “My Observations” displays them per Entry date, per default. That’s not logical. Especially when you enter “old” observations, some made years ago, they appear first in the list.
It would be much more user-friendly to display “My Observations” per Observation date, per default (i.e. without having to click on the sorting (arrow on the top of the list)).
Thanks.

2

I would not like the default order to change, I find date added to be more useful. Maybe being able to change your own personal default (making the sort order “sticky”) would be a better change? Another possibility to accomplish what you are after is to save a bookmark for the page in the sort order of your choosing, and then place that bookmark in an easily accessible place (in google there is the “bookmarks bar” which makes them always viewable).

9 Likes
3

I really agree with this.

1 Like
4

Just FYI, when you open up “Your Observations”, you are one click away from sorting them by observation date: Just click that column heading and it will resort the list in order from most recently observed to oldest. Clicking again on that heading reverses the order (e.g. oldest first), etc. Hope this helps.

7 Likes
5

I agree that a sticky sort order would be useful . . . but the the one-click column sort is very adequate, and I often want to see recent adds first … If the default were changed it would not be catastrophic . … I’d just one-click for a different reason.

1 Like
6

Hi @kiwifergus
Thanks for your suggestions: how, in pratice, to make the sorting order “sticky”?
(I never use bookmarks, because the used browser varies depending on where I’m, and on which machine).
Thanks.

1 Like
7

The developers would need to add that feature, which I suggested they could do that instead of changing the default sort order. You might have noticed the search results for observations will have 3 tabs, “map”, “grid” and “list”. That was changed so that the selected tab was “sticky”, ie every time you changed it it stayed that way until the next change, even when you logged out and back in again. I am not sure if it is “account sticky” or just “browser sticky” though… I should test that!

2 Likes
8

A sticky choice might be a good solution here.

The logic here is that it’s likely the user wants to see feedback of their most recently added observations, as those will have the most IDs and comments added to them. I know this is my main use case for going to the edit observations screen. Fun fact: I’m pretty sure this page predates the dashboard page, so it was one’s main way to see updates back in the ancient iNat days.

2 Likes
9

@kiwifergus I performed several tests (one computer, two browsers: Firefox Quantum & Avast Secure Browser). Results: Logout followed by Login (changing browser or not):

  • the tab (Map/Grid/List) displayed is the same as the one before Logout;
  • the order is always “per Entry Date”.
    So, the tab is sticky, the sorting is not sticky
    If it’s feasible (Change request to developers team) to make the order sticky, I guess all users (independently from their preferred sorting) would be happy.
    @tiwane: what do you think?
10

I have put up a feature request for a bookmark system within iNat itself, so that people can set bookmarks that follow them where ever they sign in to iNat:

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/provide-a-linklist-or-site-resident-bookmarks-list/7856

1 Like
11

Your suggestion is surely useful for users wanting to work with bookmarks, which is not my case.
My change request, as mentioned above, is to make the sorting order sticky.

1 Like
12

I know… I’m the one who suggested the sticky sort order as an alternative!

There have been several situations where I have suggested to people to use bookmarks to solve a problem, even if just as a short term measure until a system change makes for a better solution. The downside to using bookmarks has always been that they don’t follow you to wherever you log in. So in this case, I have taken the extra step of submitting the feature request for a bookmark system that does. I post the link to it here, because in my feature request I link to your feature request as an example of the type of situations it can be used for.

I still think the sort order would benefit from being sticky, and @tiwane has indicated that he agrees. I am sure it will be considered favourably by the development team :)

3 Likes
13

I agree with making a bookmark for now. And I’m totally against making it default, uploading old observations that wad made years ago will make you searching for them forever, and also app have lots of problems with uploading and I have to check how it’s done with mobile browser. I tried to use “new obs first” option, but it appeared to be not as useful as I predicted.

2 Likes
14

I can’t make any promises!

15

Blast from the past, but I did make an issue for this: https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/issues/2773

1 Like
16

Hi @chimu - this was implemented. Now if you click the heading where it says Date Observed, it will stay sorted in that order when you next visit the page.

3 Likes