Reusable widget to encapsulate the math required to manually do sorting. Most useful for:

1. Getting data from an API that allows sorting (e.g. https://cars.com/users?sort_by=year&order=desc)
2. SQL / OQL queries (e.g. SELECT * FROM CAR ORDER BY YEAR DESC)
3. Creating custom grids with the Xpath module

Tip: Need pagination too? Check out Advanced Pagination. (GitHub) (Mendix Marketplace)
Need selection too? Check out Listview Selection. (GitHub) (Mendix Marketplace)

• Offers Headers and Dropdown sorting methods
• Drag and drop method of setting sorting attributes
• Ability to customize the icons displayed
• Accepts a Sort Attribute string and a Sort Ascending boolean
• Ability to use any Mendix content for the header
• Ability to configure your own list of dropdown values

The following steps will create a list view with sortable headers that look like the image below.

I usually make a separate, small module for some of the core functionality. This serves 2 purposes:

1. The module can easily be exported and imported into other projects
2. The core logic is stored in a common place if you need to make multiple Custom Grids in your app

Follow these steps to make the Pagination Module:

1. Download the latest version of the Nanoflow Commons module
2. Right-click on your app name in Studio Pro, click 'Add module ...', and name the module "Pagination"
3. In the domain model, create a non-persistent entity called Pagination with Page (default to 1), PageSize, and ResultTotal.
   
   Note: The SortAscending and SortAttribute are not used for this example, but you'll need them if you want to use the Advanced Sorting widget. (GitHub) (Mendix Marketplace)
4. Create a Nanoflow called ACT_Pagination_Refresh with a Pagination parameter. Add a refresh object activity from the Nanoflow Commons module.
   
5. Create a Nanoflow called ACT_Pagination_Search with a Pagination parameter. Add a change object activity and set the Page attribute to 1. Then call the ACT_Pagination_Refresh Nanoflow.
   
6. Create a module role called User and grant that module role full access to the Pagination entity and the Microflows from steps 3 and 4.
7. In your project security settings, grant all user roles the Pagination module's User user role.

What are the two Nanoflows for? ~ ACT_Pagination_Refresh should be used when you just want to refresh the results (e.g. changing pages or sorting). ACT_Pagination_Search should be used when the user may have changed the search criteria (e.g. on-change action for a text box or a search button)

Inside the domain model of the entity you need to retrieve, create a non-persistent entity specific to your grid. I usually put this right next to the entity it retrieves in the domain model

• I use the format Search{ReturnedEntity} (e.g. if my grid is going to return Employee objects, I would name it SearchEmployees). For the rest of the documentation, this entity will be referred to as Search{Entity}
• Set Search{Entity} to generalize Pagination
• Add an association to System.Session.
• Add attributes and associations for any search criteria you want. For me, FuzzySearch is for the text input and the associations are for multi-select popups I want to display.
  

Create a Microflow called DS_Search{Entity} that retrieves the list from $currentSession for an existing Search{Entity} object. If the list is not empty, head the list and return the object. Otherwise, create a new object with the association to System.Session as $currentSession and PageSize as whatever default page size you want.

If you are using the Xpath module, all of the Attribute Name settings should be the exact database name of the attribute you want to sort. They are case-sensitive. If you want to sort across an association, use the format "{ModuleName}.{AssociationName}/{ModuleName}.{EntityName}/{AttributeName}".

For example, consider the following domain model from the 'TestObjects' module.

Sorting MxID	Sorting Department Name

View the following sections based on which Display Type you want to use.

When the user clicks on a header or selects an option from the dropdown, the Search{Entity}'s SortAttribute and SortAscending will be set. You can use these values in your API, SQL, or Xpath. In my use case, I'm using the Xpath module. So, I set the SortMap object based on the values from the Search{Entity} object.

Show label - Shows the Mendix input label. Use for Dropdowns.
Aria label selector - What the screen reader will say when focused on a header or when Show Label is disabled for dropdowns.
Aria label ascending - What the screen reader will say when focused on the Toggle button and the button is ascending.
Aria label descending - What the screen reader will say when focused on the Toggle button and the button is descending.
Ascending icon - Option to customize the ascending icon.
Descending icon - Option to customize the descending icon.
Toggle alignment - Controls which side of the dropdown the Toggle button is shown.

https://widgettesting105-sandbox.mxapps.io/p/advanced-listview-controls

https://github.com/bsgriggs/mendix-advanced-sorting/issues

Benjamin Griggs