Sort by catagory

[Guest]

MS Outlook.

You should be able to sort by catagory. This is more natural to the feel of
MS Office products as apposed to grouping. Grouping is OK but sorting is
faster and more efficient for a quick review. I was looking at this from a
task list perspective but I think it would be helpful in contacts and the
journal as well.

Thanks,

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Sorting only makes sense for single-valued fields. Categories is a multi-valued field. There is no meaningful way to "sort" when you have multiple values in a field. --
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

Def: Sort = aranging items by alphabeticla or numerical chacters ranging
from ascending to descending values or vice versa. What doen't make sense
about that?

I'm feeling a little sarcastic today... sorry for that.

But I still feel that we should be able to sort by clicking the header at
the top of the Catagory col. This seems as easy to do as sorting by the
description column or a date field.

If more than one value can be entered, then aren't all fields "multi-valued"
fields? I guess I need more explaination on what you mean.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

If more than one value can be entered, then aren't all fields "multi-valued"

fields?

Subject has a single value, the text for the subject.

Each category in Categories is a separate value. If you have 5 items with these categories, you lose much of the meaning of those categories if you flatten them to a single text string and try to sort on that string:

A,B,C,D,E
A,C,E,G,I
B,C,D,E
B,D,E
C,E,G,I

You cannot tell at a glance that all five items include category E. That may, in fact, be the most meaningful piece of information about these items' Categories property, but it would be hidden if you did a simple flattened string sort.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

Thanks Sue,

I had my blinders on thinking that most would only assign one catagory to an
item. I was thinking about a "choose one" environment rather than "all that
apply" which would allow an item to appear in multiple groups. I "tested"
your point and see what you mean.

Thanks again.
Nick