Page List Order

[jfortune]

By default, pages in the WP Page List should default to the last added/edited page.

Currently, the order of pages seems unfathomable.

I have 247 pages and after I have created a new one, I then have to search for it, often by saying show me only pages I created or edited this month.

This is a constant waste of time.

As well as a proper and useful default order, you should be able to set the order you want to see permanently via settings or by being able to save the current set up of the Page List

[jfortune]

As you see the pages are in a completely random date order :-(

[SergeyBiryukov]

Hi there, welcome to WordPress Trac! Thanks for the report.

By default, the list is sorted in wp_edit_posts_query()​ as follows:

• First, by a numeric menu_order field, which corresponds to the "Order" field in Quick Edit or in the Page Attributes meta box on editor screen.
• Then, alphabetically by title.

You can sort it by date by clicking the Date table header: once for descending order, twice for ascending.

[jfortune]

My point is, I think the default is wrong.

As a daily developer, I need to see the last page I worked on or am working on immediately.

Clicking the Date column once or twice EVERY time I go to edit a page is a complete waste of time and is bad UI.

The programming rule I have always stood by is "if you always have to do it, you should never have to do it".

Please consider rethinking this.

The rules you specific should be surrounded by IFs:

If numeric menu_order field <> 0 then sort by that
OR
If date column not added to list then sort alphabetically by title
IF date column IS added to list then sort in reverse date order (latest at the top)
END

It's quite simple and would same many thousands of people and awful lot of time. :-)

Thank you

[Presskopp]

related #39666

[sabernhardt]

@jfortune One method you should be able to do today is to set the sort order you want, and then create a browser bookmark that you then visit instead of clicking the All Pages links. For your pages, the URL probably will end like this:
/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page&orderby=date&order=desc

It could be worth trying to make these page lists remember the sort order after a user clicks a column header. Users likely would not expect and/or desire that every time, but they might appreciate it significantly more often than not.

Revising the default order, though, would be better in a plugin. (I see a few—such as Simple Page Ordering—that allow drag and drop to re-sort pages to a specific arrangement, but I haven't found a plugin that changes the automatic sorting).